Authors:
Neil Hooley
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Oksana Razoumova
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Lois Peeler
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According to the United Nations, the term Indigenous refers to original peoples ‘who inhabited a country or a geographical region at the time when people of different cultures or ethnic origins arrived. The new arrivals later became dominant through conquest, occupation, settlement or other means.’ In addition, the term denotes peoples who have a direct and continuous relationship with the land, who accept self-identification as being Indigenous at the individual level and who are accepted by an Indigenous community as one of their members. Ancestral land has a fundamental importance for the collective physical and cultural survival of Indigenous peoples. They are also holders of unique languages, knowledge systems and beliefs and possess extensive knowledge of practices to sustain the natural environment. In this text, a capital letter is used for Indigenous people in the same way that a capital letter is used for English people, Russian people and the like. Grammar used in quotations is left unchanged. A capital letter is also used for the word Elder to denote respect and esteem. Other terms such as Aboriginal peoples, First Nations and Native peoples are also used in various locations of the world, depending on the political and cultural histories that exist.

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