Political and legal debates about Chagossian ethnicity and indigeneity

Concepts such as ‘ethnic group’ and ‘indigenous people’ have a long, complicated, and contested history in anthropology. Alert to anthropological critiques of the risks of strategic essentialism, this chapter traces how the concepts of ethnicity and indigeneity are produced, deployed, and contested. First, in relation to ethnicity, the chapter illustrates arguments made by and on behalf of the Chagossian community that the Chagossians meet the criteria for recognition as an ethnic group because they share historical consciousness, cultural traditions, common descent, common language, common orature, and distinctive religion, and they are an oppressed minority within a larger community. Second, drawing on the UN Working Group on Indigenous People’s contingent and relational understanding of indigeneity, Chagossians and their supporters would argue that the Chagossians clearly have the earliest claim to a territory and meet the other criteria of cultural distinctiveness, self-identification as a group, identification by others as a group, and experience of discrimination. It concludes, however, that the potential political, and economic implications of recognition as an ‘ethnic group’ and ‘indigenous people’ are limited in practice when power balances remain unaddressed, attendant rights remain unacknowledged, and material needs remain unmet.