The World Health Organization recently released information concerning the health of indigenous peoples. There are an estimated 370 million indigenous peoples living in more than 70 countries worldwide. They represent a rich diversity of cultures, religions, traditions, languages and histories; yet continue to be among the world's most marginalized population groups. The health status of indigenous peoples varies significantly from that of non-indigenous population groups in countries all over t more...

A book review of the recently published Reinventing the Lacandon discusses how indigenous peoples representations have changed over time.

Recent research indicates that stress is a leading mental health disease among Cree First Nation peoples of Canada.

The idea of replacing Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day was not a new one. It was first proclaimed by representatives of Native nations and participants at the United Nations-sponsored International Conference on Discrimination Against Indigenous Populations in the Americas, which took place in 1977 in Geneva, Switzerland. The declaration of this body was applauded and echoed by Native peoples around the globe.

Indigenous peoples in the Peruvian Amazon are working with ecotour companies in an attempt to bring a sustainable stream of money into their village.

Natural resource management planning has become a central activity in the management of resources across all levels of agency. Increasingly, management plans are being called for to secure rights to, and guide management of resources used or held by, indigenous people in less developed regions. A problem that is being encountered in the development of natural resource management plans and indigenous peoples is the differing understandings and perspectives each stakeholder has towards natural res more...

The Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was adopted by the General Assembly on Thursday September 13, 2007 by a majority of 144 states in favour, 4 votes against (Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States) and 11 abstentions (Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Burundi, Colombia, Georgia, Kenya, Nigeria, Russian Federation, Samoa and Ukraine). Full document in PDF format: P 1 to 18

One of the most perplexing problems in the field of anthropology over the last hundred years has been the relationship between language and culture. Does language shape culture? Does culture shape language? Further, and perhaps more interesting, does language shape our cognition, effecting the very way that we see the world? Similarly, does culture shape our language in such a way that the very words, concepts, and semantic structures within a language are the direct result of the culture’s ph more...

One of the most important trends to develop in both anthropology and archaeology during the latter half of the 20th century was the inclusion of indigenous peoples into the larger social science discourse (beyond simply being “subjects” or “objects”). In some countries and in some areas of investigation this inclusive process began at an earlier time then in others. For example, in North America the collaborative process between anthropologists and Native Americans began as early as 1941 more...

The following maps superimpose the location of indigenous and traditional peoples (ethno-linguistic groups) on climate change prediction data from the IPCC (2007).