Around the world the urgency, strength and legitimacy of Indigenous people's concerns, aspirations and values are increasing as Indigenous people exert their rights and treaties in the judicial courts, the political arena and the court of public opinion. As a result of land loss and severe control and limitations set by the various levels of government on the free use of and continuing benefit from their natural resources, Indigenous people have become increasingly dependent on welfare measures (United Nations, 2009: 24-25). The report argues that these welfare measures have increased the disparity between Indigenous and non-indigenous peoples. However, Indigenous people have not passively accepted these circumstances. Rather they have been pursuing initiatives consistent with their "own cultural patterns, social institutions and legal system" (United Nations, 2004: 2).  These initiatives fall into three broad categories: (i) a struggle for the recognition of their Indigenous rights through civil, legal and political means; (ii) economic development activities on their own terms to overcome this dependent state; and (iii) a desire for self-government. "Out of sight and out of mind" is no longer possible.  Social media and a growing group of supporters including corporations, industry associations and civil sector organizations are recognizing that past and current treatment of Indigenous people that violate their rights and values are unacceptable.   

This research seeks to build an aspirational Indigenous social entrepreneurship framework. Such a framework is based on the co-generation and co-creation of knowledge and experiences whereby the Indigenous world view of cooperation, community, sustainability, sense of place and a generational perspective and the entrepreneurial Western perspective are synthesized so as to derive a more complete and inclusive understanding of entrepreneurial processes. Such a new perspective requires all stakeholders to the entrepreneurial activity including Indigenous communities, Indigenous social entrepreneurs, the financial and business sector, governments and non-governmental agencies to share experiences and co-generate/co-create an entrepreneurship framework. This framework will not only provide insight for Indigenous communities' development aspirations but for non-indigenous communities- including governments - as well. The tensions we seek to understand in order to develop our framework are:

1)            The tension between private and collective property rights;

2)            The tension between the needs of the individual and those of the community; and

3)            The tension between economic valuation and Indigenous valuation.

Our goal is to develop an aspirational Indigenous social entrepreneurial model that accounts for the social, economic, cultural and ecological needs of communities it purports to serve.

References

United Nations. 2004. "The Concept of Indigenous Peoples." PFII/2004/WS.1/3. New York: United Nations.

---. 2009. "State of the World's Indigenous Peoples." ST/ESA/328. New York: United Nations.

Biography

Professor Bob Anderson is an internationally recognised scholar on Indigenous entrepreneurship and sustainable development of Aboriginal peoples around the world. He has argued that developmental aspirations of Indigenous people as shaped by four key factors: (i) a desire by Indigenous people to improve their socio-economic circumstances through participation in the global economy 'on their own terms', (ii) increasing recognition of the rights of Indigenous people to have at least some control over activities on their traditional lands, (iii) the shift to a new, flexible global economy in which local aspirations and objectives can play a more significant role and iv) the growing importance of entrepreneurship as a means for achieving these objectives that are well aligned with an emerging global trend of sustainability, and 'blended value' enterprises. In the last 14 years he has held 25 grants with the SSHRC (Canada's equivalent of the ARC). Some of these grants have facilitated international research networks to research Indigenous People and Sustainable Development in the Global Economy. These research networks include indigenous and non-Indigenous people from the around the world: Circumpolar Arctic, Inuit, other Canada (e.g., First Nations University of Canada) , United States, South America, Sami, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Peoples Republic of China, New Zealand Maori, New Caledonia and even Australia  (but not the ANU).