While there is no globally accepted definition of Indigenous peoples, the term is generally used to identify those who were already there at first contact, whose descendants exist as distinct from the dominant population, and who may occupy a disadvantaged position owing to colonialism. In Canada, Indigenous refers to a wide range of First Nations peoples, as well as Métis and Inuit; in central and southern Africa, the term may encompass the Pygmy, the San, and the Xhosa; in Australasia, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and the Māori; or in Russia, various Siberian tribes such as the Khanty or the Koryak. A defining feature respecting global Indigeneity is diversity, especially of culture and language, as well as the growing assumption of a political positioning in the fight for social justice.

References

Batchelor, Kathryn

2014 “Postcolonial Issues in Translation: The African Context.” In A Companion to Translation Studies, ed. by Sandra Bermann and Catherine Porter, 246–58. Chichester: John Wiley.

Boéri, Julie and Carol C. Maier

(eds) 2010 Compromiso social y traducción/interpretación—Translation/Interpreting and Social Activism. Granada: ECOS.

Brooks, Lisa

2018 “The Harvard Indian College Scholars and the Algonquin Origins of American Literature.” In Our Beloved Kin: A New History of King Philip’s War. 72–106. Princeton, NJ: Yale University Press.

Carcelen-Estrada, Antonia

2010 “Translation of the Bible into Huao Terero.” In Translation, Resistance, Activism, ed. by Maria Tymoczko. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.

Cheyfitz, Eric

1991 The Poetics of Imperialism: Translation and Colonialism from The Tempest to Tarzan. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Gedalof, Robin and Alootook Ipellie

1980 Paper Stays Put. Edmonton: Hurtig.

Krause, Corinna

2013 “ ‘Why bother with the original?’: Self-translation and Scottish Gaelic poetry.” In Self-Translation: Brokering originality in hybrid culture, ed. by Anthony Cordingley, 127–40. London: Bloomsbury.

Londoño, Vanessa

2016 “Why a Quechua Novelist Doesn’t Want His Work Translated.” Americas Quarterly, April 5th.

Martin, Ian

2005 “Translation and Indigenous Languages.” Tusaaji 4 (4).

Patsauq, Markoosie

2021  ᐆᒪᔪᕐᓯᐅᑎᒃ ᐅᓈᑐᐃᓐᓇᒧᑦ/ Uumajursiutik unaatuinnamut/Hunter with Harpoon/Chasseur au harpon. Edited, translated and with a critical framing by Valerie Henitiuk and Marc-Antoine Mahieu. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press.

Penashue, Tshaukuesh Elizabeth

2019 Nitinikiau Innusi: I Keep the Land Alive, ed. by Elizabeth Yeoman. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press.

Rafael, Vicente L.

2015 “Betraying Empire: Translation and the ideology of conquest.” Translation Studies 8 (1): 82–93.

Sato-Rossberg, Nana

2011 Translating Culture—The Creative Translations of Ainu Chanted-Myths by Mashiho Chiri. Sapporo, Japan: Sapporo do.

Shamma, Tarek

2020 “Conquest.” In Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies, third edition, ed. by Mona Baker and Gabriela Saldanha. 101–5. London: Routledge.

Swann, Brian

(ed.) 2011 Born in the Blood: On Native American Translation. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

Wiget, Andrew

n.d. Personal correspondence, quoted in Recovering the Word: Essays on Native American Literature, ed. by Brian Swann and Arnold Krupat 1987, 247–54. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Further essential reading

Swann, Brian

(ed.) 1992 On the Translation of Native American Literatures. Washington: Smithsonian Institution.

Tedlock, Dennis

1971 “On the Translation of Style in Oral Narrative.” The Journal of American Folklore, 84 (331): 114–133.