The Indigenous Paradox

"The Indigenous Paradox provides a valuable reference tool for scholars and activists working in the Americas and in other postcolonial settings around the world. It provides a strong basis for comparing the multiple valences of indigeneity and the distinct meanings that Indigenous communities ascribe to its cultural and juridical contexts."—Latin American Research Review

"Jonas Bens’ ambitious book...explores the political impact of state recognition for indigenous and tribal peoples enacting indigenous rights claims...As a contribution to scholarship examining local and international human rights systems, the book makes a strong argument for a comparative ethnographic approach to legal texts in showing how indigeneity is both emergent within and constructed against national and international legal systems."—The New Rambler

"For legal historians interested in an overall vision of indigenous rights in the Americas, this is an indispensable work because it questions current paradigms—both the strict division between North and South America as well as the supposed authenticity and ancestry that is often attributed to rights historically subject to what Bens calls the indigenous paradox. For this reason, it is a recommendable book for ethnohistorians, anthropologists and Americanists dedicated to the study of the problems of native peoples. For sure, it is a work that contributes to the attempts to decolonize history and law because such attempts are likewise subject to the indigenous paradox the author describes…This is an original book, very well written and researched."—Rechtsgeschichte / Legal History

"Through an anthropological reading of landmark indigenous rights cases in the Americas, Jonas Bens illuminates central features of indigenous identity and clarifies central contradictions of indigenous political engagement, providing a sense of what is at stake regarding aboriginal rights today."—David Dinwoodie, University of New Mexico