Strategic ethnicity on the global stage: identity and property in the global indigenous peoples’ movement, from the central Guianas to the United Nations

Based on fieldwork in Suriname, French Guiana and Geneva, this paper considers the implications of the discrep- ancy between contrasting representations of indigenous identity: the global Indigenous Peoples’ movement and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples present indigenous peoples as descent-based groups; meanwhile Guianese Amerindians have a proces- sual relationship with the environment, and use their rela- tionships with the exterior to renew society. The differences between forms of identity in local and global contexts can thus be regarded as representing the dynamism and trans- formability of identity itself.