12th Igorot Cordillera BIMAAK-Europe (ICBE) Conference
Salle Dupréel, Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Solbosch Campus
Avenue Jeanne 44, 1050 Ixelles, Belgium

May 29-June 1, 2025 

Anxious Green Lives and the Indigenous Double Bind

Macario Lacbawan, University of Hamburg

A diasporic life

To situate indigeneity as both a claim to a distinct mode of life and as a diasporic condition within the same discursive frame is to unsettle something foundational. It invites urgent and uneasy questions which remain largely unasked due to how indigeneity is typically defined: as a life anchored immovably in place (Clifford 1997; Smith 2012). This framing casts indigeneity to an existence that is stationary, unmoving, and perpetually attached to the land. Here, spatial attachment precedes existence; geography before ontology. That is, place exists before life. To conceive of indigeneity as a form of autochthonous life is to imagine a bounded space from which this life emerges and to which it must always return. The implication is that non-indigenous life cannot come into being without already presupposing space – as if it must borrow or inherit a landscape, rather than be born of it.

And what, then, of an indigenous life that moves? It gestures toward a mode of being that unsettles dominant imaginaries where indigeneity is not fixed to a single geography, but carried, lived, and reconstituted in movement. Such a conception generates its own set of images and tensions, its own poetics and unease. It asks not only what it means to be indigenous while in motion, but how it feels, what kind of weight is borne when belonging is no longer mapped onto permanence, when home is both memory and motion.

In the last century and our time, migration has been the defining story. People move from one place to another with the possibility of never returning home. And if they return home, or attempt to think of home, it is either in their imagination or during holidays. Within this epochal drift, what becomes of indigenous identity when it refuses to stand still? Specifically, how does an indigenous person from the Cordillera who lives in Europe deal with the anxiety produced by the fact that Cordilleran people in the diaspora cling to an identity whose foundations become things to be imagined because they are from somewhere else, far from Europe? How does one live a life based from ‘somewhere’? And how can members of the Cordillera indigenous community—be it first- or second-generation immigrants—create a life out of this place from somewhere?

A diasporic life brings its own contradictions. On the one hand, it engenders new possibilities—inspiration, hope, and the chance to build something different. But at the same time, it can be deeply challenging. There is a constant reminder that one does not quite belong — through the language, the culture, and even the way people live and think. A person in the diaspora carries their roots with them, but often feels as if they are walking in someone else’s world.

Jose Rizal, the preeminent Filipino scholar who spent considerable time in Europe as a student and whose writings helped spark the Philippine Revolution against Spanish colonial rule at the end of the 19th century, captured this tension in his literary work. In his poem, El Canto del Viajero or Song of the Wanderer (Rizal, 1903), he speaks of the unease that comes with living away from home—the sense of being uprooted, always moving, always searching. It captures what it feels to live between worlds. I quote,

My talk today is a reflection about the anxiety of ‘being a wanderer’, of living and experiencing indigenous life outside one’s land: its sources, its traces, and the kinds of lives it creates—and possibly denies. At the end of my talk, I reflect on how we might deal with this anxiety and continue to imagine more meaningful lives, even when one is uprooted. Indeed, to be indigenous and in motion is to inhabit a paradox. And yet, it is precisely in this tension that new forms of life might emerge – unfixed, unfolding, and enduring.

I will begin by tracing how indigeneity is imagined in the international community. I will then raise questions about the kind of life this imagination produces—and, at the same time, possibly renders absent or invisible. I will use my own experiences of living in Europe to elaborate on my reflections. I will also draw from my anthropological work to describe how the dominant definition of indigeneity—as an autochthonous population rooted in a place—produces images of indigenous communities that could, in the long run, backfire and contribute to their dispossession through environmental norms.

On ecological exceptionality

There are two distinguishing images that have come to identify indigenous life in the modern world. First, being indigenous have come to embody a certain form of idyllic life that is attuned to nature. And that such attunement makes indigenous communities as likely model of an existence that could deal with the current climate change (Blaser & Cadena, 2018; Kimmerer, 2013; Whyte, 2017). One finds this recurring theme in recent pronouncements from intergovernmental organizations such as the United Nations.

For example, almost five years ago, in December 2020, the United Nations Development Program released a report called The Next Frontier: Human Development and the Anthropocene (UNDP, 2020). This report describes today’s world as one confronting critical problems—climate change and the accelerated mass extinction of plants and animals due to harmful human activities. As if foretelling a future of dystopia, the report warns that life in this age is becoming more unstable and uncertain.

To deal with these problems, the report says we must focus on developing resilience. This means two things: learning how to live with disasters and rebuilding our connection with nature, including animals, plants, and the environment.

The report also points to indigenous communities as strong examples of resilience. It praises their exceptional ability to survive and adapt in difficult conditions. The recent surge in the popularity of sustainability as a key strategy in addressing climate change is an extension of this optimism about indigenous resilience (Arctic Council, 2013; Choudhury, Haque, Nishat, & Byrne, 2021; Reid, 2018). Many projects aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) increasingly recognize and incorporate indigenous knowledge and practices. These initiatives operate on the belief that by learning from and collaborating with indigenous communities, the global community can begin to recover from the severe impacts of climate change. While these initiatives do not discuss much about how colonialism and capitalism have caused climate change, they suggest that everyone can learn from the way indigenous people live in close, respectful relationships with the natural world.

Nevertheless, this celebration of indigenous people’s exceptional resilience is something that indigenous communities have accepted positively, and have used as a way to make political claims against state-initiated or corporate-led extractions on indigenous lands. There are numerous examples from the Philippines alone where indigenous communities rallied against environmental destruction by arguing that instead of extraction, the world can learn from indigenous knowledge and practice to conserve the environment and save the planet from climate change (Alejo, 2018; Camba, 2015; Dressler, 2017; Lacbawan, 2021).

The other popular image associated with indigenous life is that of a population closely tied to the land—an idea not entirely different from the ecological exceptionality I have just described. The notion that indigenous communities possess the wisdom the world can emulate to live greener and more ecologically sustainable lives is not new. It has its roots in long-standing assumptions about the supposed closeness to nature of communities that would later be labeled as indigenous after colonialism (Simpson, 2014).

In fact, the word ‘indigenous’ is derived from the Latin word indigena, meaning “sprung from the land.” The Latin indigena comes from Old Latin indu, meaning “in or within,” and gignere, meaning “to beget or produce.” Thus, an indigenous person refers to an autochthonous life that emanates from, and whose essence is rooted in, the land—not from a foreign place, but from a specific, situated space (Clifford, 2013; Wolfe, 2006). This idea of an essence tied to the land has taken on another dimension, as being indigenous has also come to be associated with possessing knowledge and wisdom related to the land. Consequently, this notion has become prevalent not only as a marker of indigeneity, often invoked by indigenous communities around the world, but also as a symbol of spectacular resilience in facing environmental problems such as climate change.

While these images of indigenous peoples—as resilient and deeply connected to the land—have come to embody a life to be emulated in the fight against climate change, they also pose a problem when we try to imagine other expressions of indigenous life. As I mentioned earlier, experiences of movement—of flow, relocation, or even detachment from land—do not easily fit within the celebrated narrative of ecological, land-based indigeneity (Clifford, 2013; Peters & Andersen, 2013).

As a result, it becomes difficult to associate immigration with indigeneity, or to imagine the precarity of leaving one’s ancestral territory to pursue diasporic living as another possible iteration of alternative indigenous experience. As we said, indigeneity is often framed through the lens of ecology and place, making these alternative experiences invisible. This is a significant problem that beset indigenous communities in the diaspora. In my work, I call this the “burden of responsibility” (Lacbawan, 2022): the lives of indigenous people are already predetermined by specific images of ecological exceptionalism and land-based affinity. And this becomes a burden because indigenous people now carry the responsibility of being the source of alternative worldviews that the rest of the world looks to for answers to today’s environmental catastrophes.

Amidst these dominant and popular images of indigeneity, the greatest source of anxiety for indigenous people in the diaspora lies in having their everyday experiences circumscribed by these prevailing narratives. This creates a pressure to perform an ‘authentic’ image of indigeneity that may not reflect their lived realities. Indigeneity then becomes an imposed form of existence, a ‘cunning tool of recognition’ to borrow from the words of anthropologist Elizabeth Povinelli (2002)—something that must be validated by the outside world before indigenous communities can be recognized as such.

Other difficult experiences—such as the struggles of indigenous communities in urban spaces, or as immigrant populations seeking dignity, fair wage, and humane treatment—are often rendered nearly invisible by these dominant portrayals of indigeneity. These portrayals fail to account for the more violent and complex dimensions of indigenous life, especially when indigenous people move away from their ancestral places and build lives in the diaspora (Barker, 2011; Clifford, 2013; Tuck & Yang, 2012). Such portrayals obscure the realities of displacement, marginalization, and survival that many immigrant indigenous people face beyond their homelands.

And in the few instances when indigeneity bubbles up to the surface or is expressed by indigenous communities in the diaspora, these expressions are often downplayed—if not homogenized with other experiences. This, too, is another facet of the many challenges that indigenous communities in the diaspora must grapple with every day. Not only are there dominant images of indigeneity, but also tacit and unquestioned practices that ultimately erase indigenous experiences.

This is what happened to me during one encounter, when I tried to make myself visible as an indigenous person navigating life as part of the diasporic community in the West.

Being indigenous in the age of erasure

Back in 2019, I participated, as a doctoral student, in an academic conference at a university in Canada. The conference was attended by students from various indigenous communities in Canada, the USA, Australia, and New Zealand. It was yet another iteration of the two dominant images I have just described, as the event focused on exploring the practices and wisdom of indigenous communities related to the land as nature-based solutions to climate change.

I still vividly remember one encounter during the conference when I had to assert my membership in an indigenous community in the Philippines—a fact that bewildered most of the participants at the time.

At the beginning of the conference, each participant had to introduce themselves, state where they came from, and identify their indigenous affiliation. Everything went smoothly as students from aboriginal communities in Australia and Māori communities in New Zealand took turns introducing themselves. When it was my time to speak about my identity as an Igorot student from the Philippines, there was an unusual chatter among the organizers and other participants. At the time, I couldn’t quite understand the reason for what appeared to be a sudden disruption.

During the many breaks in the conference, I was asked probing questions about my indigenous heritage—questions that often ended with the explanation that they had never heard of the term Igorot. What they know, however, was the presence of many Filipino immigrants in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. I felt uncomfortable in those moments, although I couldn’t explain why.

Thinking back on that encounter, and with the critical distance that time has allowed, I realize that part of the anxiety came from the realization that, outside the immediate context of the Philippines and within the confines of Western society, I am judged and categorized exclusively as an immigrant—not as an indigenous person from a small village in the heart of the Cordillera highlands. What this creates is a kind of singularity, a flattening of indigenous identity, which becomes blended into the broader category of precarious Filipino immigrant.

This has held true in other encounters I have had in Europe. In this part of the world, I appear as an immigrant Filipino. And in the few instances when my indigenous identity has surfaced, it has almost always been in the context of encounters with fellow Filipinos—who, in their own ways, would introduce themselves as Ilokano, Tagalog, or someone from the Visayas. What appears as a form of self-identification is, in fact, unstable and often dependent on the specific encounter and the person on the receiving end of that encounter.

I imagine this is what many of us have experienced as we make our lives here in Europe. We appear indigenous only in certain moments when we are together, but to the outside world, we become intelligible only as part of a homogeneous, precarious immigrant population.

This is a conundrum that indigenous people face in the diaspora—an experience whose effects are even more pronounced for second-generation indigenous individuals. They must not only grapple with the absence of cultural symbols with which to construct their indigenous identity, but also confront the possibility of becoming mixed, diluted, and ultimately unrecognizable within a much larger singularity.

And why do I consider this a challenge? What is the problem with being labeled as immigrants? There is none. However, the real conundrum arises when the diverse lived experiences, cultural expressions, and ways of life are diminished under a single category of the immigrant experience. This singularization is emblematic of the kind of erasure and denial of diversity that is often promoted by certain political parties in this part of the world—and in other parts of the world as well. It is not the label ‘immigrant’ that is the core of the problem, but rather the tendency toward erasure when what are actually heterogeneous experiences become reduced to one indistinguishable population.

On the other hand, something more fundamental informs this tendency to homogenize diversity. Asking questions about indigeneity within European societies can be a difficult and sensitive subject, particularly given the complicity of many European countries as former colonial empires. The acts of violence committed in their colonies laid the groundwork for the very concept of the ‘indigenous’ as we understand it today. In this context, the noticeable absence of indigenous peoples in Europe—and the subsequent tendency to conflate them with broader immigrant populations—reflects the historical legacies of Europe’s role in the violent creation of indigenous identities within its former colonies.

In many ways, to assert indigeneity opens up a painful chapter in European history, one that Europe has yet to fully acknowledge. Without such recognition, Europe's encounter with indigenous peoples on its own soil often becomes one of muted ignorance, where all that is foreign is homogenized into a single immigrant narrative.

So, to celebrate indigeneity in this part of the world is to stir the dust of a past marked by violence. It risks reopening historical wounds and forces a confrontation with colonial culpability—issues that Europe will, sooner or later, have to grapple with, no matter how difficult the process may be.

An indigenous double bind

What impact do these two dominant images of indigeneity—and the tendency toward homogenization—have on indigenous peoples, especially those in the diaspora?

There is a term called double bind, first coined by anthropologist Gregory Bateson (1972). A double bind arises when a person, group, or society receives two conflicting messages, creating a kind of collective paralysis. The receiver cannot move forward because any action would violate one of the conflicting expectations.

The two dominant images of indigeneity—along with the tendency to homogenize—can be seen as precursors to a double bind. For indigenous communities to be recognized as indigenous, they are expected to embody ecological exceptionalism and remain rooted in their ancestral lands. However, this expectation further collapses in Western societies, where indigenous identities often dissolve into a generalized immigrant or minority experience, stripped of their specificity.

What results from this twin process of homogenization and expectations is what I call, borrowing from Bateson, as the indigenous double bind: indigenous communities are expected to conform to idealized images of indigeneity, yet are simultaneously absorbed into a homogenized collective as immigrants, erasing their unique experiences and expressions. Experiencing indigenous double bind could have an added layer of disorientation for indigenous communities in the diaspora, especially the second-generation indigenous people. Raised away from the immediate sources of their cultural roots, second-generation indigenous individuals often face challenges when seeking a foundation for their identity. Their search is frequently shaped—and sometimes constrained—by preconceived notions of what it means to be indigenous. This journey of self-discovery can resemble that of curious children exploring new perspectives to understand who they are, only to be told they are wrong because there is already a “correct” way of being, a predetermined way of living indigenous life. This then leads to disorientation, and the slow dissolution of diasporic indigenous experience.

So, what could possibly be the solution to the indigenous double bind? Bateson said that a double bind leads to paralysis. I suggest, however, that contradictory images and expectations can also be a source of indigenous power. How is this possible?

For indigenous communities in the diaspora, living often means engaging in a constant search for belonging, for roots grounded in an ili (homeland) that lies far from Europe. This search is not merely geographic; it is existential and cultural, shaped by the complexities of displacement, memory, and identity (Ahmed, 1999; Hall, 1990).

Events like the one we gather for today can act as bridges—channels of hope that connect us to that distant somewhere. They offer more than symbolic gestures; they help address the indigenous double bind: the tension between maintaining cultural identity and adapting to diasporic realities.

Such gatherings go beyond providing a space for indigenous individuals in Europe to assemble. They offer what might be called a “diasporic toolkit”—resources for navigating diasporic life. This toolkit can manifest in many ways: from the simple but powerful recognition that a rich diversity of cultural practices and ancestral wisdom continues to thrive, to the deeper sense of solidarity forged through the sharing of stories, struggles, and hopes. These toolkits serve as alternatives to externally imposed notions of indigenous authenticity and push back against the danger of homogenization. They are rooted in lived experience—in the realities and resilience of diasporic life—rather than in stereotypes or static definitions.

Ultimately, to be indigenous is not to validate preconceived notions of authenticity or perform identity according to external expectations. It is, above all else, a process of becoming—a continuous, evolving journey of becoming through convivial relationship, even in a diasporic context.

 

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