The Margins

The images are harsh, ubiquitous and recurrent. As this book goes to print, the Navajo Nation in the United States continues to grapple with what is America’s worst Covid-19 outbreak. In 2019 Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s authoritarian, racist leader praised the genocide of Indigenous people and moved to revoke the protected status of indigenous lands. In the Philippines, 164 environmental activists –most of them indigenous – were murdered at the hands of Duterte’s government in 2018 for defending their homes, lands and natural resources from exploitation. In 2017 a homeless girl from the indigenous Mbya Guarani was captured drinking unclean water from a puddle to relieve her thirst in the midday sun as the temperature topped 100 F (38 C) degrees in Argentina. In 2016 police with water cannons violently cleared, in 28 F (–2 C) weather, activists protesting to stop the development of a pipeline that threatens the Standing Rock Indian Reservation’s water supply. Sadly, one can go on and on with heartbreaking vignettes of different forms of indignity, injustice, discrimination and violence suffered by Indigenous peoples all across the world. Despite the tremendous progress in the development of scientific knowledge, in the understanding of the structural causes of poverty and inequality and in the role of politics and governance in addressing modern challenges, social inclusion, poverty, marginalization and despair is a reality across the world – from wealthy America to middle-income Argentina to the less wealthy Philippines. And very often this reality has an indigenous face. This reality is particularly painful for many who like me, enjoy visiting Mexico, the beautifully complex country where I grew up. Despite some progress and the tremendous wealth of many who are economically privileged, including the once richest man on Earth (Carlos Slim), marginalization in Mexico tends to follow skin color; the imperfect, accented Spanish that results from speaking another language; a huipil (a traditional