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2 J.L. Prop. & Soc'y 135 (2016)
Commentary on How the Subaltern Took Agency in the United Nations

handle is hein.journals/jlpros2 and id is 145 raw text is: 







                    Commentary on
          How the Subaltern Took Agency
                 in the United Nations*

                        Kiyoteru Tsutsui**

   Good morning. I want to start by thanking the organizers

            for including me in this panel and allowing me the op-
            portunity to comment on Jen Dahl's research. I'm a big
fan of his book so I jumped at the opportunity to speak here. So just
quickly, my background on indigenous politics: I've studied indige-
nous politics in Japan, in Northern Japan, an indigenous people
called Ainu. This is a group that was politically largely dormant
until the 1970s and their movement was constituted by their expo-
sure to international indigenous movements. Subsequently they
started going to the UN Working Groups and Permanent Forum to
advance their movement and made some significant strides. In 2008,
they were recognized by the Japanese government as an indigenous
people. I've written about this history somewhere else so I'm not go-
ing to go into details, but I will just say that I have been involved in
helping Ainu representatives when they go to the UN and I have
participated in the Forum almost every year until recently. Dahl's
book has lots of photos of these forums and I actually tried to see if I


. Jens Dahl, How the Subaltern Took Agency in the United Nations,
2 J. L. PROP. & Soc'Y 105 (2016), htp: Z Zww-w aIps.syredu/journal/2016/1 1/JLPS-
2016£1-Dahl.pdf.
.. Kiyoteru Tsutsui is Associate Professor of Sociology and Director of the Hu-
man Rights Program at the University of Michigan. His research spans politi-
cal/comparative sociology, social movements, globalization, human rights, and
Japanese society. He has documented the rise of Ainu indigenous rights activism
in Japan and was a regular participant at the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous
Issues.
© Kiyoteru Tsutsui 2016.
htt- / /ww w.ahs svr.e-du /iournali 2016/i 1 iLPS-2016-11 -Tsut;ui ndf.

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