The term indigenous in the dictionary stands for that which is originating, living, or occurring naturally in an area or environment. Word synonymous with indigenous are native, endemic, autochthonous, and aboriginal.
While these definitions do have their purpose, they are ultimately geographically-, and thus territorially-biased. Indigenous specifies that something or someone is native, rather than coming or being brought in from elsewhere. Native implies birth or origin in the specified place. Something endemic is prevalent in, or peculiar to, a particular locality or people. Autochthonous applies to what is native and unchanged by outside sources. Aboriginal describes what has existed from the beginning.
Another term that is used with geographic meaning is the term neoindigenous. This term was used in reference to a former PRIZM market cluster. One description of a neoindigenous tribe was as follows: "If you've fled the city for the country lifestyle of Graft, Vermont, or Sutter Creek, California, you more than likely inhabit New Eco-topia, where your baby-boom neighbors enjoy country music, camping, and protesting to their congressmen over the encroachment of big business." Clearly even the new tribes, the neo-luddites if you will, still inhabit some specific area, and thus even the term neoindigenous is geography-specific.
The first significant recorded use of the word webindigenous occurred sometime in the year 2003 with the publishing of the Fifth World Declaration. Here the word occurs in the following context: "We, the People of the Fifth World, refuse to live under the tyranny of UN nations, and under the tyranny of the UN itself. As Fifthworlders, as Indigos, as webindigenous peoples, we assert our Bathetic Rights, our Fundamental Rights to Privacy, Life, and Liberty, as well as our Ultimate Right, the right to love, and be loved, by our own Divine Kind."
Not only the word webindigenous seems to be used in Fifth World contexts, but it seems exclusive to them. In Quantum Anthropological Leap Part 2, the First, Second, and Third World is the Official World, and this world can also be neoindigenous; the Fourth World is the indigenous one; but clearly only the Fifth World is webindigenous. White, Yellow, and Black races are also part of the Official World; the Red and Brown races (Native American and Malay-Polynesian races) are Fourth World material; but Indigos are the exclusive race of the Fifth World.
Webindigenous, like the concept of jus cerebri electronici, does not relate to geography or territory, but to the WorldWide Web, and esclusively so. Also, just as native is synonymous with indigenous, native webian is synonymous with webindigenous.
External links
- Fifth World Declaration. (2003). PetitionOnline™. Artifice, Inc. Retrieved 10 July 2006, from http://www.petitiononline.com/5wd314/petition.html
- Quantum Anthropological Leap (Part 2). (n.d.). Quantum Anthropological Leap Series. Retrieved 6 August 2009, from http://micronational.org/anthropo-2.html
- Indigenous Issues Today
References
- Indigenous. (2000). Dictionary.com. Retrived July 10, 2006, from http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=indigenous
- Native. (2000). Dictionary.com. Retrived July 10, 2006, from http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=native