Globalization, indigeneity and performing culture

The concept of indigenous cultural assertion and its impact are discussed. In the first decade of the twenty-first century, Indigenous peoples across the Asia-Pacific are loudly asserting that they and their distinctive cultures are very much alive. Despite the pressures of the developmental modernizers, who expected them to assimilate or otherwise disappear, these communities are using public cultural festivals as one significant strategic space to celebrate, renew and reinvent their cultural traditions. Examples from Hawai'i (Merrie Monarch Festival) and Australian Aboriginal people (Garma Festival of Traditional Culture) are discussed. Garma is an intercultural gathering of national political, cultural and academic significance, and, simultaneously, a very local gathering of Yolngu clans on Yolngu land for Yolngu purposes.