Indigenous Aeta Magbukún Self-Identity, Sociopolitical Structures, and Self-Determination at the Local Level in the Philippines

The Indigenous Aeta Magbukún maintain a primarily nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle in their forested ancestral lands. Through the continued encroachment of non-Indigenous populations, the Aeta Magbukún persist at a critical level. Finding it increasingly difficult to sustain their traditional livelihoods, they must engage in informal commerce to procure sufficient food throughout the year. This work explores the basis of self-identity, traditional kinship ties, evolution of sociopolitical organisation, and the developing political options that sustain the small and vulnerable Indigenous population. Despite recent tentative sociopolitical developments, securing cultural protection requires greater effort in developing political communication and representation at a local and national level. In doing so, the Aeta Magbukún can meet their basic needs, secure traditional cultural knowledge, and are able to influence their own development during a time of relatively rapid acculturation within the mainstream Philippine societal complex. 1. Introduction Indigenous people are commonly defined as the descendants of the inhabitants of a country or region who are present when people of different ethnic or cultural origins arrive and later become dominate through settlement or occupation of some means [1]. Bodley [2] proposes that Indigenous peoples had control of much of their own lands around the globe up until the beginning of the industrial revolution. However, this oversimplifies a very complex and controversial topic of the displacement of Indigenous peoples unrelated to European colonisations [3–5]. Indigenous identity, when defined by the original inhabitants, can be contested using a range of methods, and it is possible to discern several waves of migration and occupation, even in regions with complex migratory histories such as south and eastern Asia [3–5]. While the UN system body has not adopted an official definition of “Indigenous,” as a result of the diversity of Indigenous peoples, a Working Group on Indigenous Populations established in 1982 developed a working definition in 1994. The modern interpretation of the term Indigenous includes self-identification, both at an individual and a community level, historical continuity with “preinvasion” and “precolonial” societies and is linked to traditional territories and surrounding natural resources [2, 6]. Rather than attempting to define Indigenous peoples, the UN prefers to identify who Indigenous peoples are, and, therefore, self-identification is a fundamental criterion for concerns centred on human