To be Uncontacted – The Ed Techie

One of the charities I give to monthly is Survival International, who “exist to prevent the annihilation of Indigenous peoples and secure their land rights.” I came across them when I was doing research for my novel, around the people of the Nicobar Islands, and while I didn’t include uncontacted people in the end, the Shompen and Sentinelese do get a mention. There is something fascinating I think for those of us in a highly connected world about people who have chosen to remain uncontacted. Unfortunately this fascination often results in people thinking they should be the ones to contact them.

Survival have published a new report titled Uncontacted People: Resilience and Resistance. It highlights the situation of the 196 uncontacted groups worldwide (including the two I’ve mentioned above, although most are located in the Amazon). The point they stress is that remaining uncontacted is an active choice: “All are aware of the outside world, and reject it.” There is, or at least was, a tendency to believe that these were people who just hadn’t had the fortune of being discovered yet by “civilisation”. But as the report notes, “uncontacted peoples’ rejection of contact is often rooted in memories of devastating past contact and invasion, which brought violence, epidemics and death. Their denial of contact is a clear expression of their autonomy and self-determination.” Their lifestyle is entirely sustainable, but encroachment from the external world makes this increasingly difficult, even with the protection of international law.

The primary intention of this post is to draw attention to a powerful report. But I also think there are lessons for us all in the approach of uncontacted peoples. There has always been a strong narrative of inevitability about their eventual absorption into the wider world. A sort of shrug, hey, we can’t stop progress, they can’t remain uncontacted forever. But that is simply not true, their state of being removed is an intentional one, based on experience and knowledge. They are not helpless or hopeless groups waiting for the great 21st century to save them. Secondly, their lifestyle is entirely sustainable, rich and usually more satisfying than after contact. Those that have left the groups often state that they would advise others not to leave, life gets a lot worse. Lastly, the pressure to conform and to disrupt their lifestyle is driven by a mixture of unchecked capitalism and racism usually.

I’m not advocating that we all go and live off the grid, although go for that if you want. But rather the example that the inevitability narrative is driven by a specific agenda, and can be resisted is one we should bear in mind when we consider a number of modern intrusions in our lives, from the AI uptake to the rise of populist politics.

This can come in different forms, for example Chris Blankenship has a useful guide on being more proactive about your privacy. Or resisting AI deployment in the tools and services provided to you, by actively seeking out alternatives that make a point of NOT using AI. Or questioning its implementation in your employment. Or mobilising to defeat Reform in Caerphilly. The rather simple point I guess is that alternatives are possible, but we need to protect and support them.

Anyway, do take a read of the Survival report and donate to their excellent work if you can.

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