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and beliefs
* Marginalized and discriminated against by the state
* They maintain and develop their ancestral environments and systems as distinct peoples

Scholars

Academics and other scholars have developed various definitions of Indigenous peoples. In 1986-87, José Martínez Cobo, the UN Special Rapporteur on the problem of discrimination against indigenous populations, developed the following "working definition":

Indigenous communities, peoples, and nations are those that, having a historical continuity with pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies that developed on their territories, consider themselves distinct from other sectors of the societies now prevailing in those territories, or parts of them. They form at present non-dominant sectors of society and are determined to preserve, develop, and transmit to future generations their ancestral territories, and their ethnic identity, as the basis of their continued existence as peoples, in accordance with their own cultural patterns, social institutions and legal systems.

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