self-determination

Tribal Law as Indigenous Social Reality and Separate Consciousness: [Re]Incorporating Customs and Traditions into Tribal Law

Year

At some point in my legal career, I recall becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the inconsistencies between the values in the written law of various indigenous nations and the values I knew were embedded in indigenous societies themselves. The two are not entirely in harmony, and in fact, in some instances are absolutely in opposition. I realize that in some circumstances the problem stems from the original source of the written law itself, because many indigenous nations who organized themselves under the Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) adopted the law drafted by the Department of Interior for the Courts of Indian Offenses or Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) courts. Yet, even recently enacted law continues to look very much like the western law of states. Many reasons for this exist. How indigenous nations create laws, as well as, who creates the law and the type of “law” being created influence what enacted law looks like...

Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

Cruz, Christine Zuni. "Tribal Law as Indigenous Social Reality and Separate Consciousness: [Re]Incorporating Customs and Traditions into Tribal Law." Tribal Law Journal. Volume 1: 2000/2001. UNM School of Law. Albuquerque, NM. 2001. Article. (https://lawschool.unm.edu/tlj/common/docs/volumes/vol-1-zuni-cruz-christine-tribal-law-as-indigenous-social-reality-and-separate-consciousness-reincorporating-customs-and-traditions-into-tribal-law.pdf, accessed February 15, 2024)

The Peoples' Forest: Emerging Strategies on the Mescalero Apache Forest Reserves

Year

This case raises questions about how American Indian Tribes reshape the care of forests on Indian lands by coordinating science-based forestry methodology and traditional ecological knowledge to meet their goals. Working the case, students are challenged to look for ways that the Mescalero Apache Indian Tribe, its membership, and its partners can reach beyond seemingly conflicting economic and restoration goals to apply forestry science and traditional ecological knowledge in restoration efforts. Can forestry sciences existing predictive formulae be used to achieve tribal goals, or will new scientific research need to coordinate with traditional ecological knowledge to achieve these goals? Prescribed fire and thinning are important tools for meeting todays challenging conditions, intensified by drought and climate change. Within the context of the case, natural resource activities are connected to legal, scientific, cultural, economic, and policy considerations. Currently decisions are made to achieve cultural and ecological restoration in a perfect storm of high fire danger, climate change, global economics and lowered timber harvests...

Native Nations
Citation

Stumpff, Linda Moon. "The Peoples Forest: Emerging Strategies on the Mescalero Apache Forest Reserves." Enduring Legacies Native Cases Initiative, The Evergreen State College. Olympia, Washington. 2010. Teaching Case Study. https://nativecases.evergreen.edu/collection/cases/peoples-forest, accessed February 12, 2024)

Back to the Bison Case Study Part I

Year

Thirty years after taking over the reins of forestry, recreation, wildlife and other natural resource operations on their reservation lands, the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (CSKT) established a reputation for environmental leadership in wildlife, wilderness, recreation and co-management. As students work through "Back to the Bison," they participate in strategic decision-making from the perspective of how CKST made decisions about their relationship to the bison and to the surrounding lands, including the National Bison Range (NBRC). These relationships bring the Tribes into the process of evaluating the science of genetics and their own traditional ecological knowledge. Modern wildlife management practices based on western science are at issue and create opportunities for lively debate. This case provides opportunities for students to build research skills by reading and evaluating articles on genetics and the role of science and traditional ecological knowledge in wildlife management...

Citation

Stumpff, Linda Moon. "Back to the Bison Case Study Part I." Enduring Legacies Native Cases Initiative, The Evergreen State College. Olympia, Washington. 2010. Teaching Case Study. (https://nnigovernance.arizona.edu/back-bison-case-study-part-i, accessed March 7, 2023)

Back to the Bison Case Study Part II

Year

After the Confederated Salish Kootenai Tribes (CSKT) made the decision to work towards signing a management agreement, they began discussions with United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) in 1994 to pursue the co-management and joint operation of the National Bison Range Complex (NBRC) which includes the National Bison Range plus additional wetland refuge areas. They will implement this strategy under the provisions of the Self-Governance Act Amendments of 1994 (including the Tribal Self-Governance Act of 1994) that allows tribes that demonstrate capability and a geographic, historic and cultural connection to a federal area to negotiate for the management of specific projects listed in the National Register. CSKT argued that they demonstrated excellent abilities in contracting for and managing tribal and federal programs and in natural resources. They felt strongly they could substantiate an unarguable geographic, historic and cultural connection to most of the NBRC, including the Bison Range, and the ancillary Ninepipes and Pablo Refuges as part of the Complex. But the Tribes met with continued resistance...

Citation

Stumpff, Linda Moon. "Back to the Bison Case Study Part II." Enduring Legacies Native Cases Initiative, The Evergreen State College. Olympia, Washington. 2010. Teaching Case Study. (https://nnigovernance.arizona.edu/back-bison-case-study-part-ii, accessed March 7, 2023)

The Will of the People: Citizenship in the Osage Nation

Author
Year

This teaching case tells the story of Tony, one of nine Osage government reform commissioners placed in charge of determining the "will of the people" in reforming the government of the Osage Nation. Because of Congressional law the Osage Nation had been forced into an alien form of government for a hundred years. Recent legislation has reversed this and has recognized the Osage Nation's sovereign right to determine its own citizenship and form of government. As part of this case, students will analyze the highly charged debates over citizenship that took place during Osage community meetings. From these perspectives students will be asked to write referendum questions covering the central issues at stake with Osage citizenship. This case provides an opportunity for students to explore a range of issues including American Indian citizenship and sovereignty, the power and danger inherent in racial identity, and the process of community-based reform...

Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

Dennison, Jean. "The Will of the People: Citizenship in the Osage Nation." Enduring Legacies Native Cases Initiative, The Evergreen State College. Olympia, Washington. 2007. Teaching Case Study. (https://nativecases.evergreen.edu/collection/cases/will-of-the-people, accessed February 13, 2024)

The Last Stand: the Quinault Indian Nation's Path to Sovereignty and the Case of Tribal Forestry

Year

This case tells a story of forestry management policies on the Quinault Reservation. In the early years, the Office of Indian Affairs (OIA) and later the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) acted like a landlord, allocating large timber sales to non-Indian timber companies. The Dawes Act fragmented the Quinault Reservation into many small individually owned allotments: the Tribe retained little for the general purpose. Years of mismanagement of Reservation forest lands by the BIA left devastated lands and waters. Legislation and actions by leaders like Joe De La Cruz pushed the envelope to reform the U.S. tribal trust relationship, eventually returning land use decision-making to the Quinault Indian Nation. The Tribe took over planning, timber sales, and decision-making for forestry as they came to work in partnership with the BIA and neighboring agencies. The challenge was great--large areas of the landbase were cut-over. New decisions about forestry management were made to acquire allotted lands and to transfer them into the tribal ownership so they could be restored...

Native Nations
Citation

Stumpff, Linda Moon. "The Last Stand: the Quinault Indian Nation's Path to Sovereignty and the Case of Tribal Forestry." Enduring Legacies Native Cases Initiative, The Evergreen State College. Olympia, Washington. 2007. Teaching Case Study. (https://nativecases.evergreen.edu/collection/cases/last-stand-quinault, accessed February 12, 2024)

Tribal Economic Development: Nuts & Bolts

Year

Tribal economic development is a product of the need for Indian tribes to generate revenue in order to pay for the provision of governmental services. Unlike the federal government or states, Indian tribes – in general – have no viable tax base from which to generate revenues sufficient to provide for tribal constituents...

Resource Type
Citation

Fletcher, Matthew L.M. "Tribal Economic Development: Nuts & Bolts." Indigenous Law & Policy Center Working Paper Series. Michigan State University College of Law. October 25, 2006. Paper. (http://www.law.msu.edu/indigenous/papers/2006-03.pdf, accessed August 26, 2013)

Indigenous Justice: Clearing Space and Place for Indigenous Epistemologies

Author
Producer
Centre for First Nations Governance
Year

The realization of Self Determination for Indigenous Peoples is an exhilarating and fascinating movement that encourages human perseverance and an unfaltering belief in human potential and responsibility. It is a multi-dimensional movement that acknowledges and accepts human flaws while becoming aware of one's place in the world. All at once it is both so simple, and yet so complex. Simple because autonomy is a basic human need: to have, not only the ability, but the space and place to self-actualize and experience continuity are fundamental basic human needs. Self determination nurtures human dignity. Yet it becomes extremely complex when its recognition is denied under a colonial regime. 

While self determination nurtures human dignity, human responsibility, self and collective actualization and continuity, a colonial regime thrives on its ability to oppress, to maintain hierarchical orderings of power and importance, authority, ignorance and a concept of time that is both linear and extremely short. If time has taught us anything it is that there are no winners under a colonial regime. To oppress human diversity and assert authority without consent is to deny human capability both in terms of individualization and collectivities. Colonial ideologies such as eurocentrism, racism, oppression and hegemonic control are used to promote and sustain a colonial regime that denies equally the colonized and the colonizers of their full human potential. 

As Canada moves painfully toward a post colonial era, one can hope that space and place will be created to better explore, understand, and apply Indigenous worldviews to all realms of life. I say painfully because it is. Moving toward a post colonial era means coming to realize the full extent and damage a colonial regime has had on all people now living on Turtle Island. Indigenous people may feel anger, non-Indigenous people may feel defensive; Canada's colonial relationship with Indigenous peoples is far from pretty. Denial and blame work together to stagnate progress. 

Native Nations
Resource Type
Topics
Citation

Victor, Wenona. "Indigenous Justice: Clearing Space and Place for Indigenous Epistemologies". Research Paper for the National Centre for First Nations Governance. The National Centre for First Nations Governance. Canada. December 2007. Paper. (https://fngovernance.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/wenona_victor.pdf, accessed July 25, 2023)

Aboriginal Nationhood and the Inherent Right to Self-Government

Year

Canadian governments and courts recognize that pre-contact Aboriginal societies possessed their own legal and political systems and that to this day these nations have not surrendered the powers they fully exercised before colonial policies undercut their authority. Unfortunately, however, the governments of Canada argue that it is not clear what this means that is, what contemporary Aboriginal self-government rights look like. From 1983 to 1992 there were concerted efforts to constitutionally entrench Aboriginal rights to self-government. With the failure of these efforts, considerable attention has turned to what courts might say about these rights, and how they might be achieved through negotiations. As Aboriginal nations litigate and negotiate, pushing back against the history of colonial policies and practices, the challenge is to develop strategies to ensure that self-government rights develop within the Canadian state as fully as possible. 

Native Nations
Resource Type
Topics
Citation

Christie, Gordon. "Aboriginal Nationhood and the Inherent Right to Self-Government". Research Paper for the Centre for the National Centre for First Nations Governance. The National Centre for First Nations Governance. Canada. May 2007. Paper.