Indigenous Governance Database
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Feeding Ourselves: Food Access, Health Disparities, and the Pathways to Healthy Native American Communities
Echo Hawk Consulting, headed by Crystal Echo Hawk, released today a comprehensive report on the state of food access in Native American communities, and the resulting health disparities in Native Americans. The report--commissioned by the American Heart Association (AHA) and its Voices for Healthy…
Traditional Governance and Constitution Making among the Gitanyow
This paper is a report on traditional governance and constitution making among the Gitanyow people prepared for the Gitanyow and for the First Nations Governance Centre. The Gitanyow are well along in the development of a national constitution based on traditional governance, and this paper will…
The Integration of Customary Law into the Australian Legal System
The theme of my address this morning emphasizes the important role that Indigenous people have, to take charge of our own destinies. The maintenance and integration of Aboriginal customary law is an essential part of this. It cannot be repeated often enough that a legal system must reflect the…
Ngurra-kurlu: A way of working with Warlpiri people
Ngurra-kurlu is a representation of the five key elements of Warlpiri culture: Land (also called Country), Law, Language, Ceremony, and Skin (also called Kinship). It is a concept that highlights the primary relationships between these elements, while also creating an awareness of their deeper…
Pulya-ranyi: Winds of Change
Milpirri is a Warlpiri way to get country to express itself. Country is expressing itself all the time. All around Australia, Indigenous people, culture and art express (in various forms) what animals, plants and the elements, including weather and the seasons themselves—look like and speak like…
Enabling the Data Revolution: An International Open Data Roadmap
Open data in the context of indigenous peoples and communities can be understood as a double-edged sword. On the one hand, open data can help indigenous communities, both internally and externally. Internally, it can be used to inform policy, allocate resources, and set a vision for indigenous…
Guatemala’s Indigenous Women in Resistance: On the Frontline of the Community’s Struggle to Defend Mother Earth and her Natural Assets
The objective of this study is to examine the social process at work in the defense of natural resources from the perspective of the indigenous women involved in it. Given the country’s broad cultural diversity and the time limits for completing this report, we assumed right from the start that it…
How Does Household Income Affect Child Personality Traits and Behaviors?
Existing research has investigated the effect of early childhood educational interventions on the child's later-life outcomes. These studies have found limited impact of supplementary programs on children's cognitive skills, but sustained effects on personality traits. We examine how a positive…
Processes of Native Nationhood: The Indigenous Politics of Self-Government
Over the last three decades, Indigenous peoples in the CANZUS countries (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States) have been reclaiming self-government as an Indigenous right and practice. In the process, they have been asserting various forms of Indigenous nationhood. This article…
New Zealand's Constitution: A Report on a Conversation He Kotuinga Korero mo Te Kaupapa Ture o Aotearoa
The appointment of the Constitutional Advisory Panel in August 2011 was another step in a longer and continuing conversation about how to govern the people, land and resources of Aotearoa New Zealand.The Panel was appointed as part of the Consideration of Constitutional Issues, which was agreed to…
Culture and Law: Preliminary Findings in a Review of 100+ Tribal Welfare Codes
Over the last 35 years numerous tribes have created their own child welfare standards. By crafting child welfare codes that balance traditional culture and contemporary needs, tribes both protect member children (and their families) in culturally appropriate ways and reaffirm their sovereign…
Sustaining Indigenous Culture: The Structure, Activities, and Needs of Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums
Sovereignty, self-determination, and self-governance are primary goals of Indigenous nations worldwide and they take important steps toward those goals by renewing control over their stories, documents, and artifacts. To better support it, a core team of Native professionals formed the…
Land and Indigenous Business Development in Canada
Indigenous Business in Canada addresses contemporary concerns and issues in the doing of Aboriginal business in Canada, reveals some of the challenges and diverse approaches to business in indigenous contexts from coast to coast to coast, and demonstrates the direct impact that history and…
Critical junctures and economic development - evidence from the adoption of constitutions among American Indian nations
Utilizing a novel data set on American Indian Nations, we investigate how conditions at critical junctures of development can have long-lasting economic effects. We investigate the effect of the party of the US President at the time when American Indian tribes adopt a written constitution for the…
Reframing return on investments for tribal colleges and universities: Aligning analyses with tribal priorities and educational missions
TCUs serve dual missions: educating students and addressing American Indian tribal priorities. Due to this unique status, mainstream ROI metrics fail to fully align with TCU missions. This paper critiques mainstream measures of ROI in the tribal context and provides insights into alternative ROI…
Rebuilding Family Life in Alice Springs and Central Australia: the social and community dimensions of change for our people
This paper has been released by the Central Australian Aboriginal Congress as a constructive contribution to the debate on the social crisis facing Alice Springs and Central Australia. It presents powerful ideas as well as concrete strategies for change that we believe can make a real difference…
The Standing Rock Next Generation Plan
The Standing Rock Government is engaging in strategic planning. The Standing Rock strategic/government planning model differs from traditional planning models in that it defines 25 years as long term goals, 10 and 5 years as mid-term goals and takes into account the unique dynamics of the…
Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe: Climate Change and Adaptation Planning for Haudenosaunee Tribes
Tribes are beginning to identify potential climate change impacts on their cultural and environmental resources and to develop climate change adaptation plans. The Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe, located in New York and Canada, is in the early stages of adaptation planning. The Tribe is bringing together…
Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment and Adaptation Plan
Jamestown S'Klallam Tribal Citizens and their descendants reside in a landscape that has sustained them for thousands of years, the Olympic Peninusula of Washington State. Particularly over the last two centuries, the Jamestown S'Klallam people have successfully navigated a variety of soceital…
Confederated Salish & Kootenai Tribes Climate Change Strategic Plan
Overwhelming scientific evidence demonstrates that human inputs of greenhouse gases are almost certain to cause continued warming of the planet. (Environmental Protection Agency, 2013) The Northwest has already observed climate changes including an average increase in temperature of 1.5°F over the…