Indigenous Governance Database
Citizenship/Membership
Patricia Riggs: Making Change Happen at Ysleta del Sur Pueblo
Patricia Riggs, Director of Economic Development at Ysleta del Sur Pueblo (YDSP), discusses how YDSP has developed and honed a comprehensive, multi-faceted approach to ciutizen engagement over the past decade in order to ensure that the decisions the YDSP government make reflect and enact the will…
Shawn Frank: Disenrollment: Considerations of Process
Attorney Shawn Frank stresses the importance of Native nations ensuring that they establish and operate processes for disenrolling their citizens that is fair and transparent. He also offers some strategies that a Native nation can follow in order to create that fairness and transparency -- and…
Jim Gray and Patricia Riggs: Citizen Engagement: The Key to Establishing and Sustaining Good Governance (Q&A)
Presenters Jim Gray and Patricia Riggs field questions from audience members about the approaches their nations took and are taking to engage their citizens and seed community-based, lasting change. In addition, session moderator Ian Record offers a quick overview of some effective citizen…
Robert Innes: Elder Brother and the Law of the People: Maintaining Sovereignty Through Identity and Culture
Robert Innes, a citizen of the Cowessess First Nation in Saskatchewan, discusses how traditional Cowessess kinship systems and practices continue to structure and inform the individual and collective identities of Cowessess people today, and how those traditional systems and practices are serving…
John 'Rocky' Barrett: Blood Quantum's Impact on the Citizen Potawatomi Nation
In this short excerpt from his 2009 interview with NNI, Citizen Potawatomi Nation Chairman John "Rocky" Barrett discusses the devastating impacts that blood quantum exacted on the Citizen Potawatomi people before the nation did away with blood quantum as its main criteria for citizenship through…
Vanya Hogen: Redefining Citizenship Criteria Through Constitutional Reform and Other Means
Lawyer and tribal judge Vanya Hogen (Oglala Sioux) discusses the difficulties inherent in amending Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) constitutions to redefine tribal citizenship criteria, and shares the story of the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community as an example of one Native nation with an IRA…
Terry Janis: Citizen Engagement and Constitutional Change at the White Earth Nation
Terry Janis (Oglala Lakota), former Project Manager of the White Earth Nation Constitution Reform Project, provides participants with a detailed overview of the multi-faceted approach to citizen engagement that the White Earth Nation followed as it worked to educate the White Earth people about the…
John "Rocky" Barrett: The Origins of Blood Quantum Among the Citizen Potawatomi
In this excerpt from his presentation at NNI's "Emerging leaders" seminar in 2012, Citizen Potawatomi Nation Chairman John "Rocky" Barrett provides an overview of how the U.S. government -- specifically the Bureau of Indian Affairs -- imposed blood quantum on the Citizen Potawatomi people, and how…
Lenor Scheffler: The Lower Sioux Indian Community's Approach to Citizenship
Lawyer Lenor Scheffler (Lower Sioux Indian Community) provides an overview of the Lower Sioux Indian Community's approach to defining citizenship, which is predicated on residency within the Lower Sioux reservation's boundaries. She also discusses how eligibility for tribal social services is tied…
Deborah Locke: Disenrollment: My Personal Story
Deborah Locke, adopted by a Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa couple when she was a small child, shares her heartbreaking story of how she and her adopted siblings were disenrolled by the Band decades later because they were not the biological descendants of Fond du Lac Band members and…
John "Rocky" Barrett: Citizen Potawatomi's Inclusive Approach to Citizenship
A 3-minute clip of an interview with Chairman Barrett describing how Citizen Potawatomi Nation created a government structure and constitution that worked for the nation's large and very dispersed population.
Sarah Deer: The Muscogee (Creek) Nation's Approach to Citizenship
Sarah Deer (Muscogee), Co-Director of the Indian Law Program at the William Mitchell College of Law, provides a brief overview of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation's unique approach to defining its citizenship criteria, which essentially creates two classes of citizens: those who run for elected office,…
Sharon Day, Shawn Frank and Deborah Locke: Disenrollment (Q&A)
Panelists Sharon Day, Shawn Frank, and Deborah Locke field questions from the audience and a few participants offer their closing thoughts on the question of tribal citizenship and identity. This video resource is featured on the Indigenous Governance Database with the permission of the…
Ian Record: Constitutional Reform: Some Perspectives on Process
Dr. Ian Record, NNI Manager of Educational Resources, provides a broad overview of the inherent difficulties involved with constitutional reform, the different processes that Native nations are developing to engage in constitutional reform, and some of the effective reform strategies that NNI is…
Sophie Pierre: Embracing Ancestry as the Basis for Ktunaxa Citizenship
"One of the key elements or one of our key pillars of course are our people, and our people embody our language and culture and you don't have a choice what you're going to be born as. Any of our people, when they're born, we're Ktunaxa, just as Italians are Italians and it doesn't matter if they…
Jim Gray: The Role of Citizen Engagement in Nation Building: The Osage Story
Jim Gray, former Principal Chief of the Osage Nation, provides an overview of how the Osage Nation completely overhauled its constitution and system of governance, sharing the strategies that Osage used to educate and engage its citizens in order to ensure that their new government reflected the…
Matthew Fletcher: Defining Citizenship: Blood Quantum vs. Descendancy
Michigan State University Law Professor Matthew Fletcher compares and contrasts between Anishinaabe conceptions of citizenship and belonging historically and today, and proposes that conference participants consider taking some innovative approaches to redefining citizenship that address the…
Joseph Flies-Away: The Role of Justice Systems in Nation Building
In this in-depth interview with NNI's Ian Record, Joseph Flies-Away, citizen and former chief judge of the Hualapai Tribe, discusses the central roe that justice systems can and should play in Native nation rebuilding efforts, how justice systems serve as platforms for healing and cultural renewal…
Gwen Phillips: Defining and Cultivating Strong, Healthy Ktunaxa Citizens
Gwen Phillips, Director of Corporate Services and Governance Transition with the Ktunaxa Nation, discusses how Ktunaxa people gained a sense of Ktunaxa identity and belonging traditionally, and the different criteria that Ktunaxa is considering including among its citizenship criteria today.
Angela Wesley: Huu-ay-aht First Nations' Forging of a New Governance System
Angela Wesley, Chair of Huu-ay-aht Constitution Committee, discusses the painstaking effort the Huu-ay-aht First Nations undertook to develop a new constitution and system of governance, and how they continue to work to turn the promise of self-governance embodied in their new constitution into…