Reinvigorating Ancestral Practices: Honoring Land and Water Defenders, Indigenous Internationalisms and Community Protocols (original) (raw)
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Natural resource management in Indian country today must continually address colonial histories. In the Cherokee Nation, tribal resource managers are acutely familiar with this history because they deal with its current manifestations daily. This situation reflects both structural issues that stem from the imposed land management programs of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and practical issues in which the results of federal policies like allotment inhibit tribal access to and control over resources within Cherokee Nation boundaries. In this article, I trace the origins of contemporary obstacles to tribal natural resource management in the Cherokee Nation, emphasizing the process of environmental production to explain how myriad actors and forces shaped the western Cherokee landscape. Additionally, I frame tribal resource control and management as an identifiable modern state practice. As such, I explore the dynamics of the Cherokee Nation as a uniquely indigenous state—one that is struggling to balance its ability to assert indigenous approaches towards environmental management with its power to regulate its own citizens’ access to sparse lands and resources.
The Conference in Minnepaolis was the third in a series of three scheduled international scholarly meetings. The first was held in Oklahoma in May 2007 and the second in Athens, Georgia, USA. The Australian delegation this year was warmly welcomed and I believe that this was a direct result of such a strong representation and contribution by the Indigenous delegations in 2007 and 2008. The aim of these three scheduled meetings is to offer a chance to present scholarly work and to explore the possibility of creating a multidisciplinary academic association for scholars who work in American Indian/ Native American/ First Nations/ Aboriginal/ Indigenous Studies. It was envisaged that the association would be governed by the critical mass of individual scholars. The vision was for an academic association that can legitimise and institutionalise the work of our field, with the visioning commenced by Professor Robert Warrior. To date there has not been such an international association. It was resolved at the 2008 meeting in Athens that we as Native American and Indigenous Studies scholars: formerly establish the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association; go ahead with the third scheduled meeting 21
Anarchist Developments in Cultural Studies, 2021
Amidst the ever-changing terrain of contemporary shape-shifting colonization, this article discusses how Indigenous peoples engage in turning away from the state and the ways these movements take place in unexpected and everyday ways. I will examine three examples of ways that Indigenous international relations are being practiced so as to bypass states and create new forms of solidarity across colonial borders: "Indigenous Women of the Americas Defenders of Mother Earth Treaty Compact (2015) that spans from Turtle Island to South America; the Haida and Heiltsuk Treaty of Peace, Respect and Responsibility (2015) initiated to protect their relationship with herring; and the Tyendinaga Mohawk blockade of the VIA rail in solidarity with Wet’suwet’en (2020).
‘Mind the Gap’: Journeys in Indigenous Sovereignty and Nationhood
Comparative American Studies, 2015
Sovereignty. Self-determination. Autonomy. Nation. Native American studies is currently being shaped dramatically by this particular set of terms, and the prevailing discourse aims to interrogate not only various senses of tribal self-determination, but also earlier formulations of cultural, spiritual, political, and artistic autonomy. Indeed, the publication of myriad nuanced and substantial works of scholarship focusing on the subject of sovereignty alone is testament to the critical role that definitions of indigenous selfdetermination and authority play within the field today. Inevitably, perhaps, it is also the case that the definition of the terms mentioned above, and the application of those terms to any particular set of circumstances in Indian Country, is not entirely a straightforward affair. Nor, given the seriousness of the matter in hand, should it be. On the contrary, the values that a state of sovereignty affords a Native individual or tribe is a complex and multifaceted matter, and should be understood as such. For that reason, while it is vital to prioritize the benefits of tribal independence, it is also necessary to take note of the diverse nature of a range of issues that inform current conversations about indigenous homelands, tribal self-government, and various forms of Native sovereignty. The purpose of this essay is to consider that diversity in situ, and to raise some important questions about the possibility-and effectiveness-of signalling our international support for indigenous communities as they seek to enact and express various forms of sovereignty and nationhood.
Land, Culture, and Community: Reflections on Native Sovereignty and Property in America
Indiana Law Review, 2001
God created this Indian country and it was like He spread out a big blanket. He put the Indians on it. They were created here in this country, truly and honestly, and that was the time this river started to run. Then God created fish in this river and put deer in these mountains and made laws through which has come the increase of fish and game. Then the Creator gave us Indians life; we awakened and as soon as we saw the game and the fish we knew they were made for us I was not brought from a foreign country and did not come here. I was put here by the Creator. 1 INTRODUCTION Chief Meninock's words describe a world in which the Native people, the land and its resources interact under a Divine plan created for a particular place on earth. The people exist under the same set of laws that governs all other living things, which results in order, balance, and abundance. Contemporary American society, of course, is governed by a system of man-made laws that has created an imbalance of resources, whether measured in tangible ways (e.g., land) or intangible ways (e.g. equality of opportunity). This Symposium addresses that problem by evaluating the continuing inequalities in wealth and property that exist in America. "America" symbolizes many things, among which are a geographical territory, a robust pluralism that highlights values of tolerance and respect for diversity, and a constitutional democracy that has become one ofthe major world powers. Each of these aspects informs the dialogue on property, wealth and inequality. But for the indigenous peoples ofthis land, "America" has a different meaning. Acoma poet Simon Ortiz says that, "[NJative culture is at the heart of everything that is America." 2 Indigenous identity is formed by the intersection
This dissertation examines several sites of conflict between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples over water and water rights in Canada, from the 19 th century up to current articulations of environmental policy and land rights. Through examination of a selection of public policy, land rights decisions, grassroots activism, and Canadian and Indigenous fiction and non-fiction, I probe relationships to water that have structured and limited the legibility of Indigenous rights in Canada. I track a history of settler colonialism through the lens of water, querying whether water offers a productive site that might challenge the current land-based constraints of colonial legal and policy frameworks that have led to what are often irreconcilable relationships between the settler state and Indigenous peoples. Through Indigenous legal orders, social, cultural, and political expression, as well as strands of materialist and environmentalist Western philosophy that focus on water, ontology, and narrative, I explore the limits and potential for decolonial approaches to water governance that might better support the inherent rights of Indigenous peoples. Using an interdisciplinary methodology, I read public policy and land rights decisions in dialogue with settler and Indigenous literatures and community action in order to understand the often-competing worlding practices that materially, socially, subjectively, and figuratively construct settler and Indigenous approaches to water-what I am calling settler and Indigenous water worlds. Specifically, I analyze four sites of conflict and their various representations where competing laws, philosophies, and social registers of water come up against one another: the 19 th century establishment of a liberal order in the Trent iii Severn Waterway, and its expression in early settler life writing and environmental policy; the mercury pollution of the English-Wabigoon River Systems in Treaty 3 Anishinaabe territory, and the ironic representation of late liberal environmentalism in M.T. Kelly's A Dream Like Mine; the James Bay Hydroelectric conflict, and the political response of the Grand Council of the Crees, as well as the conflict's figurative reimagining in Linda Hogan's Solar Storms; and Haudenosaunee and settler relations in Grand River territory in Southern Ontario, and the impetus to engage these relations through the historic treaty, the Two Row Wampum. vi Finally, I offer thanks for that which I could never adequately express here, and what I can only hope to have the privilege of continuing to express my gratitude for over and over again. Sarah Drumm, I could not have written a word without you. In all of its anxiety, self-consciousness, learning, hope, and commitment to relationship building, I dedicate this project to you. Financial support for this project has been generously provided through a Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship, an Ontario Graduate Scholarship, a John Lyndhurst Kingston Memorial Scholarship, and a Carleton University Graduate Research and Innovative Thinking award. vii
In this article we tell the story of a Wabanaki sagamore who travelled from the Presumpscot River (in present-day Maine, United States) to Boston in 1739 to protest the damming of the river that he "belongs to," and on which his people depended for sustenance. In this account of the first documented dam protest in New England, we explore the notion of belonging and the social and ecological reciprocity embedded in that concept. Working with multiple disciplinary approaches, combining history and ecology within an Indigenous studies framework, we demonstrate that the reciprocal relationships and associated responsibilities between indigenous peoples and their environments are the very foundation of indigenous traditional ecological knowledge (ITEK). We show the complicated process through which Wabanaki communities sought to bring English settlers into this worldview and the conflicts that arose when colonists failed to engage in social and ecological reciprocity. Finally, ...