Reclaiming Indigenous Governance examines the efforts of Indigenous peoples in four important countries to reclaim their right to self-govern. Showcasing Native nations, this timely book presents diverse perspectives of both practitioners and researchers involved in Indigenous governance in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States (the CANZUS states). Indigenous governance is dynamic, an ongoing relationship between Indigenous peoples and settler-states. The relationship may be vigorously contested, but it is often fragile—one that ebbs and flows, where hard-won gains can be swiftly lost by the policy reversals of central governments. The legacy of colonial relationships continues to limit advances in self-government. Yet Indigenous peoples in the CANZUS countries are no strangers to setbacks, and their growing movement provides ample evidence of resilience, resourcefulness, and determination to take back control of their own destiny. Demonstrating the struggles and achievements of Indigenous peoples, the chapter authors draw on the wisdom of Indigenous leaders and others involved in rebuilding institutions for governance, strategic issues, and managing lands and resources. This volume brings together the experiences, reflections, and insights of practitioners confronting the challenges of governing, as well as researchers seeking to learn what Indigenous governing involves in these contexts. Three things emerge: the enormity of the Indigenous governance task, the creative agency of Indigenous peoples determined to pursue their own objectives, and the diverse paths they choose to reach their goal.

Created by the California Research Bureau at the request of Senator John L. Burton, this Web-site is a PDF document on early California laws and policies related to the Indians of the state and focuses on the years 1850-1861. Visitors are invited to explore such topics as loss of lands and cultures, the governors and the militia, reports on the Mendocino War, absence of legal rights, and vagrancy and punishment.

A revolution is underway among the Indigenous nations of North America. It is a quiet revolution, largely unnoticed in society at large. But it is profoundly important. From High Plains states and Prairie Provinces to southwestern deserts, from Mississippi and Oklahoma to the northwest coast of the continent, Native peoples are reclaiming their right to govern themselves and to shape their future in their own ways. Challenging more than a century of colonial controls, they are addressing severe social problems, building sustainable economies, and reinvigorating Indigenous cultures. In effect, they are rebuilding their nations according to their own diverse and often innovative designs. Produced by the Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy at the University of Arizona and the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, this book traces the contours of that revolution as Native nations turn the dream of self-determination into a practical reality. Part report, part analysis, part how-to manual for Native leaders, it discusses strategies for governance and community and economic development being employed by American Indian nations and First Nations in Canada as they move to assert greater control over their own affairs. Rebuilding Native Nations provides guidelines for creating new governance structures, rewriting constitutions, building justice systems, launching nation-owned enterprises, encouraging citizen entrepreneurs, developing new relationships with non-Native governments, and confronting the crippling legacies of colonialism. For nations that wish to join that revolution or for those who simply want to understand the transformation now underway across Indigenous North America, this book is a critical resource. CONTENTS Foreword by Oren Lyons Editor's Introduction Part 1 Starting Points 1. Two Approaches to the Development of Native Nations: One Works, the Other Doesn't Stephen Cornell and Joseph P. Kalt 2. Development, Governance, Culture: What Are They and What Do They Have to Do with Rebuilding Native Nations? Manley A. Begay, Jr., Stephen Cornell, Miriam Jorgensen, and Joseph P. Kalt Part 2 Rebuilding the Foundations 3. Remaking the Tools of Governance: Colonial Legacies, Indigenous Solutions Stephen Cornell 4. The Role of Constitutions in Native Nation Building: Laying a Firm Foundation Joseph P. Kalt 5 . Native Nation Courts: Key Players in Nation Rebuilding Joseph Thomas Flies-Away, Carrie Garrow, and Miriam Jorgensen 6. Getting Things Done for the Nation: The Challenge of Tribal Administration Stephen Cornell and Miriam Jorgensen Part 3 Reconceiving Key Functions 7. Managing the Boundary between Business and Politics: Strategies for Improving the Chances for Success in Tribally Owned Enterprises Kenneth Grant and Jonathan Taylor 8. Citizen Entrepreneurship: An Underutilized Development Resource Stephen Cornell, Miriam Jorgensen, Ian Wilson Record, and Joan Timeche 9. Governmental Services and Programs: Meeting Citizens' Needs Alyce S. Adams, Andrew J. Lee, and Michael Lipsky 10. Intergovernmental Relationships: Expressions of Tribal Sovereignty Sarah L. Hicks Part 4 Making It Happen 11. Rebuilding Native Nations: What Do Leaders Do? Manley A. Begay, Jr., Stephen Cornell, Miriam Jorgensen, and Nathan Pryor 12. Seizing the Future: Why Some Native Nations Do and Others Don't Stephen Cornell, Miriam Jorgensen, Joseph P. Kalt, and Katherine Spilde Contreras Afterword by Satsan (Herb George) References About the Contributors Index

Winner of the Political Geography Specialty Group's 2015 Julian Minghi Distinguished Book Award! With almost the entire world's water basins crossing political borders of some kind, understanding how to cooperate with one's neighbor is of global relevance. For Indigenous communities, whose traditional homelands may predate and challenge the current borders, and whose relationship to water sources are linked to the protection of traditional lifeways (or 'ways of life'), transboundary water governance is deeply political. This book explores the nuances of transboundary water governance through an in-depth examination of the Canada-US border, with an emphasis on the leadership of Indigenous actors (First Nations and Native Americans). The inclusion of this "third sovereign" in the discussion of Canada-U.S. relations provides an important avenue to challenge borders as fixed, both in terms of natural resource governance and citizenship, and highlights the role of non-state actors in charting new territory in water governance. The volume widens the conversation to provide a rich analysis of the cultural politics of transboundary water governance. In this context, the book explores the issue of what makes a good up-stream neighbor and analyzes the rescaling of transboundary water governance. Through narrative, the book explores how these governance mechanisms are linked to wider issues of environmental justice, decolonization, and self-determination. To highlight the changing patterns of water governance, it focuses on six case studies that grapple with transboundary water issues at different scales and with different constructions of border politics, from the Pacific coastline to the Great Lakes.

Globally, far too many discussions about Indigenous governance and development are dominated by accounts of disadvantage, deficit and failure. This book paints a different international picture, testifying to Indigenous peoples as agents of governance innovation and successful developers in their own right, telling stories in their words, from their own experiences and countries. From Indigenous voices, we hear alternative concepts and measures of effectiveness, legitimacy, success and sustainability. Indigenous stories and voices are captured as case study chapters, written in lively, clear language about what is happening that is promising and productive in Indigenous self-determined governance for self-determined development in Canada, Australia, Aotearoa/New Zealand and the USA; all English colonial–settler countries.

In the 1930s, a series of crises transformed relationships between settlers and Aboriginal people in Australia’s Northern Territory. By the late 1930s, Australian settlers were coming to understand the Northern Territory as a colonial formation requiring a new form of government. Responding to crises of social reproduction, public power, and legitimacy, they re-thought the scope of settler colonial government by drawing on both the art of indirect rule and on a representational economy of Indigenous elimination to develop a new political dispensation that sought to incorporate and consume Indigenous production and sovereignties. This book locates Aboriginal history within imperial history, situating the settler colonial politics of Indigeneity in a broader governmental context.