Indigenous Governance

Case study analysis of the Arctic Council as a "new governance paradigm". Using case study model from Athabasca University GOVN500-Governance and Leadership course. Case study examines 5 areas or foundations: historical, philosophical/ideological, sectoral convergence, leadership and accountability. The overarching theme of "where are the people" is addressed in all sections of the paper.
The final section will draw a conclusion from the information provided in the case study to answer the question: Does the Arctic Council represent a new governance paradigm where sectoral lines are no longer relevant in the production of knowledge and public policy? Yes, the Arctic Council represents a new governance paradigm that blends sectoral lines in pursuit of knowledge production and public policy.

In this paper, we offer an organisational analysis of the World Indigenous Nations Higher Education Consortium (WINHEC), aiming especially at achieving nation-building and selfdetermination for indigenised higher education efforts. We use a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and challenges approach to examine WINHEC's organisational contributions, effectiveness, unique aspects, and challenges. Our findings carry some important implications to further the indigenous engagement and governance within indigenous higher education worldwide.

This article explores social work with Indigenous Peoples in Canada, beginning with the history of colonization and the role this profession played, as well as outlining promising approaches to helping based on Indigenous worldviews and the challenges of putting these into practice.

This article comprehensively examines the governance quest of the Gedeo people (a Cushitic-speaking people in southern Ethiopia) and their itineraries in building an egalitarian indigenous governance system locally called Baalle. The Baalle governance system is based on the distribution of political powers and social responsibilities across nine grades, each with a life span of eight years. Our analysis focuses on the practices and dynamics of the Balle system. We have analyzed the roles of the state in the dynamics of the Baalle system by considering the different historical phases of the Ethiopian state: the Imperial regime (1889-1974), the Derg regime (1974-1991), and the EPRDF regime (1991-2018). Data were collected through narrative interviews, observation, and focus group discussions from Baalle leaders and cultural consultants during several fieldworks carried out in 2018, 2019, and 2020. Based on our findings, we argue that Baalle is a complex indigenous governance system of Gedeo's social structure that influenced their economic, social, political and spiritual life. Moreover, given the complexity of the Baalle system, the presence of governance institution (Songo) in all the three autonomous regional territories of the Gedeo, the practices of sustainable economy that combined forestry with agriculture, and the presence of dense population, we argue that the Gedeo qualify for being a state. Since the incorporation of the Gedeo into the Ethiopian state in the late 19th century, Baalle has been structurally subordinated to the central government, and its roles in the day-today life of the local community have significantly declined. Although the post-1991 political developments of the EPRDF made attempts to protect Baalle from extinction, its role is still reduced to playing only supplementary roles to state conflict resolution institutions and instruments.

Over the past twenty years, American Indian policy has shifted from self-determination to “forced federalism,” as indigenous nations in the United States have encountered new threats from state and local governments over such issues as taxation, gaming, and homeland security. During the forced federalism era (1988–present), public perceptions of indigenous peoples as “rich Indians” have been just as damaging to Native nations as anti-sovereignty legislation. This book examines how state governments have manipulated “rich Indian” images when setting policies targeting indigenous peoples and discusses how indigenous nations have responded politically to these contemporary threats to their nationhood.
Drawing on original survey data collected from Native governments from 1994 to 2000 and on interviews with Chief Chad Smith of the Cherokee Nation as well as other indigenous leaders, Corntassel examines the power dynamics of the indigenous-state compacting system, and show how electoral activism among indigenous peoples has increased their political power while also giving rise to “rich Indian racism” among non-Indians—especially in the wake of the Indian Gaming and Regulatory Act.
The authors warn that current widespread Native participation in non-Native politics is undermining both the political and the cultural foundations of indigenous nationhood, especially as the American culture of money gains influence in Native politics. They also offer specific strategies for regenerating indigenous communities in order to meet future challenges to their nationhood.

In Roots of Our Renewal, Clint Carroll tells how Cherokee people have developed material, spiritual, and political ties with the lands they have inhabited since removal from their homelands in the southeastern United States. Although the forced relocation of the late 1830s had devastating consequences for Cherokee society, Carroll shows that the reconstituted Cherokee Nation west of the Mississippi eventually cultivated a special connection to the new land—a connection that is reflected in its management of natural resources.

Until now, scant attention has been paid to the interplay between tribal natural resource management programs and governance models. Carroll is particularly interested in indigenous environmental governance along the continuum of resource-based and relationship-based practices and relates how the Cherokee Nation, while protecting tribal lands, is also incorporating associations with the nonhuman world. Carroll describes how the work of an elders’ advisory group has been instrumental to this goal since its formation in 2008.

An enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation, Carroll draws from his ethnographic observations of Cherokee government–community partnerships during the past ten years. He argues that indigenous appropriations of modern state forms can articulate alternative ways of interacting with and “governing” the environment.

Surveying existing literature, this article offers a preliminary assessment of the intersection of Indigenous governance and Arctic extractive industries, with a special focus on how Indigenous governance institutions position themselves vis-à-vis resource extraction in three regions: Nunatsiavut (Labrador, Canada), Greenland and Sápmi (the Sámi territory in Scandinavia). As a survey of existing scholarship, interviewing representatives of the extractive industry or Indigenous governments was beyond the scope of this article and hence, the analysis and conclusions are both preliminary and schematic. They do demonstrate, however, that the relations and strategies vary considerably and tend to depend on the degree and jurisdiction of the Indigenous self-governing authority. Further, they point to a pressing need for more detailed research in this area.

Section 81 in the Indian Act, RSC 1985, c I-5, contains a broad range of subject matters over which Band Councils may pass by-laws.  To date, this provision has been underutilized by most First Nation governments.  One of the main reasons for this relates to the fact that, for over a hundred years, the Indian Act gave the federal government the power to disallow any such by-laws and Canada historically took a narrow view of the expanse of the Section 81 by-law powers and exercised its disallowance power broadly. Recent amendments to the Indian Act, however, have repealed this disallowance power, giving Bands greater freedom to pass by-laws. Nonetheless, the validity of such by-laws will continue to be subject to review by the courts.  This paper explores the modern interpretation and constitutional principles that will inform the determination of validity of such by-laws and concludes that such principles mandate that the by-law powers should be interpreted expansively and include First Nation jurisdiction over local matters on reserve, including the provision of essential services.  The author argues that First Nations should seriously explore using the Indian Act by-laws in the manner proposed, even though such bylaws have often been denigrated as only a ‘delegated’ and not an inherent form of self-government jurisdiction.  This is so because of the slow pace of self-government negotiations and the urgent need for change in the manner in which key essential services are currently provided on First Nations reserves.

Urban spaces are an increasingly common indigenous reality, and while urban spaces often involve great social and geographic distances from traditional communities, many urban populations have built vibrant communities in cities. This thesis will examine the creation of Métis cultural spaces in Winnipeg, Manitoba, as a community building strategy. It is situated in thirteen in-depth interviews with Métis community builders conducted in Winnipeg over the Summer of 2008. The Winnipeg Metis community is rhizomatic in makeup, situated not in geographic locations, but in the networks of instantaneous and spontaneous social interaction of community members and institutions—elders, political organizations and governance structures. Rhizomatic space is a form of social organization, which emerges out of everyday social life, and because it is only observable during the brief instances of human interaction, it is nearly invisible to outsiders and thus difficult to colonize. It is also a primary means by which Métis people are reclaiming space in their traditional homeland on the Red River. This paper theorizes an alternative tactic to resistance through a decentered form of political organization, grounded in the community and its organic institutions. It proposes that the everyday creation of social and cultural spaces in urban centres is an effective way to build urban indigenous communities with minimal interference or involvement of the State, and that this develops more or less organically without the need for bureaucratic oversight. The paper concludes that the everyday creation of rhizomatic space is a highly effective means of community building and resistance.

A new paradigm of Indigenous research is emerging, one that is linked into a broader movement of Indigenous resurgence and decolonization. As the first generation of scholars who have had regular contact with Indigenous professors, and belonging to a critical mass of educated, politically aware, and activist young people, new research principles are emerging that pose a challenge to the conservative academic status quo. Insurgent research is based on four key principles:

1.    Research is grounded in, respectful of, and ultimately seeks to validate Indigenous worldviews.

2.    Research output is geared towards use by Indigenous peoples, and in Indigenous communities.

3.    Research processes and final products are ultimately responsible to Indigenous communities, meaning that Indigenous communities are the final judges of validity and effectiveness of insurgent research.

4.    Research is action-oriented and works as a motivating factor for practical and direct action among Indigenous people, and in Indigenous communities.

This article discusses the role of research within Indigenous communities, grounded in an Indigenous knowledge system, and proposes an alternative to traditional extraction-oriented research methods that form the basis for mainstream academic research protocols.

To predict what is on the horizon of the Métis legal landscape, we can look to jurisprudence on First Nations’ rights, given that Métis rights cases are typically ten to fifteen years behind those of First Nations. With the release of the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in Tsilhqot’in, the next big issue in Métis law may be Métis title. Scholars have doubted the ability of Métis to establish Aboriginal title in Canada for two reasons: first, Métis were too mobile, and second, Métis were too immobile. This paper critically analyzes these positions and argues that the case for Métis title in Canada is a strong one. As such, governments in Canada would do well to focus on resolving outstanding Métis title claims.

Yukon First Nations and the waters within their traditional territories face a variety of socio-political and environmental pressures including the effects of historical and ongoing settler colonialism, global environmental change and mining activity. These communities are in the process of implementing Self-Government and Modern land claim agreements, which contain powerful acknowledgements of Indigenous rights and authorities, including the right to unaltered “water quality, quantity and rate of flow” on Settlement lands (∼10 percent of their traditional territories). Self-governing Yukon First Nations have real, although limited, legal authorities on Settlement Lands including the ability to enact laws that supersede territorial legislation. Through research conducted in partnership with four Yukon First Nations (Carcross/Tagish, Kluane, Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in and White River First Nations), I examine how these Indigenous governments are engaging the authorities acknowledged in Modern Land Claim and Self-Government Agreements to assert their rights and responsibilities to water as a more-than-human relation. In particular, I analyze the potential for the creation of legislation pertaining to water on Settlement Land. I engage with critical Indigenous scholarship to examine the challenges facing these communities and to reveal emerging approaches to Indigenous water governance. More specifically, I analyze the “state-like” bureaucracies that First Nations must develop to assert their sovereignty in this context. While these forms of governance are critiqued for bearing little resemblance to traditional forms of governance, I demonstrate how First Nations exercise self-determination as they strategically navigate these opportunities in order to protect water in a manner, they deem consistent with the values, principles and relationships of Indigenous water governance.

Our paper interrogates the ethics of digital pandemic surveillance from Indigenous perspectives. The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that Indigenous peoples are among the communities most negatively affected by pandemic infectious disease spread. Similarly to other racialized subpopulations, Indigenous people have faced strikingly high mortality rates from COVID-19 owing to structural marginalization and related comorbidities, and these high rates have been exacerbated by past and present colonial dominance. At the same time, digital pandemic surveillance technologies, which have been promoted as effective tools for mitigating a pandemic, carry risks for Indigenous subpopulations that warrant an urgent and thorough investigation. Building on decolonial scholarship and debates about Indigenous data sovereignty, we argue that should Indigenous communities wish to implement digital pandemic surveillance, then they must have ownership over these technologies, including agency over their own health data, how data are collected and stored, and who will have access to the data. Ideally, these tools should be designed by Indigenous peoples themselves to ensure compatibility with Indigenous cultures, ethics and languages and the protection of Indigenous lives, health and wellbeing.

The Legislative Assembly of Assiniboia (LAA) was the first democratically elected government in Manitoba. It replaced the Council of Assiniboia a group appointed by the HBC. The LAA was formed by Louis Riel’s Provisional Government and arose out of the Convention of Forty. The Legislative Assembly of Assiniboia functioned between March 9, 1870 and June 24, 1870. 21 of the 28 members were Metis. This was the government that voted to join Canada in Confederation.

There exist few examples of functioning water co-governance systems where Indigenous and settler colonial governments work together to share authority for water on a nation-to-nation basis. In this paper I examine the multiple barriers to achieving water co-governance, highlighted by a multidimensional framework including distributional, procedural and recognitional (in)justices. I apply this framework to a case study in the Yukon, Canada, which is based on research conducted in partnership with four out of fourteen Yukon First Nations (Carcross/Tagish, Kluane, Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in and White River First Nations); all are in areas where the water governance system is shaped by Indigenous water rights and authorities that are acknowledged in modern land claim and self-government agreements. Despite the many substantive and positive changes resulting from the explicit acknowledgement of Yukon First Nation water rights, I find that this system falls short of achieving co-governance. In particular, Yukon First Nations critiques highlight the limitations imposed by the continued assertion of 'Crown' jurisdiction over water and by the marginalisation of Indigenous legal orders that follows from the privileging of settler worldviews and forms of governance. Thus, co-governance arrangements depend not only on the distributional justice of shared jurisdiction; Indigenous legal orders and relationships to water must also be reflected in the procedural and recognitional justices of the decision-making processes and institutions that are developed.

This article identifies a seminal instance of Indigenous influence on Western thought. It does so by revealing a form of idea power exercised by Indigenous Americans: the power to transmit messages through the medium of people who came to meet and learn from them. In 1894, the Kwakwa̱ka̱'wakw people of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, invited the anthropologist Franz Boas to take part in their system of Indigenous governance, the potlatch. At a series of dances and feasts, Kwakwa̱ka̱'wakw leaders performed the notion of transformation, offering a dynamic vision of humanity as a single, varied, and constantly changing global community. Guided by an Indigenous intellectual, George Hunt, the Kwakwa̱ka̱'wakw civilized Boas into a new way of seeing. They turned him from a static concept of culture, focused on the differences between groups of people, toward a dynamic concept of culture, focused on the universality of global experience—an experience of diversity. To identify such episodes of Indigenous influence, scholars must open a new archive—the vast corpus of Indigenous thought and action compiled by anthropologists—and begin writing a truly global history of ideas.

This dissertation offers an analysis of the history of Métis political thought in the nineteenth century and its role in the anti-colonial resistances to Canada’s and Hudson’s Bay Company governance. Utilizing the Michif concepts of kaa-tipeyimishoyaahk and wahkohtowin to shed light on Métis political practices, this work argues that the Métis people had established themselves as an independent Indigenous people in the nineteenth century North West. By use of a common language of prairie diplomacy, Métis had situated themselves as a close “relation” of the Hudson’s Bay Company, but still politically independent of it. Nineteenth century Métis had repeatedly demonstrated their independence from British institutions of justice and politics, and were equally insistent that Canadian institutions had no authority over them. When they did choose to form a diplomatic relationship with Canada, it was decidedly on Métis terms. In 1869-1870, after repelling a Canadian official who was intended to establish Canadian authority over the North-West, the Métis formed a provisional government with their Halfbreed cousins to enter into negotiations with Canada to establish a confederal treaty relationship. The Provisional Government of Assiniboia then sent delegates to Ottawa to negotiate “the Manitoba Treaty,” a bilateral constitutional document that created a new province of Manitoba, that would contain a Métis/Halfbreed majority, as well as very specific territorial, political, social, cultural, and economic protections that would safeguard the Métis and Halfbreed controlled future of Manitoba. This agreement was embodied only partially in the oft-cited Manitoba Act, as several key elements of the agreement were oral negotiations that were later to be institutionalized by the Canadian cabinet, although were only ever partially implemented. These protections included restrictions on the sale of the 1.4 million acre Métis/Halfbreed land reserve, a commitment to establish a Métis/Halfbreed controlled upper-house in the new Manitoba legislature, a temporary limitation of the franchise to current residents of the North West, and restrictions on Canadian immigration to the new province until Métis lands were properly distributed. While these key components of the Manitoba Treaty were not included in the Manitoba Act, they remain a binding part of the agreement, and thus, an unfulfilled obligation borne by the contemporary government of Canada. Without adhering to Canada’s treaty with the Métis people, its presence on Métis lands, and jurisdiction over Métis people is highly suspect. Only by returning to the original agreement embodied by the Manitoba Act can Canada claim any legitimacy on Métis territories or any functional political relationship with the Métis people.

This article examines resource use among the Algonquin
and its change over time. Archaeological and historical
data show that the current importance of the moose for both food and clothing among Algonquin people is a relatively recent phenomenon: in pre-contact times up until the nineteenth century, small mammals such as beaver and hare were the most important animals used. The dichotomy between access rights to moose and fur-bearing animals also seems to be a recent phenomenon. As this dichotomy has been used as a major element in theoretical reconstructions of past territoriality and governance, this re-evaluation thus offers a renewed perspective on the history of family hunting territories among Algonquian peoples.

Cet article examine l’exploitation des ressources fauniques
chez les Algonquins et sa transformation historique. Les données archéologiques et historiques montrent que l’importance actuelle de l’original à la fois dans la diète et pour la fabrication de vêtements est un phénomène relativement récent. En effet, à la période antérieure au contact avec les Européens jusqu’au 19e siècle, les petits mammifères comme le castor et le lièvre étaient les espèces les plus consommées. La dichotomie observée entre les droits territoriaux associés aux animaux à fourrure et ceux associés aux orignaux semble aussi être un phénomène plutôt récent. Puisque cette dichotomie
a servi d’argument central dans la reconstitution des formes originelles de territorialité et de gouvernance, cet examen offre une perspective renouvelée sur l’histoire des territoires de chasse familiaux chez les Algonquiens.

This chapter from More Will Sing Their Way to Freedom (Elaine Coburn, ed.), examines the prospects of, and challenges to, living Nuu-chah-nulth-aht in contemporary times. At the heart of this examination is how Nuu-chah-nulth people struggle to maintain their identities and livelihoods in the context of rampant neoliberal economic development. Nuu-chah-nulth people have endured generations of colonial occupation and economic oppression, but of particular interest to me is the more recent challenge presented by the neoliberal development paradigm, which emphasizes individuality and self-reliance. There is nothing inherently wrong with concern for individuals or their capacity for self-reliance, but individuality at the expense of the collective can be problematic for Indigenous communities. Nuu-chah-nulth people have deployed various adaptive strategies since contact, but the question is whether recent strategies successfully integrate new practices into Nuu-chah-nulth ways of being or whether these new practices fundamentally transform those ways of being. I look at several examples of resistance, adaptive practices, some controversial practices, and resurgence to assess their implications for community revitalization.

This thesis examines the practices of Indigeneity, acts of Indigenous social and cultural traditions stemming from Teetł’it Gwich’in land-based culture in the Northwest Territories. By emphasizing Teetł’it Gwich’in philosophy, this project illustrates how Teetł’it Gwich’in practices of Indigeneity are rooted in their social, physical, and cultural relationship with the land, which are central to Gwich’in self-determination.  This thesis demonstrates traditional Teetł’it Gwich’in self-governance practices are driven by cultural and social norms rooted in traditional knowledge, as well as contemporary Gwich’in-Canada relations. Utilizing knowledge collected from Teetł’it Gwich’in elders, these first-hand accounts show the connection between Canada and the Teetł’it Gwich’in through state policies that impede Teetł’it Gwich’in self-determination. By examining these challenges to their cultural practices, Teetł’it Gwich’in worldviews rooted in land-based practices is considered the basis for Gwich’in self-determination rooted in the physical and cultural landscape of Gwich’in lands.

The Great Bear Rainforest (GBR) agreements are heralded as one of the most important conservation initiatives in the world. They are intended to result in the protection of eighty-five per cent of the coastal temperate rainforest landscape on the British Columbia coast and to see seventy percent of the rainforest returned to old-growth forest. A clear terrestrial environmental success, the negotiation process and agreements are equally important for their enlivenment of Aboriginal rights and the governance authority of the Indigenous communities of the central and north coasts within a colonial law context. After stakeholders wrangled largely over the details of ecosystem-based management, First Nations and the provincial government engaged in government-to-government negotiations that are yielding agreement on the exercise of Aboriginal rights across an intact landscape, funding and priority access for First Nations’ ventures as part of a conservation economy, and enhanced roles in decision making. In the absence of treaties and in a common law Aboriginal rights and title context, these agreements are a robust example of the movement toward reconciliation. The purpose of this article is to describe how the protection of the GBR and the expression of Aboriginal rights in that process has manifested in colonial law, and to examine these agreements in the context of reconciliation in Canada. While unique and ongoing, as all reconciliation efforts will be, the GBR agreements locate land-based protection and governance at their core. As an applied, ongoing initiative, these agreements give life to the concepts of joint decision making and underscore the nation- and place-specific context of any reconciliation process that must adapt over time.

The modern-day reinvigoration of individual Indigenous nations around the world is connected to broader simultaneous movements of Indigenous nationhood worldwide. The origins, implications, philosophies, and diversities of Indigenous resurgences and resistances continue to be discussed in the growing body of literature on Indigenous governance.This article builds on these discussions by focusing on the applied tools and strategies of Indigenous resurgence. In the context of the Pacific herring fishery in British Columbia, Canada, this research explores the strategies and tools used by three Indigenous coastal nations to apply pressure on the colonial government to abdicate its asserted authority over herring governance. Motivated by a time-honored relationship to herring, we discuss how these Indigenous nations have strategized to try to regain authority over herring governance to protect species and Indigenous access to the fishery. We then discuss this ocean-based resurgence in the context of global Indigenous movements for the reassertion of self-determining authority.

The discourse of governance on the continent of Africa focuses primarily on achieving and imbibing Western values and ideals. Africans on the other hand, are highly invested in their indigenous culture, socially, so what is the relationship between indigenous culture and contemporary governance. This study focuses on the nature and to what extent indigenous culture influences governing practices in contemporary Africa using Ayittey’s (1991) summary of the features of the African indigenous political system.
Using a mixed methods approach participants in the study were asked to fill out a semi-structured survey of indicator questions corresponding to the features of the African indigenous political system. The participants of the study comprised of Members of Parliament, a traditional Chief, and citizenry.
The results indicate that Ghana’s current political dispensation lacks real incorporation of indigenous governance, specifically as it relates to citizens’ influence on government, decentralization of the polity, decision-making by consensus and effective participatory democracy.
On the basis of the results, it is recommended that; first Ghana’s legislature be decentralized through regional parliamentary sessions, secondly, the powers of the executive be reduced, thirdly creating a constitution that is built on indigenous governing principles and finally building an indigenous political system.

Contrary to the claims of European empires, Indigenous peoples in the North-West exercised more or less unconstrained political authority over most of their lands both before and after 1870. However, throughout the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, British and Canadian institutions mobilized a complex array of legal arguments to claim posses- sion of huge expanses of territory they “discovered” but did not control. For the most part, Canadian political institutions have traced their ownership of the North-West to the Hudson’s Bay Company transfer in 1870, which is rooted in the problematic logic of the Doctrine of Discovery. Therefore, this article shows that at the heart of Canadian claims to ownership of Indigenous lands in the North-West lies an impractical mythology that, in the words of John Borrows, allowed the Crown to secure legal control of Indigenous lands through “raw assertion.”3 In demonstrating this point, I critically analyze five major public political events that position the Hudson’s Bay Company trans- fer agreement as the foundation of Canada’s 1870 assertion of sovereignty over the North-West. These events include: (1) the British Crown’s initial dis- covery claim at Hudson Bay; (2) the Hudson’s Bay Company Charter of 1670; (3) the Selkirk Grant of 1811 and Treaty of 1817; (4) Canada’s North-West discovery via New France; and (5) the HBC transfer agreement in 1869. This article demonstrates that Canada’s political claims to ownership over the North-West lay in problematic claims of sovereignty made by British and Ca- nadian explorers, politicians, and businessmen, using language of discovery and sovereignty to obscure Indigenous governance already in practice. These claims are further complicated as they are more assertively invoked at the moment of a settler-colonial transition in the North-West, and are bound up in the changing status of an Indigenous-centered fur trade economy with a new settler project that sought to displace Indigenous peoples from the land both conceptually and physically.

Water is fundamental to Indigenous ways of life. Specific Indigenous peoples maintain distinct and mul- tifaceted sociocultural relations to water, yet the legacy of colonialism globally means that communities around the world face similar challenges to protecting these relations. The role of Indigenous peoples and their sociocultural relations to water is currently under acknowledged in the water governance literature. Through a case study of the Koyukon Athabascan people of Ruby, Alaska, this article examines how the explicit analysis of hydrosocial relations facilitates conceptualization of Indigenous water governance. Participatory research methods involving semistructured interviews and traditional use mapping were employed to document the hydrosocial relations of the people of Ruby, which water law and policy in Alaska does not adequately recognize. This study contributes to the literature in two ways. First, an engagement with the hydrosocial literature makes explicit the distinct sociocultural relations to water maintained by all human communities and the existence of these multiple normative orders within the same political space, where the hydrosocial relations of some populations are privileged over others. Second, it contributes to the conceptualization of Indigenous water governance by exploring the extent to which Indigenous peoples in the Yukon River Basin, including the people of Ruby, are engaging in multi- ple strategies to assert their sovereignty. These strategies include recognition-based approaches such as litigation to gain legal recognition of Indigenous water rights and Indigenous alternatives without refer- ence to state recognition such as the development of community-based water monitoring programs.

Improving Aboriginal community governance is increasingly recognised as pivotal to closing the gap in social and economic outcomes between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians.  The past decade has seen a shift in Indigenous policy from a preoccupation with national governance structures and a broader human rights agenda to a focus on governments engaging directly with local Indigenous communities to address the specific manifestations of Indigenous disadvantage.  In discrete Aboriginal settlements, community governments are central to this new strategy, both as advocates for community needs and as agencies for program and service delivery.  Yet Aboriginal Councils have had a chequered history, leading to persistent misgivings about their capacity to achieve desired outcomes. 
There is a dearth of empirical evidence about ‘what works and what doesn’t’ in the unique and challenging context of Aboriginal community governance.  The current study was motivated by the desire to discover what is required for an Aboriginal Council to be successful in achieving the outcomes desired by its constituents.  Specifically, what governance attributes contribute to successful Aboriginal community government performance?  Moreover, the research sought to delve deeper, to seek answers to the more fundamental question concerning the contextual, historical or cultural factors that shape a particular Aboriginal community’s approach to governance, whether successful or unsuccessful.  The research involved three case studies of Aboriginal Councils, in the far north Queensland communities of Yarrabah, Hope Vale and Lockhart River. 
Unlike previous studies of Indigenous community governance, the research design included a detailed assessment of the level of performance achieved by each Council, revealing one high-performing Council and two Councils whose performance was generally poor.  An assessment of performance covering each Council outcome area is essential in order to make valid causal inferences about the specific determinants of Council performance.  The study adopted a holistic conception of performance, focusing on the extent to which the Councils were achieving the particular set of outcomes desired by their constituents.  Such an approach recognises that different communities seek different outcomes from their community governments and that desired outcomes will include not only deliverables such as programs and services but also preferences about governance processes, which will reflect cultural values.  The study’s focus on Council performance recognises that, regardless of underlying questions about the appropriateness of imported Western governance structures, in practice residents of Indigenous communities express strong expectations that their elected Councils will deliver services and programs that meet their needs and aspirations and improve their quality of life.  Within the constraints of prevailing legislative and policy frameworks, Indigenous communities exhibit considerable pragmatism in their efforts to optimise opportunities for self-determination through developing their community governments.
The case study data canvassed a wide range of governance attributes, institutions and practices suggested by the literature as important to governmental performance, in both indigenous and other contexts.  The analysis found that a particular configuration of ‘orthodox’ governance principles and practices was necessary for successful Aboriginal Council performance, comprising: a strategic orientation based on a shared vision, a clear separation of powers, institutionalising the rule of law, positive and strategic engagement with government, targeted community engagement and an effective and efficient administration featuring a commitment to sound financial management, a stable workforce and human resource management practices that value, support and develop staff.  The research further identified the key contextual factors that had shaped the distinct approaches to governance in the three communities.  These are significant in explaining why some Aboriginal Councils adopt the particular mix of governance attributes that are necessary to improve their performance, while others do not.  Key contextual factors include: a resource base of education and skills within the community that matches the needs of the community government; a pool of community members who have had a significant degree of exposure to the outside world; strongly egalitarian political norms underpinning a ‘whole of community’ orientation to governance; and a commitment to overcoming the historical legacy of dependency through a willingness to take responsibility for community government outcomes.  These findings provide an indication about the strategies that need to be pursued for Aboriginal community governments to effectively meet the needs and aspirations of their constituents and realise their promise as instruments of self-determination.

This paper examines the multifaceted components that need to be addressed first, in a good way, in order to eventually evaluate the success of restorative justice methods for: First Nation, Métis [FNMI] and Inuit offenders- to effectively decrease the overrepresentation of young Indigenous peoples in the Canadian criminal justice system. I will analyze literature on the health of Indigenous communities, legal relationships, colonialism, and restoration. The literature review highlights common threads that co-exist to explain the phenomenon of Indigenous over-representation in the Canadian criminal justice system and the inability of current methods to remedy this issue as they only perceive this as a criminal-justice issue, not a multifaceted one.
What this paper focuses on is responding to the common themes that unearth over-incarceration which exist primarily outside of a criminal justice lens. Most reception to this issue thus far has proclivities in generating policy framed around temporary solutions within the understanding that the increasing numbers of Indigenous offenders is strictly a criminal justice problem- not a social, economic political or spiritual one. This is proven false throughout the literature review as the evidence reflects that isolating the concern of over-representation to a criminal justice lens has in turn exasperated the issue. This is because no attention is harnessed in assessing the causes of criminality, nor is there enough emphasis on the effectiveness of Indigenous ethics, methodologies and relations as procedural alternatives to a colonial system that perpetuates structural dominance over First Nation, Metis and Inuit lives. I propose a multifaceted hypothesis on how to correct all aspects of this issue. The multifaceted approach uses themes collected throughout the literature review and intersects them, critically, to decolonize our understanding of Indigenous offenders by shifting our purview outside of criminal justice explanations to better address the overwhelming amount of incarcerated FNMI peoples.

Inter-governmental relationships involving tribes must be respectful of tribal sovereignty and native people’s rights, yet most non-Native public managers are not educated about this and thus are unprepared to engage constructively in collaboration with tribal governments. This chapter provides a basic orientation to tribal sovereignty, self-determination, reservations and ceded territories, and Public Law 280, and illuminates their relevance to nearly any policy domain, including child welfare, education, economic development, land use and planning, environmental stewardship, and law enforcement. While there are positive examples of constructive and mutually respectful synergy, unfortunately there are also many instances of antagonistic failures to collaborate, with damaging consequences for Native and non-Native communities. I illustrate these complex dynamics through a single policy issue – roadway safety in reservations – before concluding with a summary of a few key takeaways for exploring collaboration with tribal governments.

KEYWORDS
● Tribal sovereignty
● Indigenous governance
● Tribes and intergovernmental relationships
● Native self-determination
● American Indian reservations
● Roadway safety in reservations

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 purpose of this article is to demonstrate how Elizabeth Rata's (2000) concept of neotribal capitalism can be used to better understand and illuminate the nature and practices of contemporary indigenous governments in the United States. The focus is especially on the workings of neotraditionalist ideology: how it conceals and depoliticizes the class relations at the heart of neotribal society; how this ideology serves to insulate these neotribes from criticism; and how it serves to promote capital accumulation. This is done through an examination of two thematic groupings of relevant issues in contemporary indigenous and scholarly discourses: the interconnected and interrelated issues around labor, class consciousness, and unionization within indigenous communities; and issues of indigenous identity, tribal citizenship, and the politics around the movement for disenrollment.

Canada is not just a patchwork of varying heritage governance delineated by provincial and territorial boundaries but a maelstrom of contesting and overlapping practices and processes originating from state and non-state actors. Since the 1990s, this patchwork of governance has increasingly diffused into Indigenous and local spheres through the negotiation of formal (treaties, legislation) and semi-formal (memoranda of understanding) agreements. Ideological tensions persist between the design aspirations of resurgent Indigenisms and Canadian late modern state processes. The resurgence of Indigenous capacities and institutions with a heritage management mandate has also created Indigenous jurisdictions not premised in any nation-to-nation agreement.

While gender and age are often noted as being important dimensions of Indigenous leadership and governance,
they have rarely been examined in detail. This paper focuses specifically on the gender and age of directors on the boards of prescribed bodies corporate (PBCs), the corporations established to hold and/or manage native title rights and interests.
A predominant view persists of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women as excluded or marginalised in native title. Statistical data for the year 2011–12 reveals, however, that women’s representation on PBC boards is higher than that found in mainstream sectors, while the literature reveals a complex picture of cultural, historical, demographic, institutional and intercultural factors that influence men’s and women’s participation and power in the native title arena.
A key generational concern is the relatively low number of older people and the growing number of young people in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population. Viewed in relation to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population and projected changes, the pool of potential PBC directors looks likely to grow in coming years. This paper argues that, as an increasingly significant sector, PBCs have the potential to both contribute to and benefit from the strengthening of community capacity but this potential will not be realised until the constraints on the capacity of PBCs to meet their statutory obligations and pursue native title holder aspirations are addressed.

The National Water Commission recognises the need to better understand the interests and rights that Indigenous people have in accessing and managing Australia’s water resources.
There are many challenges for meaningful Indigenous engagement in Australia’s water management; but there are also many opportunities. This report sets out, state by state, how legislative and governance mechanisms have developed to respond to the National Water Initiative 2004 (NWI).
Under the NWI, states have committed to ensuring that Indigenous needs in relation to water access and management are recognised in water entitlements and planning by:
• including Indigenous representation in water planning, wherever possible
• incorporating Indigenous social, spiritual and customary objectives and strategies for achieving these objectives, wherever they can be developed
• taking account of the possible existence of native title rights to water and potentially allocating water to native title holders
• accounting for any water allocated to native title holders for traditional cultural purposes.
The capacity for these commitments to benefit Indigenous people is weakened in several ways:
• They are mainly discretionary – they are commitments to act ‘where possible’.
• They offer little guidance to water planners, who must balance competing priorities for water use, with limited knowledge of Indigenous water requirements.
• They are limited to protecting Indigenous customary values, which are interpreted as non-commercial interests. This means that economic development is not included.
• They frame Indigenous water entitlements as part of the legal requirements of native title—but given the partial, limited and fragmented nature of native title rights, this is likely to be a weak foundation.

Approaches to implementing the NWI vary greatly state by state. This report not only explores the specifically water-related Indigenous participation mechanisms, but it also looks at how other emerging governance structures can and do interface with water planning processes. In 2009 the National Water Commission’s biennial assessment of progress in implementing the NWI found that Indigenous economic, cultural and spiritual interests should be more effectively incorporated into planning, including by specifically providing for Indigenous water requirements and by effectively engaging Indigenous people in water planning processes. This finding is still accurate now, but notable progress has been made during the past year and a half. Individual water sharing plans are beginning to provide for specific cultural interests as identified in consultation and research reports, and some limited steps are being taken towards allocating water for economic use and native title holders.

The emergence and strengthening of Indigenous-led governance organisations have also provided an opportunity for states to move beyond Indigenous ‘representation’ in order to engage in a more meaningful participation process in water planning efforts. Examples include the New South Wales Local Aboriginal Land Councils, Victoria’s Registered Aboriginal Parties, and the Aboriginal Statewide Advisory Committee in South Australia. Co-management arrangements for specific water resources, either with government or the private sector, are a model that has appeared in Western Australia. How these groups will participate and be engaged in water management planning remains to be seen. Also, official water planning bodies in some predominantly Indigenous-owned areas, such as the Tiwi Islands in Northern Territory or Alinytjara Wilurara in South Australia, are controlled by Indigenous people.
Many states see Indigenous water as a component of environmental flows, however it has become necessary to consider the relationship of cultural or Indigenous water to environmental flows and whether or not a separate allocation is required. The difficulties surrounding the quantification of cultural water and Indigenous water may present a barrier to cultural and Indigenous allocation. The lack of available methodologies for assessing flow requirements to sustain Indigenous values prevents the transparent negotiation of trade-offs surrounding allocation decisions. In Queensland, this has been addressed through the Wild Rivers Act 2005 and the subsequent Cape York Peninsula Heritage Act 2007, which provide for Indigenous reserves in water determined to be Wild Rivers. In the Northern Territory, two water allocation plans have specific allocations for Indigenous requirements.

Currently, many water sharing plans are not yet finalised or are due for review: this provides an opportunity to influence the outcomes. There is also growing interest in the economic use of waters in Northern Australia, which will increase consumptive demand in the future. This makes it imperative to secure Indigenous interests now, before problems of overallocation are allowed to develop.

This article examines the implementation of Greenland’s self-government (commonly
referred to as self-rule) through an analysis of the Greenland government in the first four years of the
Greenland Self-Government Act (SGA). Greenland and its government are numerically dominated
by the Inuit, one of the indigenous peoples of the Arctic. The article begins with an overview of
Greenland as a country and its political development, from a Danish colony to the 2009
Greenland SGA. After explaining Greenland’s governance structure and the role of Inuit
governance in Greenland’s parliamentary system, it analyses the implementation process of the
self-government agreement. It is argued that the SGA with its main focus on modern nationbuilding
within the framework of Western institutionalism constitutes a unique means of
implementing indigenous self-government. It revisits the norm of the right of indigenous peoples
to self-determination understood primarily as a collective human right and sets a precedent within
the framework of indigenous rights in international law.

A cruise ship slipped unannounced into Molokai’s Kaunakakai Harbor one quiet morning in October, 2011 with thirty-some malihini (tourists). They hiked to Hālawa Falls, snorkelled and kayaked along uncrowded beaches that also serve as prized fishing grounds for a predominantly Native Hawaiian population relying on traditional, subsistence livelihoods. Shaking their heads, many asked, “Who were these guys? Why so mahaʻoi (nosey)?! They just come here and don’t ask permission – they disrespect our cultural protocols!” A representative of the ʻAha Kiole, the island’s traditional governance body that facilitates community discussions and decision-making on issues impacting bio-cultural resources, invited Dan Blanchard, CEO of American Safari Cruises, to explain his intentions and respond to community concerns. He refused and cited his superior right to safe harbor under the U.S. Commerce Clause. Furthermore, he already met with the “community” – a handful of tour operators and vendors – five years prior. The next day, protestors demanded participation in the ʻAha Kiole decision-making process. Unheeded, the tours continued. The protestors renewed their efforts and successfully blocked the harbor with their fishing boats when the cruise ship attempted to anchor. Incensed with the activists for imperiling Hawaiʻi’s multi-million dollar tourism industry, Governor Abercrombie sent a SWAT team and gun boats to enforce a harbor security zone and the cruise ship’s safe entry. This served only to tighten the community’s resolve to protect its shores. Ultimately, all stakeholders engaged in community meetings hosted by the ʻAha Kiole to reach mutual agreement that included viewing a community-produced orientation video on Molokaʻi before disembarking on her shores; prohibiting tours of sensitive cultural sites and traditional subsistence areas; limiting the amount of visits and tourist numbers to sustainable levels; increasing patronage with local vendors; and contributing a percentage of cruise ship revenues to a community fund for natural and cultural resource management.

The struggle for Aboriginal rights in Canada is closely connected with resource conflicts. The threat of mining projects, hydroelectric dams, pipeline construction, and other industrial developments have often pushed Aboriginal groups to mobilize in order to reclaim control over traditional lands. As a number of chapters in this book have demonstrated, many Aboriginal peoples have fought to prevent mining developments or have struggled against the harmful effects of mines on their lives and lands. The mining industry and nation-states have dispossessed Aboriginal groups of their territories and sovereignty on so many occasions that scholars often automatically situate the relationship between Aboriginal peoples and mining as a conflict. Yet increasingly, some Aboriginal governments are choosing to negotiate with mining companies and are entering into Impact and Benefit Agreements and development proposals. Some analysts have connected the shift from protest to negotiation with hegemonic neoliberal values and practices. The current global economy encourages states to facilitate the unimpeded exploitation of resources, and neoliberal governance tends to prioritize decentralization, a sense of responsibility for self-improvement, and decreased dependency on the state. How does the willingness of Aboriginal governments to negotiate with mining interests, therefore, correlate with Aboriginal goals of self-determination? What are the implications of this engagement with neoliberal projects?
This chapter explores these questions by examining how Inuit in Nunatsiavut, Labrador, have dealt with the prospect of a uranium mine on their territory since the 1950s, and how the relationship between neoliberal and Inuit goals has become complex and entangled. Based on a year of ethnographic fieldwork in Labrador in 2007-8, as well as on archival and media analysis, this chapter examines the historical articulation between changing and contradictory ideas about Aboriginal rights, economic development, and regional autonomy. By attending to the diverse perspectives of individuals and organizations, I illustrate the lived experience of regional and global processes such as modernization, Aboriginal self-government, and emerging neoliberalism, and explore how Inuit self-government and mining have become interconnected in unexpected ways.