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The Algebra Of Pluralism: Subjective Experience As A Constitutional Variable, Barbara J. Flagg

Vanderbilt Law Review

Adzan Bedonie is a Navajo woman who speaks no English, holds tightly to traditional Navajo beliefs, and lives in a one-room hogan on the wrong side of the line drawn by a federal court to partition Navajo and Hopi lands.' The law that mandates her relocation and thus threatens to sever what for her is a spiritual connection to the land on which she lives offers a potential escape route: Congress provided for a limited number of life estates for older individuals subject to relocation. But Adzan Bedonie, like most elderly Navajo, has not applied for a life estate, because …