Indigenous, Indian, and Aboriginal Law Commons^™

Making Noise Through Law: Indigenous Legal Mobilisation Against A Power Plant In “French” Guiana, Pierre Auzerau

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

In so-called “French” Guiana, or Guyane, the Kali’na village of Atopo Wipi has fought for years against a hydrogen power plant being built on their land. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2023 and 2024 in Guyane and Western Europe, where I collaborated with various stakeholders to support Atopo Wipi’s resistance to the power plant, my research focuses on the legal dimensions of the Kali’na’s struggle to protect their land. Specifically, this article examines how the Kali’na navigated different normative frameworks, including international human rights standards and French law, to fight the project. Through this analysis, I show how the …

When Words Flow Like Water: How The Enbridge Line 3 Pipeline Environmental Impact Statement Failed To Prevent Hydrogeologic Harm In Minnesota, Carly Gutzmann

Journal of Earth and Life Science

For the aquifers of Minnesota, the environmental impact statement (EIS) was a promise of protection that never left the page. An environmental impact statement is meant to be an aid in the decision making process in order to ensure that projects consider potential environmental harms that may occur. However, they are often used instead as another regulatory box to check, rather than as active considerations when planning. As such, a project plan can be flawed from the start—if project developers only consider environmental impacts after they have already put considerable time, effort, and funding into their project as-is, they may …

Indigenous Land Seizure & Environmental Injustice: Impacts Of Settler Colonialism, Lydia Moorman

Journal of Earth and Life Science

The fields of conservation and environmentalism prioritize ecosystem health, yet both emerged from western frameworks that displaced and criminalized Indigenous land stewardship. The idealization of “pristine wilderness” narratives served to justify the removal of Indigenous peoples from their homelands and erased millennia of sustainable land stewardship that had maintained ecological balance long before western conservation existed. These narratives not only misrepresented Indigenous relationship with land but also constructed a false dichotomy between humans and nature that positioned Indigenous presence as a threat rather than a source of ecological knowledge. Simultaneously, anthropogenic expansion; such as pipelines, mining, railroads, and other extractive …

Investigating The Relationship Between Noun Classes And Plant Folk Taxonomy In Chasu Language Of Kilimanjaro Region In Tanzania, Peter Rabson Mziray

Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

The current study investigates the relationship between noun classes and plant folk taxonomy in Chasu (G 22). The study focuses on two objectives: the first objective is to describe the plant folk taxonomy in Chasu and the second objective is to determine the relationship between noun classes and plant folk taxonomy in Chasu. Data were collected from rural villages in Same and Mwanga districts by using free listing, field interviews (jungle-walk-and-identify), and written texts containing Chasu plant names. The findings reveal that Chasu folk taxonomy reflects different ethnobotanical categories; including a unique beginner which is mmea/mimea ‘plant(s)’, and three life …

Re-Imagine Paradise: The Impacts Of The Illegal Annexation Of Hawai'i & Tourism On Native Hawaiians, Paige Edwards

SMU Journal of Undergraduate Research

This literature review presents a vital exploration of colonialism, the illegal annexation of Hawai’i, and the subsequent emergence of the tourism industry as a neocolonial enterprise. Neocolonialism is the process of colonial dominance through modern exploitation, which is masked through economic opportunities and has left territories and their native people dependent on it. By tracing the major historical events in Hawai’i highlights how education was a vital aspect of Native Hawaiian culture, empowering its people - a stark contrast to the current education system where the education system perpetuates the commodification of Native Hawaiian culture. Education has played a pivotal …

Recognizing Injustice, Reclaiming Voices: Establishing A Missing Persons Database For Missing And Murdered Indigenous Women And Children In Nebraska, Bayly W. Watson

Department of Anthropology: Theses and Student Research

Indigenous people have been the victims of harsh persecution since the time of colonization; this has negatively impacted Native communities and has contributed significantly to the ongoing crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Children (MMIWC) across the United States and Canada. Under Legislative Bill 154, Richards et al. (2021) conducted an initial study to identify missing Native cases in Nebraska and in 2023, the Attorney General appointed a Missing and Murdered Indigenous People (MMIP) Liaison to help combat the number of missing Indigenous in the state. This thesis contributes to previous research by analyzing 20,049 reports from three …

Statutes And Special Interests, Kirsten Matoy Carlson

Northwestern University Law Review

Who really decides what statutes say? Most Americans think that special interests play an outsized role in our lawmaking processes. Yet empirical studies have produced little evidence that special interests get everything, or even most of, what they ask for from Congress. This Article takes an innovative new approach to tackling the difficult question of how advocates influence legislation. It presents the first comprehensive empirical study of how advocates influence the law through amendments in the legislative process. The Article analyzes an original dataset of 2,137 witnesses and their testimony at referral hearings on 108 Indian-related bills in the 97th …

Identifying Intangible And Biocultural Heritage Elements Toward Environmental Understanding: Engaging Stakeholders Through Art, Martha B. Lerski

Publications and Research

Grounded in a case study in Barbuda in the Caribbean, this research examines sustainability from the perspective of what arts and heritage can contribute to community engagement and local and broader understandings about the environment. This article documents a growing body of literature recognizing the role of arts and culture, including local knowledge and traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), in climate change endeavors. Art and TEK present expansive world views. Contextual information situates research done on the island of Barbuda pre- and post-Hurricane Irma. Visual arts workshops engaged community members in mixed methods research. Results documented cultural elements, particularly intangible and …

Land Back To Right Of Return: Proposing Paths Forward In Palestine, Melanie Kallah

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis presents a parallel case study of the settler colonial histories of Canada and Palestine. The Land Back Movement was first analyzed to determine what conditions enabled the success of Indigenous land restitution in Canada. Subsequently, a cross-analysis with Palestine was conducted to ascertain whether the same enabling conditions could facilitate Palestinian land restitution, known as the Right of Return.

Ineligible Partners: Tribal Nations And Cooperative Federalism In The Historical Development Of National Forest Law And Policy, James H. Baker

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Lands within the National Forest System (NFS), like all federal public lands, are rooted in Aboriginal Title and were once exclusively inhabited by Indigenous peoples and communities. Through the process of treaty-making, the federal government amassed millions of acres of ceded Tribal lands, many of which are now managed by federal public land agencies, including 194 million acres managed by the U.S. Forest Service (USFS). Several Tribes reserved various use and property rights on these lands that are protected by the U.S. Constitution’s Treaty and Supremacy Clauses. The federal government also has an overarching trust obligation to Tribes – a …

(Un)Worlding With Karipuna’S Shadowy Alliances: The Mirangã And The Isolados, Hanmin Kin

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

This ethnographically inspired article investigates the ways in which the Karipuna Indigenous people in Rondônia defend their land in the Western Brazilian Amazon against forces of deforestation and dispossession. I focus on the Karipuna’s plurivalent and collective forest spirits called the mirangã, through life experience accounts of two survivors from the “pre-contact” era who embody the Karipuna-mirangã connection. Through an analysis of the onto-epistemological entanglements in which the mirangã and my interlocutors are situated, I articulate another front of the Karipuna’s multi-faceted resistance: the struggle of worlding vis-à-vis the non-indigenous world. This process also reveals the association (from …

Rights Of Nature: The Indigenous-Led Movement For Sovereignty And A Sustainable Future, Kathryn Schug, Ted Gordon

The Journal of Social Encounters

The rights of nature movement works to grant legal rights to beings other than humans. Led by Indigenous communities across the globe, the movement is grounded in commonly shared Indigenous beliefs that regard non-human beings as are our relatives and as deserving of the same legal rights as humans. Grounded in Indigenous worldviews, the rights of nature movement pursues the twin goals of creating an environmentally sustainable future and enshrining legal protections for Indigenous values and practices. This article explores how the White Earth Nation, a federally recognized Ojibwe tribal government in Minnesota became the first in the United States …

Settler Colonialism And Ecosystem Change: How Ideology Has Shaped Minnesota’S Environments, Sarah E. Hobby

History Honors Projects

The formation of a uniquely American land ethic—defined by European political history and Christian biblical doctrine and forged through systems of dispossession—is central to the creation of environments within the United States today. Using Minnesota as a microcosm to understand how settler colonial interactions played out all across the United States, this paper analyzes connections between violent dispossession of Indigenous people and the degradation of environments. By understanding how Ojibwe and Dakota people think about and have shaped Minnesotan lands throughout their history and comparing Indigenous land-ethics to the Euro-American-settler land ethic, this paper evaluates the role that ideology and …

Pathways For Recognition: Indigenous Land Rights In Panamá, Caruna Gillespie, William Ascher

CMC Senior Theses

Indigenous communities in Panamá face the same challenge that many Indigenous communities experience around the globe: a lack of recognition of their land rights. Over the last several decades, the Panamanian government has developed policies and ratified international agreements that recognize Indigenous rights. The comarcas that institutionalize these rights have had some success. However, despite a seemingly progressive framework for recognition, Indigenous communities across the country continuously have their rights violated by conservation projects and resource extraction efforts in the name of economic development. The Panamanian government crafts recognition policies using loopholes, exceptions, and ambiguous language that allow for them …

Criminalization Of Community-Based Ecotourism (Cbet) In Indonesia: The Cases Of Pari Island, Kepulauan Seribu, Janthi Dharma Shanty, Bono Budi Priambodo

Journal of Indonesian Tourism and Policy Studies

Pari islanders have revamped their island into cultural ecotourism destination since 2010. It has been successful because the activities have diverted the islanders’ dependence on the hard-pressed local coastal and fisheries resources and supplemented their income. This is a win-win situation the Indonesian government seeks to create with the 2007 Coastal Zone and Small Islands Management Law where natural conservation benefits local populace economically. The Law stipulates, among others, that community participation is one of the integrated coastal zone management principles. The Law also prioritizes coastal zones for conservation and tourism activities. Pari islanders thus have already implemented the imperatives …

Science, Technology, Engineering, And Mathematics (Stem) Project-Based Learning (Pbl) Education: A New Mexico Case Study For Equity And Inclusion, Kimberly A. Scheerer

Teacher Education, Educational Leadership & Policy ETDs

This research addresses how student participation in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) project-based learning (PBL) education activities encourages underrepresented minority student achievement in STEM career field trajectories. Seven New Mexico high school counselors and 12 STEM organization personnel were interviewed during this study. Their responses represent the nuanced professional voices where New Mexico public education intersects with STEM student interest and cultural influence.

For students, STEM PBL can foster deep integration across educational disciplines and enhance STEM career trajectory interest and readiness. STEM education converged with PBL methodologies has the ability to leverage community support while broadening student networks. …

The Youth Inferno: Two-Way Working On Ancestral Lands, Pamela Nathan

New England Journal of Public Policy

In this article I present some of the work of Creating a Safe and Supportive Environment (CASSE) in Central Australia, Northern Territory, with the youth in the justice system, referring to our dual cultural and therapeutic program Shields for Living, Tools for Life. Psychoanalytic concepts and tools that have informed the work and transformed the trauma landscape are detailed. The work is at the epicenter of anger, concern, and politics in Central Australia and this epicenter has been named the “youth crisis.” It is a journey of feeling the heat, of being on a rollercoaster ride in a landscape of …

Tribal Resilience And Community Plans: A Primer For Tribal Communities Looking To Create Their Own, Karly Newcomb

Virginia Coastal Policy Center

This paper serves as an overview of various Tribal resilience plans across the nation and community planning efforts in Virginia. Although each plan is particularly detailed to address one locality’s specified areas of concern, the plans are fully adaptable to meet any community’s particular needs. Additionally, the paper includes a synthesis of commonalities that these plans share with the goal of providing an overview of resilience plan options and strategies that can be used as a framework for Tribal communities looking to create their own plans.

This abstract has been taken from the author's introduction.

Tribal Communities And State And Local Governments: Existing Relationships, Mikayla Mangle

Virginia Coastal Policy Center

Tribal and state/local governments have maintained a unique and crucial relationship throughout the United States’ history. Today, state and federally recognized Tribes sometimes face obstacles when attempting to implement projects due to state or local government opposition and vice versa. Federally recognized Tribes are sovereign, self-governing entities on equal footing with state governments. State recognized tribes, on the other hand, may not be equal to state governments, depending on the state laws regarding tribal state recognition. State recognized tribes do not have the same benefits as federally recognized tribes in that the tribe’s status is recognized by the state but …

A Study Of Tribal Communication Frameworks: Some Approaches To Building Partnerships Between Tribal, State, And Local Governments In Virginia, Karly Newcomb, Abigail Sisti

Virginia Coastal Policy Center

This paper discusses options the Commonwealth could consider when evaluating decision-making processes that affect tribes in Virginia, with the goal of improving communication and collaboration between tribal, state, and local governments; and will highlight key case studies from other states and localities that provide precedents. The following options are based on a framework of free, prior, and informed consent, which emphasizes self-determination and an individual right to pursue economic, social, and cultural development. This framework can be applied to decision making and projects for any topic. Moving forward, government-to-government communication will be key to developing solutions to pressing issues such …

Treaty Stories: Reclaiming The Unbroken History Of Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe Sovereignty, Margaret Huettl

Department of History: Faculty Publications

Ojibwe leaders negotiated treaties with the United States amid nineteenth-century encroachments on their territory. These treaties, which were more than tools of dispossession, enfolded and extended aadizookanag (sacred stories) in agreements that embodied Ojibwe relationships with land, language, sacred history, ceremony, and kin. Federal and state policy makers, fueled by the desire for Indian land and resources, attempted to unravel these relationships in the decades that followed. By continuing to live out through labor and stories their relationships with the woods, waters, and manoomin (wild rice) beds of Anishinaabewaki, the Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibweg kept their treaties and their sovereignty …

Indigenous Communities Versus Oil Companies: Identifying Trends In Tactics And Success Of Indigenous-Led Anti-Petroleum Movements In The Ecuadorian Amazon, Ella V. H. Carlson

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

In roughly the last 50 years, the Ecuadorian Amazon has become the epicenter of petroleum production in Ecuador. As oil companies attempt to exploit more and more of the rainforest, they have encroached on indigenous lands, leading to violations of indigenous rights through environmental destruction. As their territories have been invaded, indigenous groups throughout the Amazon have formed movements large and small in resistance to petroleum activities. Scholars have studied select campaigns in the past, but the literature lacks a comparative review of the characteristics of those movements. This paper compiles histories of seven campaigns against petroleum in the Ecuadorian …

Sports Betting And Indian Gaming: Overcoming Barriers To Market Entry And Integration Of Sports Books Into Tribal Casinos, Steve Light

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

Abstract

Even before the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision In Murphy v. NCAA (2018) permitting states to legalize sports wagering, the biggest brand-names in gaming worldwide were positioning themselves to capitalize on the fan base for America’s most recognizable sports leagues.

Sports wagering already is up and running in five states; analysts predict that more than half the states will legalize it within five years. Many will be among the 29 states that currently have casinos owned and operated by American Indian tribes in this $32.4 billion market segment.

There is no firm sense and little data pointing to …

Resolving Conflict Between Canada’S Indigenous Peoples And The Crown Through Modern Treaties: Yukon Case History, Kirk Cameron

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article presents an example of how modern treaties with Yukon First Nations have created a foundation for co-relational involvement in the direction and control of land and resource management throughout Canada’s subnational region of Yukon, approximately 470,000 square kilometers in size. The modern treaties with eleven of the fourteen Yukon First Nations create assessment and management structures where appointment to these bodies are nominations not only from the territorial and federal governments but from the Yukon First Nations. The rights captured in the treaties are protected under Canada’s supreme law, the Constitution Act, 1982. The treaty relationship has effectively …

Contextualizing Approaches To Indigenous Peoples’ Experiences Of Intractable Conflict, Michele A. Sam

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article contextualizes intractable conflict within the lived experiences and worldviews of an Indigenous person, imbued with academic and scholarly research. The text illustrates how intractable conflict is experienced within the “developed world,” resulting in both freedom and fragmentation. Whether intractable conflict stems from colonial and postcolonial development and influences current Indigenous Peoples’ self-development efforts in Canada, specifically, and possibly across British colonies in general seems to be a new inquiry. The author relates her intergenerational experiences of contact, unpacking research and development in its many forms alongside the characteristics of intractable conflict and related federal Indian and social policy. …

How Two Sunken Ships Caused A War: The Legal And Cultural Battle Between Great Britain, Canada, And The Inuit Over The Franklin Expedition Shipwrecks, Christina Labarge

Loyola of Los Angeles International and Comparative Law Review

No abstract provided.

Brackeen V. Zinke, Bradley E. Tinker

Public Land & Resources Law Review

In 1978, Congress enacted the Indian Child Welfare Act to counter practices of removing Indian children from their homes, and to ensure the continued existence of Indian tribes through their children. The law created a framework establishing how Indian children are adopted as a way to protect those children and their relationship with their tribe. ICWA also established federal standards for Indian children being placed into non-Indian adoptive homes. Brackeen v. Zinke made an important distinction for the placement preferences of the Indian children adopted by non-Indian plaintiffs; rather than viewing the placement preferences in ICWA as based upon Indians’ …

Getches-Wilkinson Center Newsletter, Fall 2017, University Of Colorado Boulder. Getches-Wilkinson Center For Natural Resources, Energy, And The Environment

Getches-Wilkinson Center for Natural Resources, Energy, and the Environment Newsletter (2013-)

No abstract provided.

Getches-Wilkinson Center Newsletter, Fall 2016, University Of Colorado Boulder. Getches-Wilkinson Center For Natural Resources, Energy, And The Environment

Getches-Wilkinson Center for Natural Resources, Energy, and the Environment Newsletter (2013-)

No abstract provided.

Slides: Drought In The Murray Darling Basin: A 100 Year Perspective, Daniel Connell

Coping with Water Scarcity in River Basins Worldwide: Lessons Learned from Shared Experiences (Martz Summer Conference, June 9-10)

Presenter: Daniel Connell, Australian National University

22 slides