Governance

Jim Gray: Making Change Happen

Producer
Native Nations Institute
Year

Former Principal Chief James Gray of the Osage Nation makes a guest speaker appearance to the January In Tucson class “Making Change Happen”.  In Chief Gray’s own words, he shares his direct experiences with indigenous governance for the Osage people and gives a larger context to the historic challenges and endurance the Osage Nation has shown in their encounters with U.S. intervention.  The years he spent has Principal Chief offer an inside look into the ways a Tribal Leader works with the tools of self-governance while taking note of the ways conflict was navigated.  Jim Gray gives insight to both his time running an Executive branch, the endeavors of Constitutional reform, and current ways he continues to advocate for the people of Osage Nation.

People
Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

Native Nations Institute. "Jim Gray: Making Change Happen" Native Nations Institute, University of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. January 26, 2021

Transcript available upon request. Please email: nni@email.arizona.edu

Invisible Borders of Reservations, Tribal Treaties, and Tribal Sovereignty

Producer
Arizona State Museum
Year

This 3-part discussion about the invisible borders of reservations, tribal treaties, and tribal sovereignty is led by Dr. Miriam Jorgensen, Research Director of both the University of Arizona Native Nations Institute and its sister organization, the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development; the honorable Karen Diver, former chairwoman of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and current director of business development for Native American Initiatives at the University of Arizona; and Dr. Kelsey Leonard of the Shinnecock Nation, assistant professor in the Faculty of Environment at the University of Waterloo.

Native Nations
Resource Type
Topics
Citation

Jorgensen, Miriam, Karen Diver, and Kelsey Leonard. "Invisible Borders of Reservations, Tribal Treaties, and Tribal Sovereignty" Webinar. Arizona State Museum. Oct. 23, 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1KyaGdRzR4

GIDA-RDA COVID-19 Guidelines for Data Sharing Respecting Indigenous Data Sovereignty

Year

Indigenous Peoples around the globe have diverse narratives of resilience and adaptability; however, they are also acutely impacted by the negative social, economic, environmental and health outcomes of COVID-19 (UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous Peoples, 2020). As such, it is vital that Indigenous Peoples are included in all aspects of pandemic-related surveillance, research, research planning, and policy.

Systemic policies, and historic and ongoing marginalisation, have led to Indigenous Peoples’ mistrust of agencies and the data/research they produce. For example, Indigenous nation-specific COVID-19 data in the United States have been released by government entities without tribal permission and knowledge. These sensitive data continue to be accessed and reused without consent from Indigenous governing bodies by the media, researchers, non-governmental organisations, and others.

Although this type of data usage is attempting to combat data invisibility of American Indians and Alaska Natives to address gaps, reporting of tribal-specific data is making tribes more visible in ways that can result in unintentional harm and ignores inherent Indigenous sovereign rights. Media perpetuation of misinformation and disinformation is amplifying confusion and harm to Indigenous Peoples.

To avoid increased distrust and harm, and to improve the quality and responsiveness of data activities, Indigenous data rights, priorities, and interests must be recognised in all COVID-19 research activities throughout the data lifecycle, and in ownership of any resulting innovations. We must also acknowledge that expressions of self-determination vary substantially across nation states due to conditions that also undermine the ability of Indigenous Peoples to govern data or enact sovereignty over data.

Native Nations
Resource Type
Topics
Citation

RDA COVID-19 Indigenous Data WG. "Data sharing respecting Indigenous data sovereignty." In RDA COVID-19 Working Group (2020). Recommendations and guidelines on data sharing. Research Data Alliance. https://doi.org/10.15497/rda00052

What are the Limits of Social Inclusion? Indigenous Peoples and Indigenous Governance in Canada and the United States

Year

Contemporary debates about poverty and its mitigation often invoke the idea of social inclusion: the effort to increase the capacities and opportunities of disadvantaged populations to participate more fully in the economy, polity, and institutions of developed societies. While practical outcomes have been inconsistent, this idea has been prominent in the social policies of both Canada and the United States. Both generally see themselves as liberal democracies committed to building socially inclusive societies, and both have adopted policies in support of that goal. However, we argue in this article that social inclusion, as presently conceived, fails to comprehend or address the distinctive situation of Indigenous peoples in both of these countries. Our critique focuses on four aspects of social inclusion as applied to Indigenous peoples: the external conception of needs, the individualization of both problems and solutions, the favoring of distributional politics over positional politics, and the conditionality of inclusion. We argue that both Canada and the United States need to reconceive social inclusion in ways that address these issues and that a more capacious conception of federalism may hold the key.

Resource Type
Topics
Citation
Cornell, S. E., & Jorgensen, M. (2019). What are the Limits of Social Inclusion? Indigenous Peoples and Indigenous Governance in Canada and the United States. American Review of Canadian Studies, 49(2), 283-300. https://doi.org/10.1080/02722011.2019.1613790

Becoming Visible: A Landscape Analysis of State Efforts to Provide Native American Education for All

Year

Native Americans are unfortunately invisible to many. Most Americans likely have attended or currently attend a school where information about Native Americans is either completely absent from the classroom or relegated to brief mentions, negative information, or inaccurate stereotypes. This results in an enduring and damaging narrative regarding Native peoples, tribal nations, and their citizens. Even though some exceptional efforts are happening around the country to bring accurate, culturally responsive, tribally specific, and contemporary content about Native Americans into mainstream education systems, much work remains to be done. This report is an analysis of the landscape of current state efforts to bring high-quality educational content about Native peoples and communities into all kindergarten to 12th grade (K-12) classrooms across the United States.

Resource Type
Topics
Citation

National Congress of American Indians (2019). Becoming Visible: A Landscape Analysis of State Efforts to Provide Native American Education for All. Washington, DC. September 2019. http://www.ncai.org/policy-research-center/research-data... Accessed: March 7, 2023.

Why culture and institutions matter to developing a tribal workforce

Year

In its multi-year project examining tribal workforce development approaches across the country, NCAI’s Partnership for Tribal Governance (PTG) worked to identify and document key foundational strategies that are empowering tribal innovation and, in turn, workforce development success. Distilling lessons learned from that endeavor, PTG identified 15 strategic considerations that tribal leaders, workforce development practitioners, and other decision-makers must tackle as they craft workforce development approaches capable of achieving their definition of what “success” looks like for tribal citizens and the nation as a whole.

Resource Type
Topics
Citation

NCAI’s Partnership for Tribal Governance. 2018. "Why culture and institutions matter to developing a tribal workforce." Indian Country Today. August 13, 2018. https://newsmaven.io/indiancountrytoday/opinion/why-culture-and-institu… 

Tribal Sovereignty Special

Producer
KNBA 90.3 FM
Year

What does tribal sovereignty mean in Alaska? KNBA's Joaqlin Estus talks with two experts about the legal basis for tribal sovereignty, and tribal judicial systems at work in Alaska. Hear about a court ruling that Alaska tribes can put land into trust status, tax-free and safe from seizure...

Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

"Tribal Sovereignty Special: The Our Alaska Show on KNBA 90.3 FM (Host: Joaqlin Estus)." Featured on KDLG 89.9 FM Public Radio for Alaska's Bristol Bay. Dillingham, AK. April 9, 2013. Radio Interview. (http://kdlg.org/post/tribal-sovereignty-special-kdlg, accessed August 19, 2013)

Tribal Land Leasing: Opportunities Presented by the HEARTH Act and Amended 162 Leasing Regulations

Producer
Ian Record
Year

This NCAI webinar discussed amendments to the Department of the Interior's 162 leasing regulations as well as practical issues for tribes to consider when seeking to take advantage of the HEARTH Act (Helping Expedite and Advance Responsible Tribal Home Ownership Act of 2012)...

Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

Begaye, Karis and Matthew C. Kirkland. "Tribal Land Leasing: Opportunities Presented by the HEARTH Act and Amended 162 Leasing Regulations." National Congress of American Indians. March 29, 2013. Webinar. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHI5BHyLrWI&feature=youtu.be, accessed April 1, 2013)

Wrapping Our Ways Around Them: Aboriginal Communities and the CFCSA Guidebook

Author
Year

This Guidebook is based on the belief that Aboriginal peoples need to know, and work with, the systems that impact children and families today such as the Child, Family and Community Service Act (CFCSA), Provincial Court (Child, Family and Community Service Act) Rules (Rules), Child, Family and Community Service Regulation (CFCSA Regulation), Ministry of Children and Family Development (MCFD) and delegated Aboriginal agencies.

Exercising exclusive jurisdiction over child welfare remains the goal for Aboriginal peoples: Restoring Aboriginal ways of doing things, especially in caring for children, is essential for the health and well-being of children and families. Successive generations of Aboriginal children continue to be taken into the child welfare system. Without intervention, experience has shown that the outcome for these children will be bleak and reverberate outward, influencing the future of entire families, communities and nations. This Guidebook suggests immediate steps that can be taken on the ground we are standing on–within the CFCSA and systems that impact Aboriginal children and families today–to improve outcomes for Aboriginal children while building toward a better future.

Resource Type
Citation

Walkem, Ardith. Wrapping Our Ways Around Them: Aboriginal Communities and the CFCSA Guidebook. ShchEma-mee.tkt Project. Nlaka’pamux Nation Tribal Council. British Columbia, Canada. 2015. Guide. (http://cwrp.ca/sites/default/files/publications/en/wowat_bc_cfcsa_1.pdf, accessed May 29, 2015)

Wolves Have A Constitution: Continuities in Indigenous Self-Government

Year

This article is about constitutionalism as an Indigenous tradition. The political idea of constitutionalism is the idea that the process of governing is itself governed by a set of foundational laws or rules. There is ample evidence that Indigenous nations in North America–and in Australia and New Zealand as well–were in this sense constitutionalists. Customary law, cultural norms, and shared protocols provided well understood guidelines for key aspects of governance by shaping both personal and collective action, the behavior of leaders, decision-making, dispute resolution, and relationships with the human, material, and spirit worlds. Today, many of these nations have governing systems imposed by outsiders. As they move to change these systems, they also are reclaiming their own constitutional traditions.

Resource Type
Citation

Cornell, Stephen. "'Wolves Have A Constitution:' Continuities in Indigenous Self-Government." The International Indigenous Policy Journal. Volume 6,  Issue 1. January 2015. Paper. (https://turtletalk.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/continuities-in-indigenou..., accessed March 24, 2015)