Indigenous Rights Movements & the Law

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Numerous advocates have asked universities built on tribal lands to make amends.

President Joe Biden has signed a national monument designation for the greater Grand Canyon, declaring it good “not only for Arizona but for the planet.”

By Mikayla Redden (Follow us on LinkedIn) Last summer I posted a critique of the Library of Congress classification system’s treatment of materials about Indigenous peoples in We are Not Histo…

In Arizona v. Navajo Nation, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the Indigenous tribe in their quest to assert their water rights.

In this guide, we'll unpack the legacies of allotment and ways everyone can help Indigenous people and nations fight back.

"This book examines the construction of memory in two indigenous sacred sites in the US and Mexico. It juxtaposes two relationships, the Chemehuevi people and their ties with the Old Woman Mountains of the East Mojave Desert, and the Caxcan people and their ties with Tlachialoyantepec in Zacatecas, Mexico. This research outlines a personal journey, a process of making connections through indigenous decolonial methodologies, and a research project in histories of both the Chemehuevi and Caxcan and their relationships to sacred mountains. This work emphasizes cultural engagements with performative and phenomenological insights as having historic preservation value"--

On April 1, 1993, the Labriola National American Indian Data Center was created within the ASU Library to serve as a national repository of Native American documents and materials and to provide access to this information through nationwide computer databases. Now in its 30th year, the Indigenous library has become an essential resource for the ASU community.

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Indian Child Welfare Act, which helps keep Native American adoptees with their families and tribes. Barbara Atwood, a professor emerita of law, discusses the act's

The UArizona New Dawn-Warrior Women project is helping expand the reach of Tucson's Native Ways Program, which helps clients with substance use recovery while incorporating Native American culture

"Canada's colonial history continues to have a devastating impact on Indigenous peoples and communities. Decolonizing Data explores how ongoing structures of colonialization negatively impact the well-being of Indigenous peoples and communities across Canada, resulting in persistent health inequalities. In addressing the social dimensions of health, particularly as they affect Indigenous peoples and BIPOC communities, Decolonizing Data asks, should these groups be given priority for future health policy considerations? Decolonizing Data provides a deeper understanding of the social dimensions of health as applied to Indigenous peoples, who have been historically underfunded in and excluded from health services, programs, and quality of care; this has most recently been seen during the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on both Western and Indigenous methodologies, this unique scholarly contribution takes a sociological perspective, as well as the "two-eyed seeing" approach to research methods. By looking at the ways that everyday research practices contribute to the colonization of health outcomes for Indigenous peoples, Decolonizing Data exposes the social dimensions of healthcare, and offers a careful and respectful reflection on how to "unsettle conversations" about applied social research initiatives for our most vulnerable groups."--

"Justice, Indigenous Womxn, and Two-Spirit People is an edited volume that offers a broad overview of topics pertaining to gender-related health, violence, and healing. Employing strength-based approach (as opposed to a deficit model), the chapters address the resiliency of Indigenous women and two-spirit people in the face of colonial violence and structural racism. The book centers the concept of "rematriation"-the concerted effort to place power, peace and decision making back into the female space, land, body and sovereignty-as a decolonial practice to combat injustice. Chapters include such topics as reproductive health, diabetes, missing and murdered Indigenous women, Indigenous women in the academy, and Indigenous women and food sovereignty. As part of the Indigenous Justice series, this book aims to provide an introductory overview of the topic geared toward undergraduate and graduate classes"--

Barbara Atwood, a professor emerita of law and an expert on the act, discusses the history of the law and the arguments in the case.

A webinar hosted by The Conversation brings together experts in law, health, policy and Indigenous affairs to explain some of the most pressing problems related to water in the US.

Listen to this episode from Stolen on Spotify. In 2018, a young Indigenous mother left a bar in downtown Missoula, Montana, and was never seen again. After two years and thousands of hours of investigative work, the case remains open, and police believe they are close to solving the mystery of what happened to Jermain Charlo. On this season of Stolen, we go inside the investigation, tracking down leads and joining search parties for Jermain through the dense mountains of the Flathead Reservation. As we unravel this mystery, the show examines what it means to be an Indigenous person in America. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren asked senators for more funding and time for a pipeline project that would supply water to a quarter of a million people across Arizona and New Mexico.

Vice President Kamala Harris visited the Gila River Indian Community Thursday. She addressed disparities facing Native communities.

Raymond Mattia’s family said the partial release of body camera footage “feels like a cheap attempt to justify what they did.”

Oak Flat, a mountainous area east of Phoenix, is an Apache sacred site where Native Americans gather to pray and perform coming-of-age ceremonies and sweat rituals.

Oak Flat, a mountainous area east of Phoenix, is an Apache sacred site where Native Americans gather to pray and perform coming-of-age ceremonies and sweat rituals.

For young Navajo people, the lack of water makes it more difficult to return to the Navajo Nation to make a permanent home.

By a narrow margin, the Supreme Court has ruled against the Navajo Nation in a case over water rights in the drought-stricken US Southwest.

"In Defense of Sovereignty recounts the history of the Oneida Nation and its struggles for self-determination. Since the nation's removal from New York in the 1820s to what would become the state of Wisconsin, it has been engaged in legal conflicts with US actors to retain its sovereignty and its lands. Legal scholar and former Oneida Nation senior staff attorney Rebecca M. Webster traces this history, including the nation's treaties with the US but focusing especially on its relationship with the village of Hobart, Wisconsin. Since 2003 there have been six disputes that have led to litigation between the local government and the nation. Central to these disputes are the local government's attempts to regulate the nation and relegate its government to the position of a common landowner, subject to municipal authority. As in so many conflicts between Indigenous nations and local municipalities, the media narrative about the Oneida Nation's battle for sovereignty has been dominated by the local government's standpoint. In Defense of Sovereignty offers another perspective, that of a nation citizen directly involved in the litigation, augmented by contributions from historians, attorneys, and a retired nation employee. It makes an important contribution to public debates about the inherent right of Indigenous nations to continue to exist and exercise self-governance within their territories without being challenged at every turn"--

Drawing on ethnographic research, this book explores different experiences of urban Native identity across two pan-Indian communities in NE Ohio. In addition to elucidating how false memories of Indian-ness invisibilize and overwrite the stories and identities of urban Indigenous people, this research reveals the significance of continuous relations with tribal nations to the persistence of Indigenous peoples and perspectives in twenty-first century US society.

"Pilar Sanchez Voelkl offers an anthropological account of the early arrival and prominence of Indigenous peoples in the Galapagos Islands. Their history and everyday life reveal how multiple notions of nature, race, and society travel and meet, shaping the way conservation thought is translated into law"--

The tribe is blocked from pursuing a lawsuit claiming the federal government has a duty to assert the tribe’s water rights.

New detailed social, economic, housing and demographic statistics for hundreds of race, tribal, Hispanic origin and ancestry populations.

We speak with the parents of Mika Westwolf, a 22-year-old Indigenous woman struck and killed in March by a driver as she was walking home along the highway in the early morning hours. The parents and allies are on a “Justice to Be Seen” march to call for justice and an investigation. Westwolf was a member of the Blackfeet Tribe and was also Diné, Cree and Klamath. The driver has been identified as Sunny White, a suspected white nationalist whose children are reportedly named “Aryan” and “Nation” and were in the car at the time of the crash. White has not been charged in connection with Westwolf’s death, but it’s part of an apparent pattern in which many Indigenous people are killed or hit by vehicles along Highway 93. “They need to hear us and see us,” says Westwolf’s mother, Carissa Heavy Runner. “Listen to our stories and feel our pain and see our pain.” Erica Shelby, a tribal legal advocate for missing and murdered Indigenous women, discusses the details of the case and how she is in Washington, D.C., to demand action from lawmakers. “Everybody has the same story about the same players, the same agencies, the same police, the same attorneys,” says Shelby. “Enough is enough.”