Sovereignty

by Faustus Miranda

Tribal sovereignty is necessary to maintain the existence of indigenous nations and groups. Without sovereignty, individuals may lack the freedom to express themselves, while states lack the right of self-determination. As seen in colonial states across the world, indigenous groups or nations residing within these states don’t have the same level of sovereignty as can be seen for the colonial state. This creates a complex wardship relationship which negatively impacts indigenous nations and groups and constricts the extent to which indigeneity is able to be expressed in a social, cultural, intellectual, or nationhood context. Indigenous scholars such as Leanne Betasamosake Simpson and Joanne Barker have argued over the importance of sovereignty to indigenous groups and nations, and they have done wonders to highlight the complexities of the sovereignty issue. Simpson highlights how sovereignty has been traditionally described in the context of relationships within a place. [1] Barker similarly writes of how sovereignty relates to relationships, and focuses on how it impacts expressions of gender and sexuality.[2] I appreciate their discussions of the topic, but I intend to focus my analysis of sovereignty on its intersections with access to land, and the epistemologies which are derived from that land.

Violations of the sovereignty of indigenous groups and nations are the biggest threat that these groups are facing today, and remain to be the primary form of colonization that these groups continue to experience. The Waikato River [3] serves as a stark example of this. The Waikato-Tainui iwi and the Crown, the ruling government of New Zealand, are both working to claim ownership of the river, with co-governance strategies being implemented as a compromise in the meantime. [4] The Crown is vying to remain in control of the Waikato River in order to undermine the sovereignty of the iwi which is attempting to claim governance of Tupuna Awa. Were the iwi able to claim ownership of the river, it would serve to enhance their sovereignty as well. The Waikato-Tainui iwi would essentially be declaring the boundaries of their “sovereign state,” to an extent. From the perspective of the colonial state that the Crown serves to uphold, this would threaten their existence and it attempts to prevent this from happening. Similarly in the United States, we have seen the U.S. government work to fully maintain its presence as a colonial state in order to prevent indigenous groups and nations from upholding their sovereignty. These colonial governments are aware of the importance of land in the context of sovereignty and strive to uphold themselves by keeping land away from indigenous groups who were targeted by these states.

Furthermore, anthropogenic climate change and the structural and social inequities its effects are highlighting demonstrate a way in which sovereignty can be violated. Despite indigenous nations and groups globally serving as bastions of cultural and ecological diversity, they remain disproportionately affected by the effects of climate change. [5] The counterpoint to that, is that indigenous nations’ reactions to the effects of climate change can be an effective tool to maintain and uphold sovereignty. In the Pacific, where nations are at an increased risk of catastrophic flooding, there has been discourse regarding migrations. Migration isn’t a foreign concept in Pacific Island cultures (PIC), and the cultural expression of traditional migration techniques are being employed to prevent further harm to the people of these Pacific Island nations. [6] The deployment of this cultural knowledge is an expression of sovereignty in the face of structural violence, which serves to empower the PICs which are being endangered by this violence. There is beauty in such an expression.

A return to traditional ecological knowledge and other indigenous cultural systems of knowledge would allow for indigenous nations to uphold their sovereignty in contemporary settings. The implementation of traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), for example, to solve local environmental-issues generated from anthropogenic-driven climate change is an expression of tribal sovereignty. In Arizona, the White Mountain Apache use traditional ecological knowledge and indigenous knowledge systems to protect and restore culturally-significant wetlands. [7] The Ndée culture has a concept of gozhóó which notes the harmony which can exist in complex systems of life. Gozhóó can be extended to biological processes as well as social settings, with both being relevant to how this wetland research and restoration was conducted. [8] Those working on the wetland projects strived to restore gozhóó by turning towards traditional stories and methodologies relevant to the land they were working with, with great success. [9] Wetlands were restored and parts of Ndée culture which had been dormant for generations were able to be expressed once again. In doing so, the White Mountain Apache were expressing and enhancing their sovereignty to their own benefit. They conducted and published research on their own lands using their own methods to restore important parts of their culture. Not only does this strengthen their claims to their land, but it enhances quality of life simultaneously. They were able to restore gozhóó in these wetlands and in themselves by doing this work.

Similarly, the White Earth band of Ojibwe have expressed and enhanced their sovereignty by granting legal rights to manoomin. [10] Manoomin (Zizania spp.) is both a culturally and environmentally significant species in the areas it inhabits, warranting the protections granted by the White Earth band. They were able to argue for and grant protections to manoomin due to pre-existing treaty rights which had not been honored previously. [11] These rights ensure that the manoomin have access to: “the right to clean water and freshwater habitat, the right to a natural environment free from industrial pollution, the right to a healthy, stable climate free from human-caused climate change impacts, the right to be free from patenting, the right to be free from contamination by genetically engineered organisms.” [12] By expressing and enforcing Anishinaabe cultural ideals, the White Earth band is protecting an important food source and a cultural staple while also ensuring cultural continuity for future generations via the preservation of land. While these appear to be isolated incidents which infringe upon expressions of sovereignty, or isolated acts which uphold it, they are able to find common ground in the fact that each example listed cannot happen without access to traditional lands.

Sovereignty represents the ultimate way in which indigenous nations are able to resist active forms of colonization in a contemporary setting. Even after land has been stolen, culture has been extirpated, and language has been erased, sovereignty gives Indigenous nations the right of self-determination on the state level, and provides the power of freedom of expression on the individual level. In essence, sovereignty is behind the idea of freedom that is fetishized in the American Dream. Throughout periods of initial contact, expansion, and extraction, Land’s importance relative to sovereignty has been apparent to the U.S. American government. Furthermore, the U.S. American government recognizes the power of sovereignty relative to the existence of Indigenous nations, which has ultimately driven the state’s desire to separate indigenous peoples from their homelands across the world and sever their connection with the Land. These acts are done with the intention to kill culture and identity, allowing for land, and thus power, to coalesce in the hands of the colonial state.

Indigenous nations can rebuild their own sovereignty and continue to resist colonization by regaining permanent access to their homelands. Activism should be done, following ongoing movements, to ensure that this permanent access to homelands is achieved. Leanne Betasamosake Simpson describes the strength which can be found in the access to homelands when incorporated with the reintegration of traditional knowledge systems: Combined with the political drive toward self-determination, these strategies mark resistance to cultural genocide, vitalize an agenda to rebuild strong and sustainable Indigenous national territories, and promote a just relationship with neighboring states based on the notions of peace and just coexistence embodied in Indigenous Knowledge and encoded in the original treaties. [13]

Land plays a crucial role in resistance, and as such its repatriation would fuel a renaissance in Indian Country. Indigenous culture in the United States has had to adapt heavily since European-contact with each respective group, and one could argue that it hadn’t been able to flourish since. Repatriation of land would give these groups’ cultures the freedom needed to thrive once again via strengthening their sovereignty in such a meaningful way.

Notes

1 Simpson, L. B. (2015). The place where we all live and work together: A gendered analysis of “sovereignty.”

2 Barker, Joanne. “Sovereignty.”

3 Tupuna Awa in te reo Māori. It took a lot out of me to not write more on the politics of language when discussing issues regarding indigenous people and their access to land. Marama Muru-Lanning writes more on the power of language in her book Tupuna Awa: People and Politics of the Waikato River. Furthermore, Muru-Lanning writes about the different organizations and movements working to claim ownership of the river, and how the very names of their organizations (in te reo Māori) illustrate the differences in their goals. Differences are minute in English translations, but in te reo Māori, the names illustrate the river differently, with representations varying between an ancestral river of the Māori and a river as old as ancestors. Sovereignty and language will be my next book.

4 Muru-Lanning, Marama. Tupuna Awa: People and Politics of the Waikato River.

5 Grossman, Zoltán., and Alan. Parker. Asserting Native Resilience : Pacific Rim Indigenous Nations Face the Climate Crisis.

6 Bryant-Tokalau, Jenny. Indigenous Pacific Approaches to Climate Change : Pacific Island Countries.

7 Long, Jonathan, et al. “Cultural Foundations for ecological restoration on the White Mountain Apache Reservation.”

8 Ibid.

9 Ibid.

10LaDuke, Winona. “The Rights of Wild Rice.”

11 Ibid.

12 Ibid.

13 Leanne R. Simpson. “Anticolonial Strategies for the Recovery and Maintenance of Indigenous Knowledge.”