Indigenous Peoples and the Modern State
Edited by Duane Champagne, Karen Jo Torjesen, Susan Steiner
Publication date:
09 June 2005Length of book:
208 pagesPublisher
AltaMira PressISBN-13: 9780759107984
Champagne and his distinguished coauthors reveal how the structure of a multinational state has the potential to create more equal and just national communities for Native peoples around the globe. Many countries still face extreme differences among ethnic groups and submerged nations, leading to marginalization and violence. Examining these inherent instabilities in multicultural nations such as the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and Guatemala, the authors confront problems of coerced assimilation for indigenous communities whose identities predate the formation of the nation states, often by thousands of years. The contributors show how indigenous people seek to preserve their territory, their rights to self-government, and their culture. This book is a valuable resource for Native American, Canadian and Latin American studies; comparative indigenous governments; constitutional law; and international relations.
Indigenous Peoples and the Modern State offers a broad and richly comparative study critically analyzing the generally contentious but occasionally cooperative relationships between aboriginal peoples and three contemporary states—U.S., Canada, and Mexico. Utilizing a 'trilateral' approach, the contributors focus on cultural identity, land, sovereignty, leadership, economics, intellectual property, and other topics that continue to animate the evolving relationship between Native nations and the states that formed in their midst.