Nation-Building and the Treaty Process
In much of the world today, relations between Indigenous peoples, on the one hand, and various kinds of settler societies, on the other, are in transition. Certainly in the United States (‘US’), Indigenous peoples are engaged in a massive effort to regain control of their resources and their futures, to restore their communities, to re-establish the right to govern themselves, to escape legacies of poverty and powerlessness, and to build societies that work. In some sense they have always been trying to do that, but in the last few decades this effort not only has become a major social movement, it has had some significant success. Thanks to legal and political decisions and to the assertions of Indigenous nations themselves, Aboriginal self-determination has been on the rise, admittedly to widely varying degrees.
Citation
Cornell, Stephen. 2002. "Nation-Building and the Treaty Process." Indigenous Law Bulletin 5 (17).