Steve Russell: Not all tribes can pay the price for nationhood

Tuesday, April 3, 2012  

"When you are about one half of one percent of the population, how many people can you afford to leave behind by categorical self-definition?

One obvious answer is that within your self-definition, you are one hundred percent of the population. If that self-definition is all you want, there is no problem. If you want something from the larger world, there is.

As I pointed out in my first column on this subject, to be a “nation” is to be recognized as such in the community of nations, just as to be an Indian is to be recognized as such in an Indian community. This definition lives in what academics call “legal realism,” a definition derived from how the world in fact conducts itself."

Get the Story:
Steve Russell: The Price of Nationhood (Indian Country Today 4/2)

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