Sovereignty and Self-Government

What is sovereignty/self-government?
Sovereignty "is closely related to the difficult concepts of state and government and of independence and democracy"(Britannica). In the Native Sovereignty Movement, it is often used as a synonym to self-government. Mostly, it refers to an increase in the power of Native people to run themselves. 

The Aboriginal Rights Coalition(ARC) which does have regional groups across Canada defines specifically aboriginal self-government as:

"Self-government is the means by which Aboriginal peoples could give concrete expression

 of themselves as distinct peoples, develop the economic potential of their own lands, and design own cultural, social, and religious institutions to meet the needs of their own people"(Aboriginal Rights Coalition)

Map of the estimated many different tribal distribution at time of contact.

Why is self-government important to these Native groups? I would argue it is due to the labeling of Native. Native is a term that actually covers a variety of cultures when settlers arrived they were all considered Indians.
In today's culture, there still is this idea that they are more similar in culture to each other than to other cultures(Young-Leslie). Once this idea begins it become easier to see why a group that has been marginalized would want to govern itself: if the popular idea that any Native is closer to another Native than to another Canadian citizen is true then it would lead to questioning why Native people are not governed by Natives. After all, supposedly they are all Natives right?
This logic is why I would argue that this movement is a self fulfilling prophesy: the government grouped together cultures, labeled them as one, and then is confused when they gain power and want the right to govern themselves. Native is a non-existent country with as many varied cultures as Canada and now they want rights and self-government.

Next Blog I will be talking about major Actors that have/are playing a role in the Native Sovereignty Movement


To read more about ARC: click here



Work Cited
Aboriginal Rights Coalition. Electronic source. http://home.istar.ca/~arc/english/new_cov_e.html

Britannica Academic Edition. Electronic source. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/557065/sovereignty
Britannica Academic Edition. Electronic source. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1357826/Native-American/273164/Assimilation-versus-sovereignty-the-late-19th-to-the-late-20th-century#ref968394

Dr. Young-Leslie, Heather. Lecture slides. March 5th "Ethnicity".

8th Fire Tribal Map. Electronic resource. http://www.cbc.ca/doczone/8thfire/map.html

Welcome

First of all: Welcome to my blog.

What is this blog going to be about?

This is going to a blog focusing on the rise of the movement often known as the Native Sovereignty Movement. Though it does go by other names, I will be using this one most commonly. 

An image from a PBS series about the importance of Native Americans in American history

I want to cover the history, the protests, the news coverage, the arguments for and against this movement, and I want to cover it in a fashion that makes it easier for everyone to understand.

I personally am a native student though I have grown up off-reserve and I hope that this project will help connect me to my culture and my rights. That being said, I will try to make sure my personal bias does not mean that I am posting only material agreeing with my personal opinion. Every social movement has at least two sides and both do have valid ideas so I will try not to be biased in my presentation of these ideas.

This blog is the final project of my 200 level Introduction to Social and Cultural Anthropology wherein we are to investigate a social movement( a term I will define in my next post) and make our research and findings available to the public. This means that if at any point I say something you do not agree with or have a source that you think would help with my topic, please feel free to either leave the link in the comments or email it to me. I will try to update at least twice a week so please do keep an eye on my blog, whether you are very knowledgeable in this area or want to find out more, hopefully I will have something new for everyone to learn.

I will be using information, photos and pictures from other groups. I will be using these under the Fair Use Guidelines for Educational Multimedia under
"2.1 By Students:

Students may incorporate portions of lawfully acquired copyrighted works when producing their own educational multimedia projects for a specific course"( http://www.adec.edu/admin/papers/fair10-17.html).

Guidelines can be found at this site. If I make a mistake in citing or linking, please let me know