Land, Culture, and Community: Envisioning Native American Sovereignty and National Identity in the Twenty-first Century

This article focuses on three important elements of Native American and national identity as these concepts relate to tribal lands, First of all, it examines the notion of territorial for Indian nations, and how federal policy toward Indian lands has changed the nature and understanding of political among Indian nations. Secondly, it examines the notion of sovereignty and the land ethics that guide the actions of the Indian nations towards their traditional lands. Finally, it examines the idea of community broadly construed to encompass the people who reside on the reservation, and more narrowly construed to reflect the tribe's own cultural understanding of its membership. The paper compares federal policy with tribal policy to see where the disjunctions are, and how a more unified understanding of these essential concepts might be used to further the contemporary goals and needs of Indian nations.