Source: http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/04/09/what-good-native-governance

1. Che-Wei Lee 1
Copyright © 2014 by Che-Wei Lee. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act
of 1976, no part of this manuscript may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a
database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author.
Gilio-Whitaker, Dina. 2014. “What Is Good Native Governance?” Indian Country Today Media
Network, April 9. http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/04/09/what-good-native-
governance.
Reviewed by: Che-Wei Lee, Department of Administrative and Policy Studies, University of
Pittsburgh
Accessed: Thursday, 10 April 2014, 22:55 p.m.
Note: This material may be protected by copyright law (Title 17 U.S. Code).
Comment
In this essay, Dina Gilio-Whitaker offers a thought-provoking issue regarding good Native
governance. I agree with Gilio-Whitaker’s point and positively support her argument—that is,
good Native governance does not mean to produce good economic development. To grasp Gilio-
Whitaker’s thesis statement accurately, I think that she aims to contend that good Native
government does not ensure tribally responsive or tribally-based economic development because
indigenous internal government or law system has to be culturally sensitive and critically
conscious of the difference of the expectations, needs, goals, and visions between tribal members
and the nation state.
In this article, Gilio-Whitaker tends to distinguish mainstream economic development from tribal
economically sustainable development. The sustainability is the core value of indigenous peoples,
such as American Indians. I assume that Gilio-Whitaker tries to warn that any introduction of
non-indigenous-based economic paradigms to indigenous tribes should be careful not to
completely embrace the model of the contemporary economic development because indigenous
peoples do not share too much the notion of economic development with mainstream society or
nation-states.
The concept of capitalism derives from Western (i.e., civilized or non-indigenous) world. In
many indigenous worlds, the economic worldview is essentially different from many non-
indigenous worlds. Indigenous peoples highly value the balance of and peaceful result of the
trade, rather than endless exploitation. Indigenous economic policies that affect the preservation
of indigenous lands, territories, and natural resources are often enacted without consulting
indigenous worldviews that are vital to form a healthy indigenous ecology.
Although Gilio-Whitaker does not specifically argue what she means good Native governance,
she validly stimulates me to argue for an indigenously responsive economic policy. Indigenous
people must have to base their standpoint on indigenous voices and cultural knowledge into
economic development policies. The concrete way is to share the policy decision making process
with indigenous peoples and, sincerely and substantially, integrate indigenous cultural
perspectives into final program. Indigenous peoples should have the best position to define their
success of economic development for their tribes.
Original Text

2. 2 What Is Good Native Governance?
Copyright © 2014 by Che-Wei Lee. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act
of 1976, no part of this manuscript may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a
database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author.
Paragraph 1: Every few decades it seems that Indian country has new concepts that it adopts
that become the backbone for how we talk about ourselves. Those concepts usually seem to be
about how we frame our relationships as Indian people to the dominant society, or more
specifically to the federal government. They often mirror whatever the current policy regime
happens to be. For the last 40 years we have spoken in terms of self-determination and
sovereignty. Now “good governance” seems to be our new buzzwords.
Paragraph 2: A few weeks ago I attended a conference on that very topic at a prominent law
school. It was organized by some prominent Native law scholars and academics, people highly
regarded for their brilliant work in the fields of Indian law and Native American studies. Sadly,
the conference was only one day long and could easily have filled two or three days with
presentations. The presenter list read like a who’s who of people that have written influential
policy papers, law articles, and books on topics related to tribal governance.
Paragraph 3: But there was something that stood out about the topics they were talking about
and the kind of work many of them are doing: the presentations seemed to have a heavy
emphasis on economic development. How to best maximize economic development; good self-
government for better economic development; attracting business to the reservations; these were
the kinds of things being talked about under the umbrella of good Native governance. It was as
though good Native governance means good economic development.
Paragraph 4: What was missing, it seemed to me, were any critical perspectives. Possible
critical topics that could have been included: the problem of tribal disenrollment in gaming tribes;
the environmental repercussions of resource extraction on reservation lands; the dangers of
hydraulic fracking to reservation communities; income disparity in Indian communities. Here’s
one: how about negotiating the philosophical differences between capitalism and indigenous
worldviews in economic development projects?
Paragraph 5: The very nature of capitalism is its commitment to unending economic growth
(which means unending resource exploitation). It doesn’t recognize limits. It is a reflection of the
Western (civilized) never-ending imperative, always wanting more: more land, more growth,
more money, more technology, more power. The commitment to values based on profit. This
paradigm is what caused our ancestors to lose their lands and what is causing indigenous peoples
in other parts of the world to lose their lands in this globalized economy. Capitalism is wrapped
up in the language of civilization, disguised as the desire for a better, easier life. It is responsible
for a changing climate, for increasing global poverty, human rights violations and war. It is the
big trickster of our time—it is coyote in his modern day manifestation.
Paragraph 6: Capitalism as a way of life is imposed as a civilizing technique of the colonizing
American government, especially during the eras of assimilation and the Indian Reorganization
Act. The goals of self-government under the IRA were envisioned primarily as a business
creation and management regime, tribal governments were organized as corporations. This was
in response to the poverty that resulted from the miserable failure of allotment (and arguably, all
the land theft and cultural disruption before that).

3. Che-Wei Lee 3
Copyright © 2014 by Che-Wei Lee. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act
of 1976, no part of this manuscript may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a
database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author.
Paragraph 7: When the tribal governments were created they mirrored the American
government not only through the boilerplate constitutions that they adopted, but also through
their emphasis on economics and land ownership. Those constitutions were not rooted in
indigenous traditions and worldviews but the worldviews of the Euroamerican system that
imposed itself and its values on private property, rugged individualism and selfishness.
Paragraph 8: The result is an uncomfortable dichotomy ever-present in the way Indians must
negotiate their worlds today. Like the poorest people in the poorest countries of the world, we all
want the good life we see other Americans enjoying. In some ways the pressure is more
pronounced because it is so in our face. Our poverty is accentuated by the conspicuous wealth of
our neighbors. We are alienated by a system of greed not of our making.
Paragraph 9: The capitalist system is the business approach to life, not a Mitakuye Oyasin (“we
are all related”) approach to life, the way we were taught by our elders. It was perhaps inevitable
and beyond our control that we would get swept up into the capitalist paradigm. But now the
limits to capitalism are painfully obvious.
Paragraph 10: I believe that the degree to which the human race survives the crises we now
face will determine how history will be written. My hope is that we will look back and see the
economic system that drives us now as just a phase of development the human race passed
through to reach a more just and equitable society. Is it possible as Native people to implement a
paradigm shift in our own communities by incorporating into our governments the values of
respect for the natural world and economic parity? We can look to Bolivia who has
constitutionalized the rights of our Mother Earth, however imperfectly it is being implemented.
Can we envision a better world?
Author Note
Dina Gilio-Whitaker (Colville) is a freelance writer and research associate at the Center for
World Indigenous Studies. She was educated at the University of New Mexico and holds a
bachelor’s degree in Native American Studies and a master’s degree in American Studies.