Indigenous Peoples and the Law
About the Book Series
The colonial modalities which resulted in the pillaging of the ‘New World’ involved wholesale dispossession, genocidal violence and exploitation of their original inhabitants. It was not, however, until the latter part of the twentieth century that Indigenous peoples attained some degree of legal recognition. This book series focuses upon the manner in which Indigenous peoples’ experiences of law have been transformed from an oppressive system of denying rights to a site of contestation and the articulation of various forms of self-governance. Encouraging a range of theoretical, political and ethical perspectives on Indigenous peoples and the law, this book series aims to provide a comprehensive survey of the experience of Indigenous peoples and their changing relationship with national and international juridical frameworks.
The series will include both monographs and edited collections pursuing variety a of perspectives – including, but not limited to, a concern with:
- Law as a mechanism of power/knowledge: that is, the discursive and biopolitical strategies of Conquest, Settlement, and Empire – with a particular interest in how the juridical was deployed to validate land appropriation in the ‘New World’ and European colonies. This might include consideration of the influence of the writings of Vattel, Blackstone, Sepulveda, Vittoria, las Casas and others in framing Indigenous populations and their lands as supposedly amenable to colonization.
- The role of law in authorising oppression, dispossession and genocide in the colonial period, and how such juridical moments continue to shape relations between Indigenous peoples and the State. This might include consideration of: specific governmental policies and legislation that allowed for forced removal of Indigenous children; appropriation of Indigenous lands; the imposition of regimes of control through government reserves and missions; and/or the role of treaties in providing legal justification for the dispossession of Indigenous peoples.
- Contemporary issues that confront Indigenous peoples in their dealings with law in the global present. This might include consideration of: disputes relating to resource extraction; access to justice and over-representation in the criminal justice system; cultural heritage and intellectual property claims; the recognition of Indigenous laws; land rights; the belated recognition of Indigenous rights in both ‘new’ constitutions and in international law; and/or sovereignty.
If you are interested in submitting a proposal for the series, please contact:
Mark Harris
The University of British Columbia
or
Colin Perrin
Routledge
2 Park Square
Milton Park
Abingdon
Oxon
OX14 4RN
Socio-Legal Struggles for Indigenous Self-Determination in Latin America: Reimagining the Nation, Reinventing the State
1st Edition
By Roger Merino
May 27, 2021
This book is an interdisciplinary study of struggles for indigenous self-determination and the recognition of indigenous’ territorial rights in Latin America. Studies of indigenous peoples’ opposition to extractive industries have tended to focus on its economic, political or social aspects, as if...
Decolonizing Law: Indigenous, Third World and Settler Perspectives
1st Edition
Edited
By Sujith Xavier, Beverley Jacobs, Valarie Waboose, Jeffery G. Hewitt, Amar Bhatia
May 25, 2021
This book brings together Indigenous, Third World and Settler perspectives on the theory and practice of decolonizing law. Colonialism, imperialism, and settler colonialism continue to affect the lives of racialized communities and Indigenous Peoples around the world. Law, in its many iterations, ...
Reconciling Indigenous Peoples’ Individual and Collective Rights: Participation, Prior Consultation and Self-Determination in Latin America
1st Edition
By Jessika Eichler
December 18, 2020
This book critically assesses categorical divisions between indigenous individual and collective rights regimes embedded in the foundations of international human rights law. Both conceptual ambiguities and practice-related difficulties arising in vernacularisation processes point to the need of ...
Indigenous Rights and Water Resource Management: Not Just Another Stakeholder
1st Edition
By Katie O'Bryan
September 30, 2020
In an era of climate change, the need to manage our water resources effectively for future generations has become an increasingly significant challenge. Indigenous management practices have been successfully used to manage inland water systems around the world for thousands of years, and Indigenous...
Indigenous Courts, Self-Determination and Criminal Justice
1st Edition
By Valmaine Toki
July 31, 2020
In New Zealand, as well as in Australia, Canada and other comparable jurisdictions, Indigenous peoples comprise a significantly disproportionate percentage of the prison population. For example, Maori, who comprise 15% of New Zealand’s population, make up 50% of its prisoners. For Maori women, the ...
Indigenous Peoples and the State: International Perspectives on the Treaty of Waitangi
1st Edition
By Mark Hickford, Carwyn Jones
November 28, 2019
Across the globe, there are numerous examples of treaties, compacts, or other negotiated agreements that mediate relationships between Indigenous peoples and states or settler communities. Perhaps the best known of these, New Zealand’s Treaty of Waitangi is a living, and historically rich, ...
Indigenous Peoples as Subjects of International Law
1st Edition
Edited
By Irene Watson
December 19, 2018
For more than 500 years, Indigenous laws have been disregarded. Many appeals for their recognition under international law have been made, but have thus far failed – mainly because international law was itself shaped by colonialism. How, this volume asks, might international law be reconstructed, ...
The Literary and Legal Genealogy of Native American Dispossession: The Marshall Trilogy Cases
1st Edition
By George Pappas
February 05, 2018
The Literary and Legal Genealogy of Native American Dispossession offers a unique interpretation of how literary and public discourses influenced three U.S. Supreme Court Rulings written by Chief Justice John Marshall with respect to Native Americans. These cases, Johnson v. M’Intosh (1823), ...
Indigeneity: Before and Beyond the Law
1st Edition
By Kathleen Birrell
October 12, 2017
Examining contested notions of indigeneity, and the positioning of the Indigenous subject before and beyond the law, this book focuses upon the animation of indigeneities within textual imaginaries, both literary and juridical. Engaging the philosophy of Jacques Derrida and Walter Benjamin, as well...
Aboriginal Peoples, Colonialism and International Law: Raw Law
1st Edition
By Irene Watson
April 27, 2016
This work is the first to assess the legality and impact of colonisation from the viewpoint of Aboriginal law, rather than from that of the dominant Western legal tradition. It begins by outlining the Aboriginal legal system as it is embedded in Aboriginal people’s complex relationship with their ...