Native American Nation-Building in the Process of Incorporation into the World-System: Reconciling the Local and the Global
Abstract
The struggle of Native nations in the USA for the maintenance of their separate identities and political autonomy goes on in local conditions, yet it is part of global context. Since the first contact with Europeans, Native people had to face incorporation into the world-system.
Today the pressure of globalization gives rise to reconsiderations of fundamental existential questions, which have a spiritual dimension for Native nations. How can Native nations reconcile this spiritual orientation with the inevitable participation in the globalized and technologically interconnected world? A solution may be an incorporation of certain traditional aspects into modern forms of self-government.
Employing the single-case study method and the building block approach to theory development, I will explain how Native Americans, specifically the White Earth Anishinaabeg, managed to retain certain time honored aspects of traditional self-government in the conditions of market capitalism. My arguments hinge on document analysis of archival data and federal and tribal documents.
The results will involve contingent predictions based on the study of the specific subclass of nation-building. In newly developing disciplines, such as Native American Studies, where overall theories are lacking, findings such as these are very important, as they contribute to the development of future theory.