Moving Beyond Recognition: Aboriginal Governance in the Turbulent 1990s

This chapter considers the emergence during the 1990s of governance as a major issue for the post-recognition jurisprudence of aboriginal rights. It shows that the exercise of self-determination occurred at a number of levels, from the governmental, pan-tribal, inter-tribal, and intra-tribal and, in limited urban settings, extra-tribal. As the practice of self-determination grew and was accompanied by the injection of settler-state resources, aboriginal relations juridified. Aboriginal affairs acquired a deepening and broadening legalism, giving rise to a paradox: the more self-determining...

This chapter considers the emergence during the 1990s of governance as a major issue for the post-recognition jurisprudence of aboriginal rights. It shows that the exercise of self-determination occurred at a number of levels, from the governmental, pan-tribal, inter-tribal, and intra-tribal and, in limited urban settings, extra-tribal. As the practice of self-determination grew and was accompanied by the injection of settler-state resources, aboriginal relations juridified. Aboriginal affairs acquired a deepening and broadening legalism, giving rise to a paradox: the more self-determining aboriginal groups became, the more law was involved in the management of their affairs. Instead of being used instrumentally against them, law was now being used instrumentally by and for them towards a full range of purposes. That those purposes varied and were subject to dispute within aboriginal culture, often in highly combustible ways, signalled the extent to which the principle had been reawakened.