Reclaiming the Reservation

The patchwork of case law and congressional acts defining tribal jurisdiction is complex and beyond the understanding of most Americans, including those affected by it. Alexandra Harmon's Reclaiming the Reservation is an impressive exploration of the ebb and flow of tribal sovereignty, focusing on the Native people who proactively engaged changing legal standards. Harmon thoughtfully interweaves two hundred years of jurisdictional disputes in a narrative that slows to precision in the two decades leading up to Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe (1978), which she casts as the key turning point in reshaping “the nature of Indian tribes, their relationship to the United States, their powers as political entities, and the significance of Indian reservations” (p. 5). As a former tribal law practitioner turned historian, Harmon aptly draws on those roots and her twenty-five years of research in Indigenous culture and ethnicity to fashion a monograph that represents the best of

Art · Ethnic group · Ethnology · Genealogy · Indian country · Indigenous · Jurisdiction · Literature · Narrative · Native American studies · Political science · Politics · Reservation · Sociology · Sovereignty · Tribe · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Anthropology · History · Law