Culture, Self-Determination and Colonialism: Issues Around the Revitalization of Indigenous Legal Traditions

This paper works from the assumption that the power of the state to determine and regulate debate around the reinvigoration of Indigenous legal traditions must be set aside, and that the path forward must be laid out by Indigenous peoples. Working out the implications of this assumption leads to ruminations on the roles that identity, colonialism, culture and self- determination must play in structuring debate around the rebuilding of these legal traditions. The position that begins to emerge from these ruminations focuses attention on the need to control processes of identity formation. Given the historical and ongoing impacts of colonial policies and practices, regaining and exercising control over these processes will be challenging in its own right, but only through this sort of strategy will Indigenous nations find that their efforts hold promise of a 'post-colonial' world for subsequent generations.