Commission and Office on Navajo Government Development

Call for Papers

The Future of Navajo Governance

One-Day Conference October 5th Window Rock, AZ

The questions of government development and reform are old ones within the Navajo Nation. Since the creation of the Navajo tribal council in the early 20th century, finding a way to do governance that fits the needs and wants of the Navajo people has proved difficult. Part of the reason why government reform often fails has to do with the way these reforms have been initiated and carried out. They almost always lack critical thinking and planning before implementation. In the interest of doing government reform with improved thinking and planning, The Commission and Office on Navajo Government Development invite scholars in Navajo studies to submit abstracts about their research that relates, broadly, to: health analyses, educational analyses, law and policy arguments and analyses, feminist critiques, Marxist critiques, etc. within the Navajo Nation. We would especially like theoretical arguments and empirically informed research that has been done on these topics. Tentative themes are: Histories of power, authority, and governance Thinking about scale and fit: appropriate institutions for the Navajo Nation The evolution of social, cultural policies: where do we go from here? A critical re-thinking of the Navajo government system: what do we NEED looking forward?

Abstracts of max 300 words should be submitted by September 14th, 2012 to apc55@cornell.edu