Governing Within and Ecological Context: Creating an AlterNative Understanding of Blackfoot Governance

Abstract

Within the parameters of Indigenist thought, governance is "the way in which a people lives best together" or the way a people has structured their society in relationship to the natural world. In other words, it is an expression of how they see themselves fitting in that world as a part of the circle of life, not as superior beings who claim dominion over other species and other humans.