My project investigates the extraordinary use of Native lands in times of “national emergency” as well as how extraordinary security measures against Native people and lands became embedded in administrative law and organizational practice. Broadly, it explores how–in times of supposed national emergency–Native people and lands become subject to militarized attention in ways non-Native lands and people simply aren’t. It asks: how has “Indian country” been constructed as a site of perpetual securitization, and how has the administrative response to “security” threats shaped this construction? To what extent is this process either facilitated or resisted by Tribal nations? How is this process facilitated by premises which undergird Federal Indian Law? To what extent has this process shaped other forms of public law and policy?
I answer these questions by studying wartime administrative decision making and its impact on land use in Indian Country.
AA, Berkeley City College; BA, UC Berkeley