ABSTRACT
Based on fieldwork in Akwesasne, a Native American community that straddles the US-Canadian border, the author reflects on the paradoxical nature of indigenous self-governance, which requires protecting a collective right to autonomy while limiting individual rights to claim autonomy from that collective. This tension becomes particularly apparent when individual members of the community want to claim land rights. How can these two seemingly self-contradictory facets of self-governance and culture be reconciled? Drawing on Peter Fitzpatrick’s argument that law, as myth, mediates paradoxes of its own ontology, the author examines the conception, development, and imposition of Akwesasne’s emergent legal order.
