This course will provide students with ethnographic information about how to understand and work within contemporary Native American communities. Students will be encouraged to develop a holistic understanding of community organization, culture, kinship, norms, and political processes that will be necessary participate as interns, service learners, researchers, or as career employees in Indian country.
Conceptual understanding of social, cultural and political processes will be emphasized, and students will be introduced to the cultural etiquette of social relations. The course will provide tools that will enable them to translate academic and technical knowledge gained at the university and reconcile their training
to the diverse cultures and forms of knowledge current within Native communities. The course will focus on general cultural issues and cases studies from around the United States and Canada . For their midterm paper, students are asked to select a community or project where they wish to propose and develop a nation building project. The midterm paper should consist a topic that addresses any of the
nation building or policy issues that confront contemporary indigenous peoples. Such topics might include but are not restricted to: law, government administration, health, community organization, political reform, economic development, culture, environment, and others. Students will be asked to generate preliminary background research on a Native community, and propose a project that will facilitate Native Nation building.