Great Plains Quarterly

The historical relationship between Native tribes and the United States government is one that is strained and often unbalanced. In this book, Justin B. Richland, an associate justice of the Hopi Appellate Court and professor of anthropology at the University of California, Irvine, provides not only a legal history of tribal engagements with the US, but also a guidebook for improving that relationship. Richland borrowed the concept of "cooperation without submission (CWS)" from the Hopi lawyer and linguist Emory Sekaquaptewa, who regarded Hopi society as an intricate system of mutual respect and understanding between different clans, norms, and relations. Richland expands Sekaquaptewa's complex concept beyond the Hopi, arguing that CWS is a transferable Indigenous theory of jurisdiction while at the same time proposing that this could be a means of improving ongoing relationships between Native Nations and the US.

Within the work, another important conceptual contribution is Richland's use of "juris-dictions." While "jurisdiction" is the legal authority of a sovereign state, "jurisdictions" is the everyday legal discourse on specific cases. Richland finds that Native leaders typically insert Indigenous norms and knowledges into their law-speech, making the legal landscape an important place to insist on tribal sovereignty. While Native leaders use the legal space to assert themselves, however, Richland argues that it is the failure of non-Natives to fully recognize Indigenous cultural and legal norms. Why have non-Natives failed to recognize CWS? A major part of this disjuncture lies in the longstanding patriarchal belief in Native Nations not as sovereign nations in their dealings with the US, but instead as lesser, subordinate, and prostrate to the primacy of American law. As Richland rightly points out, however, such domineering perspectives have often failed Native people. Ultimately, failing to recognize these Indigenous patterns of self-governance serves to erase their authority and sovereignty, which is a central component to the ongoing project of settler colonialism.

Ultimately, Cooperation without Submission is a fine book that should interest Indigenous and legal scholars alike. While it may conflate the diverse cultural norms and legal practices of various Native Nations under the expanded Hopi concept of CWS, the book has merit in its examination of everyday legal discourse to [End Page 108] discover how Natives and non-Natives understand one another. Despite the book focusing very little on the Great Plains directly, scholars of the region should find interest in the theoretical framework of CWS, as well as the book's discussion on recent legal matters concerning Plains Native Nations, such as the Dakota Access Pipeline. The true marvel of this book is its assertion of Indigenous sovereignty in the legal landscape, which Richland suggests is a key component in taking steps toward decolonization and as a way forward in Native Nation–US engagements predicated upon a more equitable relationship of reciprocity, respect, and understanding.