The purpose of this article is to use a comparative case study method to evaluate the different existing economic development practices of American Indian peoples in the United States and Canada. The basis of comparison is the organizational structure of businesses with the comparison being between capitalist and cooperative forms. The goal is to understand how organizational type (or mode of production) is connected to the production of contemporary culture and social relations. The main conclusion is that, while not equivalent to traditional indigenous economies, cooperative structures are closer than capitalist ones to facilitating and reproducing traditionalist forms of sociality and cultural production.
AndersonRB (1999) Economic Development among the Aboriginal Peoples in Canada: The Hope for the Future, North York, Ontario: Captus Press Inc.
2.
AndersonRB (2001) Aboriginal people, economic development and entrepreneurship. The Journal of Aboriginal Economic Development2(1): 33–45.
3.
AndersonRB (2002) Entrepreneurship and Aboriginal Canadians: A case study in economic development. Journal of Development Entrepreneurship7(1): 45–65.
4.
AndersonTL (1992) Property Rights and Indian Economies, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
5.
AndersonTL (1995) Sovereign Nations or Reservations? An Economic History of American Indians, San Francisco, CA: Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy.
6.
AndersonRBDanaLPDanaTE (2006a) Indigenous land rights, entrepreneurship, and economic development in Canada: “Opting-in” to the global economy. Journal of World Business41: 45–55.
7.
AndersonTLBensonBLFlanaganTE (2006b) Self-Determination: The Other Path for Native Americans, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
8.
AntellJBlevinsAJensenK (2000) American Indian casino gambling: Issues of tribal sovereignty and economic development. Community Development: Journal of the Community Development Society31(1): 1–18.
9.
BlackSS (1994) Redefining Success in Community Development: A New Approach for Determining and Measuring the Impact of Development (Richard Schramm Paper on Community Development), Medford, MA: The Lincoln Filene Center.
10.
BruceMRobertsonS (1994) An examination of the impact of the commercial use of muskox underwool upon native Alaskan villagers. Rangifer14(1): 39–44.
11.
CattelinoJR (2004) Casino roots: The cultural production of twentieth-centruy Seminole economic development. In: HosmerBO’NeillC (eds) Native Pathways: American Indian Culture and Economic Development in the Twentieth Century, Boulder, CO: University Press of Colorado, pp. 66–90.
12.
CattelinoJR (2008) High Stakes: Florida Seminole Gaming and Sovereignty, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
13.
CornellSJorgensenMRecordIW (2007) Citizen entrepreneurship: An underutilized development resource. In: JorgensenM (eds) Rebuilding Native Nations: Strategies for Governance and Development, Tucson, AZ: The University of Arizona Press, pp. 197–222.
14.
CornellSKaltJP (1992) What Can Tribes Do? Strategies and Institutions in American Indian Economic Development (American Indian Manual and Handbook Series No. 4), Los Angeles, CA: American Indian Studies Center, University of California.
15.
DowlingC (2005) The applied theory of first nations economic development: A critique. The Journal of Aboriginal Economic Development4(2): 120–128.
16.
FindlayI (2006) Putting co-operative principles into practice: Lessons learned from Canada’s North. Review of International Co-operation99(1): 44–52.
17.
GraeberD (2006) Turning modes of production inside out: Or, why capitalism is a transformation of slavery. Critique of Anthropology26(1): 61–85.
18.
HornCLHalsethG (2011) Seeing like a circle: Perspectives on the field from a dialogue on urban Aboriginal economic development. Aboriginal Policy Studies1(2): 101–131.
19.
JohansenBE (2004) The New York Oneidas: A business called a nation. In: JohansenBE (eds) Enduring Legacies: Native American Treaties and Contemporary Controversies, Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, pp. 95–133.
NewhouseD (2000) Modern Aboriginal economies: Capitalism with a red face. The Journal of Aboriginal Economic Development1(2): 55–61.
22.
Oomingmak Musk Ox Producers’ Co-operative (2013) Available at: http://www.quiviut.com (accessed 4 April 2014).
23.
OppenheimerRJO’ConnellTDiaboLJ (2001) Facilitating the development of successful entrepreneurs in Kahnawake: A program that is working. The Journal of Aboriginal Economic Development2(1): 56–60.
24.
Pattison D and Findlay IM (2010) Self-Determination in Action: The Entrepreneurship of the Northern Saskatchewan Trappers Association Co-operative. Saskatoon, Saskatchewan: Centre for the Study of Co-operatives, University of Saskatchewan. Available at: http://usaskstudies.coop/socialeconomy/wp-content/uploads/report_cl3_01_sk.pdf (accessed 4 April 2014).
25.
RataE (2000) The Political Economy of Neotribal Capitalism, Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
26.
SchroderIW (2003) The political economy of tribalism in North America: Neotribal capitalism?Anthropological Theory3(4): 435–456.
27.
SmithDH (2000) Modern Tribal Development: Paths to Self-Sufficiency and Cultural Integrity in Indian Country, Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press.
28.
The Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development (HPAIED) (2008) The State of the Native Nations: Conditions Under U.S. Policies of Self-Determination, New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
29.
TrosperRL (1995) Traditional American Indian economic policy. American Indian Culture and Research Journal19(1): 65–95.
