Paper short abstract:

Federal land management on Pine Ridge Indian reservation since 1887 and how Lakota imagine new solutions today.

Paper long abstract:

In 1887, the US government implemented the Dawes Act, fractionating tribal lands into individual parcels, aiming at transforming Indians into farmers and cash producers. Though officially canceled in 1934, the Dawes Act has had tremendous effects over the life of the Lakota people on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation throughout the century. Indeed, the lack of an economic perspectives, among other things, is directly linked to the land management of the past century.

After generations of unemployment, despair and hopelessness, extended families (tiyospaye) on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation today are imagining new sustainable ways of living. By getting their land back through a complex administrative maze, extended families reinvent collectiveness and bring the buffalo back to Indian land.

The paper will be illustrated with clips from a documentary film shot in 2005 and 2006 on the field.