Illuminating the Invisible American Sovereignty

Researching JULY 2017 LAW Vol 28 | No 1 ILLUMINATING THE INVISIBLE AMERICAN SOVEREIGNTY: A Profile of the ABF’s First Scholar of Native American Legal Systems RESEARCHING LAW VOL 28 | NO 1 | JULY 2017 Illuminating the Invisible American Sovereignty: A Profile of the ABF’s First Scholar of Native American Legal Systems When did you begin working wasn’t a space to pursue those and non-Native ways of doing with Native American in the context of black letter things, especially for the Hopi. Justin B. Richland, Ph.D., J.D. , is an associate Nations? legal classes. I fortunately met a These courts look in many professor of anthropology and the social sciences at JR: I first started working with classmate named Patricia (Pat) ways like an Anglo-American the University of Chicago. He is the latest researcher to Native nations when I was a Sekaquaptewa, who is a member style court, but they also are law student, though I didn’t of the Hopi tribe and whose committed—and required by join the American Bar Foundation’s faculty, becoming a have any background in it. I uncle, Emory Sekaquaptewa, their own tribal law—to make research professor in the fall of 2016, along with former studied anthropology at Kenyon was chief justice of the Hopi decisions informed by the laws, Appellate Court at the time. customs and traditions of the faculty fellow Bernadette Atuahene. College for my undergrad. And so, I had always been interested We started talking about Hopi nation and its people. And in the meaning of cultural various issues and she was so I got very interested in the practices, norms and rules, very interested in developing challenges that are posed by the Professor Richland is a linguistic anthropologist Fellow for his research on Native American-museum how people make their own programs and working for meeting of these two systems. and legal scholar whose research focuses on partnerships, and the role of law in shaping experiences meaningful, and her community and her tribe. How do these worlds come the intersections of culture, language and law in those collaborations. He received his doctorate in how they make sense of their And she had just received a together to shape contemporary contemporary Native American governance. His anthropology from the University of California at world and the role that culture very prestigious Echoing Green Hopi jurisprudence? That work has explored legal discourse analysis and Los Angeles (UCLA) in 2004 and his J.D. from the plays in that. After graduating, Fellowship to start a clerkship ended up becoming the work semiotics, anthropology of law, and contemporary University of California, Berkeley in 1996. I couldn’t commit to pursuing program. So she put together that I would mostly focus on. Native American law, politics, art and ethnographic Professor Richland lives in Chicago’s Hyde Park a Ph.D. in anthropology, so I a program where students In the meantime, Pat turned museology. neighborhood with his wife and three sons, ages decided to go to law school. I would get course credits to be this program into a nonprofit He is author of two books, “Introduction to Tribal 10, 7, and 5. His wife, Lindsey, is an associate was admitted to Berkeley Law, legal clerks for the Hopi tribe. organization. After graduating Legal Studies” (with Sarah Deer) and “Arguing professor in the Department of Comparative Human but it quickly became clear They’d get to work on live cases law school, I worked with them with Tradition: The Language of Law in Hopi Tribal Development and the Committee on Education at to me that conventional legal and assist in the legal research for a year, but they had very Court,” as well as articles in several leading journals the University of Chicago. She also directs research practice was not going to be in necessary for the appellate limited funding, so I had to including the Annual Review of Anthropology, at the university’s Learning Lab. my future. I was much more court to do its job. Their support myself working odd interested in how the law helps efforts would directly aid in the jobs. And so I thought, “well, American Ethnologist, Discourse & Society, and The ABF recently sat down with Professor Richland us make sense of our world and development of Hopi common why don’t I go back to school the ABF’s Law & Social Inquiry. Since 2015, he has to discuss his background in tribal law, his research, the relations that people have law. I started working in that and get a Ph.D.?” I ended served as associate justice of the Hopi Appellate and how he is currently working with and for Native by virtue of the law. I got very program in 1995 and I was up going to UCLA, and the Court, the highest court of the Hopi Nation. In people in the United States. An edited transcript of interested in those theoretical just blown away. Tribal courts rest is history. I took my legal 2016, he was named a John Simon Guggenheim our conversation follows. types of questions and there sit as a nexus between Native education and went to graduate 2 3 RESEARCHING LAW VOL 28 | NO 1 | JULY 2017 school in anthropology. I found continue to shape linguistic You expanded on this topic within a community. It is rarely a way to bring those disciplines anthropology to this day. So this further for your second book, about final determinations of together to continue working whole theory—the Sapir-Whorf Arguing with Tradition: The rights. There are also subtleties on tribal law and to understand hypothesis—emerged through Language of Law in Hopi and challenges that Hopi judges how it works. To ask those findings based on the Hopi Tribal Court. face. They are, on the one hand, big questions about meaning language. It became a natural fit JR: Yes, correct. There have committed to a system that has and interface of cultures and for me—as a lawyer and soon- been studies of tribal courts a very Anglo-American look the role that law plays in all of to-be linguistic anthropologist— based on surveys, interviews and inheritance—due process, that. I was thrilled to be able to to pursue a study of the and analyses of written cases, the rule of law, and generalized continue with that work. language and discourse of but nothing had attempted to norms that treat people equally courtroom argumentation out understand how the courts under all circumstances. This Your Ph.D. dissertation at Hopi. And that’s what my actually work on a day-to- is vastly different than how focused on one of those “big dissertation looked at. It was day basis. I argue in the book the Hopi people understand questions;” on understanding titled “Arguing with Tradition” that if you only understand fairness in their community. the way litigants, lawyers, and I analyzed a bunch of cases written products or if you only In their community—who you and judges use the Hopi and and hearings—both in English interview people, you’re missing are, what clan you’re from, English language to argue and in Hopi—to understand something. You are missing what village you’re from—that claims in Hopi courts. Can you Professor Richland with Patricia Sekaquaptewa and the late Emory Sekaquaptewa how the Hopi people argued the very subtle, challenging, all matters. It matters in all tell me more about that? with scholars and other Hopi very much interested in what in court. And to understand and ongoing negotiations that sorts of ways. And your idea JR: One of the things that speakers, spearheaded the kinds of activities, actions, and how they were using their are the bread and butter of of culture can be dependent on became clear to me when I was drafting and publication of the consequences happen when language to make certain kinds the Hopi legal system. Their your position as a ceremonial going out to Hopi and observing first major Hopi dictionary in people talk to each other in of arguments and what worked system is about ongoing leader or as a member in a cases was most questions of 1997. Some call him “the Hopi any language. It turns out that and didn’t work in that context. relationships among people particular clan. People have culture were being raised in oral Daniel Webster” because of this. the Hopi language has a very different understandings of arguments. Not in the texts, He was an incredible man and particular place in the history of culture and so different rules case files, or other court records. my mentor. He died in 2008 and linguistic anthropology. Back in can apply. So it’s very hard And that is partly because, I miss him every single day. So, the 1930s, Benjamin Lee Whorf to apply general principles. even though people had been oral argument is where things came up with this massively Hopi judges are trying to deal studying the Hopi language were being worked out, and I influential theory of linguistic with issues, but they are stuck for 89 plus years, there was no needed a way of understanding relativity—that language shapes between meeting the legitimacy standard written form for it, what making claims through the way we think about and demands of an Anglo-American until relatively recently, when oral discourse actually looks experience the world. Though due process system and of Emory Sekaquaptewa, working like. Linguistic anthropology is his specific findings remain Hopi values, customs and controversial—including tradition.

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