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> Alaska Natives & the courts > Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA)

Alaska Native communities, along with legal and social service agencies, have identified serious problems with the implementation of Indian Child Welfare Act. It is hypothesized that the identity of children as members of cultural groups is formed and contested in the legal and political climate surrounding ICWA, and that these struggles are embedded in negotiations between formalized legal structures and local Native communities. ICWA is intended to enhance Native control over the custody of Native children. In Alaska, ICWA cases are often vexed by legal battles between the state and Native communities over issues of Native sovereignty and status. Because of the linkage between control of tribal members and sovereignty claims, ICWA cases reference politically and emotionally charged domains including the maintenance of cultural traditions, conflicts over political rights, and an investment in children as the future of tribes.
     Under this project, researchers will conduct an ethnographic study of decision-making under the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) in Kake, Tlingit community in Southeast Alaska. This exploratory study proposes to investigate a time-critical change in the ways in which a small Native community negotiates its relationship with local, state and federal authorities in determining child welfare. The study is a pilot project for a larger study investigating Indian child welfare and Native judicial autonomy:

Products

• Child Welfare and Alaska Native Tribal Governance: A Pilot Project in Kake, Alaska -- Report of Findings by Lisa Rieger and Randy Kandel. Report prepared for the National Science Foundation. Anchorage: Justice Center, University of Alaska Anchorage, October 1999.

Press releases

• "Rieger Receives NSF Grant to Study Indian Child Welfare in Kake": Professor Lisa Rieger has received a $50,000 grant from the National Science Foundation for a pilot study examining the Kake Tlingit community's efforts to address child welfare (September 28, 1998).