Indigenous sovereignty is taxing (and rightly so): Maximilien Zahnd, ‘An Alaska tax story: Tribal sovereignty, settler colonialism, and the Indigenous tax space’, EPD, Society and Space, 2023 | settler colonial studies blog

Indigenous sovereignty is taxing (and rightly so): Maximilien Zahnd, ‘An Alaska tax story: Tribal sovereignty, settler colonialism, and the Indigenous tax space’, EPD, Society and Space, 2023

25Oct23

Abstract: This article interrogates the extent to which tax laws are capable of empowering Indigenous
peoples. It employs the concept of an Indigenous tax space, which places spatiality at the center of
the settler colonial project. The socio-legal history of the Native Village of Kluti Kaah, an Ahtna
tribe from southcentral Alaska, constitutes the main case study. In 1987, the tribe attempted to
tax the Trans-Alaska Pipeline that passed through its traditional lands, creating an Indigenous tax
space wherein tax law and discourse congregated to express and enact Indigenous agency. The
article argues that the Indigenous tax space (1) provides a rare opportunity to reappraise the
geographies of tax laws and policies and, more broadly, (2) allows us to explore settler colonialism’s previous and ongoing effects upon Indigenous territories.

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