Research Interests
My general research interests lie with the martial origins of the administrative state: particularly with regard to the execution of federal Indian policy and the "management" of Indian affairs. My work is unique in that it foregrounds Tribal nations as agented decision makers in not just the martial but also the legal contest of the late 19th century. In addition, my research analyzes the administrative decision making of commanding officers and civilian security agents and how this decisionmaking influences law.
My current project is concerned with the origins, applications, and implications of administrative authority over Native lands and people in the United States. More narrowly, I am interested in how this seemingly mundane authority retains a militaristic–and extraconstitutional–dimension.
Origins
On one level, I investigate the development of the administrative state through its interaction with Native nations. Native legal scholars have long argued that executive powers of administration in the United States were shaped in the context of war and westward expansion. I trace the long relationship between two executive departments–the Interior and War–and study their interplay. In particular, I explore the expansive administrative authority given to both civilian and military officers in the 19th century to both secure the interests of settlers as well as enforce military policy of the time.
Applications
On another level, I study how the strategic legal ambiguity of Indian country makes it particularly vulnerable to extraordinary measures in moments of national security “emergency”. In my most recent work, I study the origins and administration of Leupp Isolation Center: an off-the-books WWII War Relocation Authority camp on the Navajo Nation used to indefinitely detain Japanese American citizens deemed “troublemakers”. In this work, I identify the legal, administrative, and security decisions of WRA authorities and the Navajo Tribal Council Members who authorized use of Navajo land for the isolation center. I also appraise the extent to which Leupp’s administrative policies rested on the use of comparative racialization and 19th century federal Indian policy.
Implications
On a third level, I investigate the ongoing impact of federal Indian policy on the rule of law, Tribal law and sovereignty, and national security.
Rule of Law
Administrative exceptionality–in Indian country and beyond–provokes deeply consequential questions about habeas corpus, property rights, and civil justice before the law.
Tribal Law and Sovereignty
As Tribal governments resist, accept, or negotiate with federal policy they not only become “repeat players” in the legal and political contest–building their own legal resources and strategies–they also shape federal policy on their own terms. My current research provides critical insight to scholars of multi-level governance, international studies, and US federal Indian policy.
National Security
My research analyzes the broad impact of US federal Indian policy on the scope and use of military commissions, executive war powers, operational decision making in irregular warfare, and indefinite detention of enemy combatants. In the developing field of space law and security, my research proposes that legal and operational lessons can be learned from both the Frontier Wars of settler expansion as well as the laws which they produced.