Indigenous Peoples and Sovereign Citizen Pseudolaw
Indigenous Peoples and Sovereign Citizen Pseudolaw
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Description
This book confronts a pressing and unsettling development at the intersection of law, sovereignty, and Indigenous rights: the growing entanglement between Indigenous legal traditions and sovereign citizen pseudolaw.
Bringing together leading scholars from law, anthropology, Indigenous studies, and related disciplines, the volume exposes how pseudolegal movements increasingly appropriate the language and symbolism of Indigenous sovereignty to advance anti-state and conspiratorial agendas.
The collection shows that this appropriation is not confined to non-Indigenous actors. In contexts of long-standing injustice and frustration with state institutions, some Indigenous individuals are also drawn to sovereign citizen arguments that promise autonomy or escape from state authority. Through careful analysis, the contributors explain why these claims may appear attractive, while demonstrating that they rest on legal fantasies fundamentally at odds with Indigenous legal orders. Where Indigenous laws are collective, relational, and grounded in responsibilities to land and community, pseudolaw is individualistic, property-centred, and rooted in settler-colonial entitlement.
As the first scholarly collection to systematically address this phenomenon, the volume calls for renewed intellectual clarity and sustained engagement between academics, legal practitioners, and Indigenous communities. The book traces how pseudolaw repackages older colonial strategies of appropriation and erasure in new forms. It reveals the tangible harms these entanglements cause: legal confusion, political vulnerability, and the erosion of the credibility of genuine Indigenous sovereignty claims. It offers a powerful warning about the dangers of pseudolaw and a compelling case for strengthening Indigenous-led pathways to justice, self-governance, and sovereignty.
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Table of Contents
Part One: Conceptualising the Relationship
2. The Concerning Intersections of Sovereign Citizens and Indigenous Sovereignty Claims, Stephen Young (University of Otago, New Zealand), Harry Hobbs (University of New South Wales, Australia)
3. Kia Mau ki te Aka Matua – Hold on to the Reliable Vine: The Incompatibility of Pseudolaw and Tikanga Principles, Anna Pinenga Coddington (Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand)
4. Differentiating Indigenous Sovereign Citizen Claims from Discourse on Indigenous Sovereignty in Australia: An Anthropological Insight, Pascale Taplin (Australia National University), Tahnee Innes (James Cook University), and Nicolas Peterson (Australia National University)
5. On “Sovereignty”: Indigenous Resistance in the Wake of Pseudolaw Extremists and Self-Indigenizers, Taylor Mills (Michigan State University, USA)
Part Two: Encounters and Convergence
6. You Stole the Air I Breathe: False Claims of Indigenous Legal Status in Canada, Donald J Netolitzky (Former and retired Complex Litigant Management Counsel, Alberta Court of King's Bench, Canada)
7. Improvise, Adapt, Overcome: Novel Pseudolaw in Aotearoa New Zealand and the Adoption of Tino Rangatiratanga by Pseudolaw Adherents, William Biss (University of Otago, New Zealand)
8. Something in the Water Supply? First Nations Sovereignty and Pseudolaw in Australia, Timothy Dauth (Crown Solicitor's Office, NSW, Australia)
9. Sovereign Nations or Sovereign Citizens? The Entanglement of Indigenous Jurisdictional Challenges and Pseudolaw in Aotearoa New Zealand's Criminal Courts, Fleur Te Aho (University of Auckland, New Zealand)
Part Three: Beyond the Settler-Indigenous Paradigm
10. Indigenous Germans? A Strategic Reframing in German Pseudolegal Discourse, Anna Löbbert (University of Oxford, England)
11. 'I'd rather be dead than a slave': On the Entanglement of Frisian Indigeneity and Sovereign Citizenship, Luuk de Boer (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, Netherlands) and Itai Siegel (Leiden University, Netherlands)
12. Indigenous Dispositions: Sovereign Citizen Religious/Legal Claims to Indigeneity, Spencer Dew (Ohio State University, USA)
13. The Great White Brother from the East: David Icke, Indigenous Cultures, and the Creation of Cosmic Pseudolaw, Joseph McAulay (University of Oxford, England)
Afterword, Yasmin Olsen (University of Otago, New Zealand)
Product details
| Published | 15 Apr 2027 |
|---|---|
| Format | Ebook (Epub & Mobi) |
| Edition | 1st |
| Pages | 352 |
| ISBN | 9781509999439 |
| Imprint | Hart Publishing |
| Series | Hart Studies on Contested Legalities |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
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