APEC3081: Perspectives on Economic and Social Issues Affecting Indigenous Communities

Indigenous peoples--in the sense, loosely speaking, of original or early settled populations living in nations now politically and socially dominated by later-arriving populations--can be found in significant numbers in many countries, especially those founded in settler colonialism. They often live in socially, racially, and culturally distinct, not-fully-assimilated communities, sometimes with special legal, political, spatial, cultural, and other status or rights. In those cases, these communities are likely also to face special economic constraints and opportunities, and these in turn often intersect with concepts of race and identity as well as issues of social justice and power. This course will analyze the historical and contemporary factors that have contributed to the special economic circumstances and institutions of Indigenous communities. It will touch on Indigenous community issues worldwide but will focus on the United States and, to some extent, Minnesota. Students will gain an understanding of Indigenous communities' economic resources, such as land, knowledge, health, financial capital, social capital, environmental capital, and political and legal rights. They will examine the special legal and institutional constraints limiting the efficient use of these resources and discuss policy issues related to the development of Indigenous economies. A mixture of economic concepts and theory, data, and case studies will be used throughout the course. In keeping with this course's liberal education objectives, this course asks students to learn and use multiple disciplines to critically and rationally analyze the economic opportunities and challenges facing Indigenous communities and to demonstrate how economic concepts and evidence shed light on related issues of equity and justice. This course draws on literature from history, law, biology, psychology, many subfields of economics (microeconomics, development economics; regional and spatial economics; the economics of human capital, economic history, etc.), and more. Students will learn how to use economic reasoning to better understand the history of interactions between Indigenous people and settler societies. They will learn about and use some of the available data on Indigenous people and communities to better understand the communities' economic situations as well as the limitations of the data and data analysis. They will be asked to discuss how concepts of racial identity and power differences between settler and Indigenous communities emerged and contributed to modern Indigenous economic outcomes and to use economic reasoning in discussing the related justice issues. prereq: APEC 1101 or ECON 1101 or equivalent or instructor consent

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