Indigenous Constituent Power

Abstract The core meaning of constituent power resonates with many historical traditions of Indigenous political thought and practice. Indigenous peoples continue to exercise constituent power through the (re-)constitution of political orders at multiple scales of governance, from the local to the global. These juris-generative practices are often grounded in Indigenous spirituality and treaty-making, affirming relations of interdependence between Indigenous polities, non-Indigenous polities, and other living beings. Indigenous constituent power challenges conventional understandings on at least five dimensions: (i) its collective subject is not a state-bounded demos; (ii) it is de-linked from state-centred conceptions of sovereignty; (iii) it does not usually assert comprehensive jurisdiction over all subject matters of legislation; (iv) it generates politico-legal orders at multiple scales of politics, above, below, and across state boundaries; and (v) it constitutes orders that regulate not only human political relationships but also relations between human societies and the more-than-human environments that sustain them.