The Theory of Regulation and the Economic Theory of Regulatory Constraint have not yet been adapted by American Indian Studies scholars to explain and analyze the federal regulations connected with Federal Indian Law and Policy. It is the intention of this thesis to prove the applicability of these theories to the law and policy concentration of American Indian Studies. The adaptation of these two theories could impact how federal regulations affecting Indian Country are viewed and interpreted. An examination of Federal Indian policy, specifically the regulations (43 CFR 10) promulgated for the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) and the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) Section 106 tribal consultation processes (36 CFR PART 800) can provide a case study for understanding the applicability of the Theory of Regulation and the Economic Theory of Regulatory Constraint to a common regulatory process in Federal Indian Law.

Indigenous cartography is based on a relational epistemology that works within a system where "place" and "ways of knowing" are intimately tied to Native communities' notions of kinship, oral tradition, and traditional ecological knowledge acquired over the millennia. It brings to life a place where mapping and geography cease to be simply Cartesian coordinates on a Euclidean plane and instead become storied landscapes. Indigenous cartography can be described as "radical" because it represents a departure from traditional Western ways of mapping and affirms an Indigenous political, economic and cultural sovereignty. As an intensely political act, Indigenous cartography can be an important tool used by Indigenous people to assert sovereignty in a bottom-up approach to land claims, in the management of cultural resources, and even to claim human remains for repatriation and reburial. If Indigenous groups wish to successfully utilize geospatial technologies as legal strategies, it will first require the development of the necessary infrastructure and training of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) specialists from within. In much the same way that colonial practices of the past worked to achieve hegemony through the making of political and cultural boundaries, Indigenous cartography can work to dismantle these same colonial boundaries. A theory and methodology of Indigenous cartographic praxis is in use among some First Nations in British Columbia. However no "best practices" yet exist for the Indigenous use-and-mapping discipline. Consequently in the United States, Indigenous mapping is still considered an emerging approach. Therefore, can American Indian political and cultural sovereignty be supported by the implementation of Indigenous geospatial technologies? This dissertation will examine the British Columbian model and distill principles that can be successfully implemented by U. S. Native American communities who wish to develop capacity for this emerging geospatial technology based on the success of the First Nations model.