An Alaska tax story: Tribal sovereignty, settler colonialism, and the Indigenous tax space

Abstract

This article interrogates the extent to which tax laws are capable of empowering Indigenous peoples. It employs the concept of an Indigenous tax space, which places spatiality at the center of the settler colonial project. The socio-legal history of the Native Village of Kluti Kaah, an Ahtna tribe from southcentral Alaska, constitutes the main case study. In 1987, the tribe attempted to tax the Trans-Alaska Pipeline that passed through its traditional lands, creating an Indigenous tax space wherein tax law and discourse congregated to express and enact Indigenous agency. The article argues that the Indigenous tax space (1) provides a rare opportunity to reappraise the geographies of tax laws and policies and, more broadly, (2) allows us to explore settler colonialism’s previous and ongoing effects upon Indigenous territories.