What does justice mean in Native American communities? And how should Native perspectives inform broader conceptions of justice in the United States? Those are two of the big questions asked in a new report from the First Nations Development Institute (First Nations).

The First Nations report, titled Elevating Native Voices of Justice Across Indian Country: Compilation of Research Findings by Native Leaders and Scholars, is the most detailed study of its kind. The report draws on the following datasets:

  • A national survey of 1,600 Native Americans
  • A national survey of 3,300 US residents who are not Native American
  • A set of 31 qualitative interviews of Native advocates and leaders
  • A collection of 33 essays (published as Invisible No More: Voices from Native America in 2023)
  • Submissions from 21 Native artists, fashion designers, and musicians
  • A national convening of 28 Native leaders held in Colorado in the summer of 2024

In the report, the authors focus on three themes:

  1. Native notions of justice—not uniform among Native communities—but, as a whole, substantially different from broadly used notions of justice in the United States
  2. The wide-ranging consequences of injustice
  3. Changes in policy, practice, and culture that are needed to help remedy existing injustice and set the foundation for a broader recalibration of the economy, the environment, and human relationships

Native Visions of Justice

In discussing Native visions of justice, one point to identify at the outset is that the literal translation of “justice” does not exist in most Indigenous languages in North America and US territories.

The report’s authors contrast “Western systems of justice, which are mostly rights-based, punitive and blaming of individuals” (15) to Native systems that focus on restoration, responsibility, communal repair, and healing—or more simply put, “taking accountability for the repair of harm” (16).

Native communities have a range of terms to describe what in Western terms is referred to as “justice.” For instance, Native Hawaiians used the word pono, which is translated as “righteousness” (16). The Cherokee word for justice is better translated as “healing.” The Lakota notion of justice is more akin to being “a good relative.” The Anishinaabe have a concept Mino-Bimaadiziwin, which means “living a good life” (17). Among the Diné (Navajo) people, a core concept is hozho, which roughly translates as “peace, balance, beauty, and harmony” (19).

Read the full article about elevating Native visions of justice by Steve Dubb at Nonprofit Quarterly.