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Wisdom of the People: Potential and Pitfalls in Efforts by the Comanches to Recreate Traditional Ways of Building Consensus

2001; University of Nebraska Press; Volume: 25; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/aiq.2001.0005

1534-1828

LaDonna Harris, Stephen M. Sachs, Benjamin J. Broome,

Team Dynamics and Performance

Like many tribes, the Comanche community in Oklahoma has struggled for many years with infighting and lack of adequate participation by tribe members in the governance process. As a way to help create a more positive climate and restore a greater sense of harmony in the tribe, the Comanches implemented a participatory strategic planning process aimed at restoring more traditional ways of building consensus on important issues. This process, first introduced in February 1990, was used extensively during a two-year period that began in February 1992. 1 During this time relations among tribe members gradually improved, with individuals becoming more involved in tribal affairs and more community projects getting off the ground. However, when a new tribal chair was elected and the participatory consensus-building process was no longer used, infighting returned to the tribe, perhaps more vehemently than before. Overall, the Comanches' experience suggests that the reestablishment of culturally appropriate means of involving tribe members in the affairs of the tribe can help overcome divisiveness in Indian nations. It also demonstrates that new institutions, however compatible with community values, must be sufficiently nurtured for a considerable period if they are to become an established part of community life. Typical of many tribes in the United States, the Comanches felt themselves divided and often paralyzed in deciding major issues, partly because of the clash in values between their traditional culture and the premises of their contemporary government processes (which are based for the most part upon modern European-American understandings). In order to overcome the problems caused by that cultural dissonance, the Comanche community, with the assistance of Americans for Indian Opportunity (AIO) and Oklahomans for Indian Opportunity (OIO), decided to utilize a collaborative process for tribal decision making they called TIMS, or Tribal Issues Management System. 2 In several cases where it has been used, TIMS, by providing a method of broadly inclusive decision making, has made contributions toward overcoming gridlock [End Page 114] in tribal decision making. 3 If implemented with appropriate support and sustained over an appropriate period of time, it offers a promising model to other tribes. The Comanche are one of four Indian nations in Oklahoma with whom the TIMS process was initially applied, and they have gone further with it than any of the others. 4 So far as we know, no other Indian nation has developed a similar process, although many tribes have been discussing how to incorporate traditional values and ways in their decision making. For example, in early 1998 the Navajo Nation acted to decentralize many aspects of government to its 110 local chapters, even as it was working to improve the quality of many chapter meetings by finding ways to incorporate relevant traditional values in contemporary governance. 5 The Southern Utes have increased the number of their general tribal meetings to once a month and have instituted monthly sessions for individuals who have concerns about tribal government and services to be able to meet with the tribal council. 6 We understand that a few Indian nations have adopted the Baha'i "consultation" method of decision making, which is essentially a consensus decision-making process. 7 In this article we will examine the TIMS process in greater detail, describing its application by the Comanches, and provide an evaluation of its potential for application in other tribal situations, as well as the pitfalls that can occur if the process is not properly nurtured. Traditional Vs. Contemporary Tribal Governance Traditionally, tribal and band societies in North America functioned by using inclusive ways of building community consensus that balanced individual and community needs and concerns. 8 Although each of the tribes had its own particular culture and way of governing, in most tribes and bands (so far as...