Ezra Rosser, Regaining Control of Navajo Land

Ezra Rosser was our fifth speaker in the Rural Law and Policy Series. He is a law professor and associate dean at American University Washington College of Law. His talk, Regaining Control of Navajo Land, can be viewed by clicking below:

bio

Ezra Rosser is a professor at American University Washington College of Law, where he has taught Poverty Law, Federal Indian Law, Property Law, Land Use, Housing Law, and Wills, Trusts, and Estates. He was born in an off-the-grid log cabin in the Colorado mountains, and, before leaving to pursue his education, Ezra grew up at a house in rural Missouri; a pig farm in West Branch, Iowa; in a house in Durango, Colorado; and on the Navajo reservation (he is a non-Indian).

abstract

The Navajo Nation is roughly the size of West Virginia and, with the exception of a small number of towns of approximately five to ten thousand people, is a largely rural area. Non-Indian visitors passing through often marvel at the wide-open spaces, their eyes passing over the houses and farms that dot the land. This talk focuses on the history of efforts made by the U.S. government and the Navajo Nation to assert authority over agricultural uses of the land over the past century. A story within a larger book project, A Nation Within: Navajo Land and Economic Development (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2021), grazing rights are central to both the story of the tribe and to Navajo identity. During the New Deal, Washington, concerned about overgrazing, imposed a harsh policy of livestock reduction on the tribe, striking a blow cost tribal members much of their wealth as well as their security. Since that devastating episode, neither Washington nor Window Rock has managed to come up with a strong grazing policy. Even as the wage economy has gained in relative importance, customary use and grazing rights-tied land claims block other forms of development, making it hard for tribal members to find housing and employment. The goal of this talk is not to push a single solution that will allow the Navajo Nation to fix grazing, rather it is to suggest that political courage and local experimentation offer be a path forward.

other work by Ezra Rosser

You can find more of Ezra Rosser’s work here.

Ezra Rosser also hosts the important Poverty Law Blog, a project of the Economic Justice Program at American University.