Senior Thesis and Faculty Profile

Allene Chockie Cottier is Oglala Lakota from Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota. She worked over 30 years in urban Indian and reservation communities as a program administrator, designer and community service provider. She has also been a consultant to private organizations, city, state, federal, and international policy boards and lawmakers regarding Native American policy development. She is the co-founder of two non-governmental organizations that have consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council, namely the Indigenous World Association and the Women of All Red Nations. The primary purpose of these NGOs is to advocate for indigenous rights in various international for a, such as the United Nations. Allene's international work has focused on helping formulate the Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The non-binding Declaration was approved by vote of the General Assembly on September 13, 2007. Only four countries voted against it: the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Her thesis is about the US opposition to the Declaration, and grassroots Lakota interpretations of key Indigenous Rights concepts.

A McNair and Haas Scholar, Allene's studies have included American Indian History; Cultural Geography; Critical Indian Policy Studies; European Human Rights: History, Theory and Practice: Federal Indian Law; Constitutional Law; Sociology of Law; Tribal Governments; Theories of Social Development; Native American Indian Economic Development; Western European Theories of Knowledge; and Economics. Her ISF concentration is " Comparative Indigenous and International Studies," with a focus on the examination of the various interpretations of the terms Sovereignty, Self-determination and Indigenous in American Indian political discourse.

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Allene's mentor is Professor Thomas Biolsi, professor of Native American Studies, Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. His research as an anthropologist has focused on the history of U.S. American Indian policy and its impacts on Lakota reservations in South Dakota. His two books on this subject are, " Deadliest Enemies: Law and the Making of Race Relations on and off the Rosebud Reservation," University of California Press, 2001; and " Organizing the Lakota: the Political New Deal on Pine Ridge and Rosebud Reservations," University of Arizona Press, 1992.  His 20 year body of work spans all areas of Critical Indian Policy Studies. He has edited and reviewed numerous Native American Scholarly publications

Professor Biolsi completed his PhD. in Anthropology at Columbia University in 1987, his MA. at Columbia University in 1979, and his BA. in 1975 at Hofstra University. He has been Professor of Native American Studies at Berkeley since 2005. Previously, he was Professor of Anthropology and Director of Native American Studies at Portland State University.

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