Civics: Decolonized
By: Sierra Lank
Most mainstream ideas of civics focus on voting, government institutions, and policy. They usually come from a Western perspective. For many Indigenous communities, civic responsibility looks completely different. It is shaped by relationships with land, kinship, ceremony, and collective care. Indigenous youth today are navigating two leadership pathways at once. They are creating new models of leadership rooted in ancestral knowledge while also adapting to the systems around them. This dual role is not only a reality but also a strength. It uniquely positions Indigenous youth to contribute to civic life in ways that Western systems often fail to recognize.
Grounding Leadership in Community and Culture
Indigenous youth leadership is not something to anticipate in the future. It is already happening. It might not look like what Western systems expect, but it is grounded in strong cultural roots. Young people are mentoring, teaching, organizing, and keeping culture alive in community-centered ways.
Much of this leadership emerges through everyday acts: mentoring younger cousins, helping with cultural events, running art or language workshops, and taking part in environmental or food sovereignty projects. Leadership is collective and relational, often passed down through families and community networks. In rural places, this happens in kitchens, forests, and classrooms. These are powerful spaces rooted in relationships rather than systems.
Community and Connection:
Worldviews such as those of the Blackfoot Nation emphasize community actualization and connection to land and spirit above individual success. This flips Western leadership frameworks upside down and reminds us that thriving comes through responsibility to kin, culture, and land.
Even though Indigenous youth are leading, colonial systems often do not see it. Native ways of civic engagement are overlooked, tokenized, or underfunded. These challenges are not about personal ability. They are systemic, and they limit how Indigenous youth can sustain their leadership. Reports like the Aspen Institute’s Center Us highlight how Native youth are often offered short-term opportunities but denied the long-term investment needed to thrive. Across Native communities, youth are stepping into leadership every day, both within their own cultural frameworks and within colonial systems.
The Dual Role of Indigenous Youth
Indigenous Youth leadership pathways often overlap. Cultural, land-based, and relational leadership may look like canoe building, language teaching, craft nights, and food sovereignty work; and, engagement within Western systems may take the shape of civic programs, school leadership, or environmental policy advocacy.
Triston Black, for example, works with AZ Native Vote to teach civic engagement to Indigenous high schoolers in Arizona. In Wabanaki territory, programs like WAYS combine science, culture, and community building. Youth are leading in kitchens, classrooms, and community events, often bridging both systems at once.
This dual role should be recognized as expertise, not just effort. But carrying the weight of two systems requires resources, mentorship, and acknowledgment of the struggle and brilliance involved. Real support begins with respect for Indigenous-led spaces as sovereign and sacred. It also requires inroads into existing civic systems so youth can shape them rather than simply fit into them. Support should meet youth where they already lead and can look like:
Long-term funding for cultural and land-based programs
Mentorship grounded in kinship and traditional knowledge
Paid roles and decision-making power for Indigenous youth
Co-created programs designed with youth, not just for them
A Vision Forward
There is so much potential when Indigenous youth are trusted and resourced. Leadership can look like storytelling, science, canoe building, food gathering, beadwork, and organizing. It can be rooted in love, land, and language.
Teachings such as the Seven Generations principle already show how Indigenous leadership centers long-term responsibility to both ancestors and future generations. This is the kind of vision that can move us all forward.
Indigenous civics never disappeared. It was made invisible by colonial systems. Youth are bringing it forward every time they bead, teach, plant, speak their language, or care for others. Decolonizing civics means recognizing that Indigenous communities have always had systems of governance. They are rooted in land, culture, and responsibility.
Indigenous youth leadership is already here.
Below are a few recommendations for supporting Indigenous youth leadership now selected by the author. For additional resources or learning opportunities, please reach out.
In Maine:
Anywhere:
Look for youth-led programs in your local tribal nations or Native organizations
Support Indigenous education, language, and land-based programs
Invite Indigenous youth to speak or lead, and make sure they are paid
Share this work in schools, classrooms, youth groups, or councils
Guest Author: Sierra Lank
Sierra Lank is from the Passamaquoddy Tribe at Motahkomikuk and is an undergraduate student at the University of Maine, studying Ecology and Environmental Science with a minor in Native American Studies. Her work focuses on the relationship between Indigenous knowledge and environmental science, emphasizing care for land as both a cultural and ecological responsibility.
Sources referenced in this post and linked above include:
1. Bray, Barbara. “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and Blackfoot Nation Beliefs.” Rethinking Learning, 10 Mar. 2019, https://barbarabray.net/2019/03/10/maslows-hierarchy-of-needs-and-blackfoot-nation-beliefs.
2. CIRCLE (Tufts University). “Centering Indigenous Values and Addressing Barriers to Native Youth’s Civic Engagement.” https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/centering-indigenous-values-and-addressing-barriers-native-youths-civic.
3. Aspen Institute. Center Us: A Report on Native Youth Civic Engagement, 2024, https://www.aspeninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Center-Us-Report-2024_FINAL-compressed.pdf.
4. Arizona Native Vote. “Spotlight on Triston Black: Leading the Way in Indigenous Democracy Education.” Arizona Native Vote, 2023, https://arizonanativevote.org/blog/spotlight-on-triston-black-leading-the-way-in-indigenous-democracy-education.
5. Wabanaki Youth in Science. Home Page. 2025, https://www.wabanakiyouthinscience.org.
6. The Indigenous Foundation. “Seven Generations Principle: Healing the Past & Shaping the Future.” https://www.theindigenousfoundation.org/articles/seven-generations-principle-healing-the-past-amp-shaping-the-future.