Daniel L. Boxberger

The evolution of the Canada–US borderland in the Pacific Northwest included the wholesale transformation of social organization and individual identities together with the redefinition and application of public power. Before and After the State examines the impact of those changes across a region that already harboured a vibrant, highly complex mélange of societies with dynamic local, regional, and global trade and kin networks. Allan McDougall, Lisa Philips, and Daniel Boxberger explore fundamental questions of state formation, social transformation, and the (re)construction of identity to expose the narratives and other devices of nation building, their impact on generations caught in the transition, and the reverberations of those national myths that continue to the present.

The evolution of the Canada–US borderland in the Pacific Northwest included the wholesale transformation of social organization and individual identities together with the redefinition and application of public power. Before and After the State examines the impact of those changes across a region that already harboured a vibrant, highly complex mélange of societies with dynamic local, regional, and global trade and kin networks. Allan McDougall, Lisa Philips, and Daniel Boxberger explore fundamental questions of state formation, social transformation, and the (re)construction of identity to expose the narratives and other devices of nation building, their impact on generations caught in the transition, and the reverberations of those national myths that continue to the present.

âA study of the Lummi Indians of northwestern Washington and the political and economic forces that have determined their changing fortunes over the past 150 years. Daniel Boxberger has made excellent use of documentary sources, oral history, and his own observations. . . . The book is compelling and well documented; it is also understated, frequently allowing the actions of the myriad contending interest groups to speak for themselves.â--Ethnohistory âBoxberger knows his subject. He displays an impressive understanding of the technical development of fishing, and he repeatedly uses his interviews with Indians to inform and test archival and secondary sources.â--American Indian Quarterly âBy focusing on the history of control over productive resources (in this case salmon, methods of harvest, processing, capital investment, and markets) Boxberger shows how the Lummi slid from independence and self-sufficiency to dependency, underdevelopment, and poverty. . . . Not only is it an excellent, in-depth study of the Lummi case, it can also serve as a metaphor for the larger question of Native American treaty rights and the resource provisions of agreements.â--Pacific Historical Review Daniel L. Boxberger is professor of anthropology at Western Washington University, Bellingham.