Executive Summary

To the Tribes of the Northern Plains, being a good relative means giving individualized support to the people in your extended circle—family, social, community. The "Being a Good Relative: Building a Kinship Economy" project will use traditional Indigenous values of the North and South Dakota Tribes to re-frame the economic development process from conception to successful implementation. Native women struggle to claim their power and influence in the U.S., because the values of capitalism are not compatible with the traditional values of collective cultures, such as sharing and humility. Our project will re-conceptualize an economic system to show how Native women contribute to their families, communities, and the world by creating a framework built around the values of kinship and inter-relatedness. This will increase the number of Native women building small businesses, nonprofits, cooperatives, and other building blocks of a diversified local economy.

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