This chapter uses economic theory and tribal-centered writings to explore ways that the Navajo Nation might improve its governance practices. A section on the dominant form of economic theory off the reservation, neo-classical economics, provides a grounding on approaches that have been dictated to tribes by outside experts. The subsequent section on tribal economic development theory, which draws upon work by the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development as well as work by leading Native scholars, highlights the importance of cultural match and good governance when it comes to reservation development.

Chapter 2 examines how Q’eqchi’ patriarchs addressed the challenges posed by popular pressures from below and new state efforts to modernize by privatizing property, institutionalizing coerced wage labor, and expanding state authority after the 1871 Liberal revolution. Q’eqchi’ patriarchs’ efforts included culturally translating communal properties into coffee plantations, engaging in the scientific cartography, and converting the spatial markers of mountain spirits into boundary markers. Ultimately, however, the efforts of Q’eqchi’ patriarchs to forge coffee plantations was limited because of internal pressures within indigenous communities, predatory capitalists, and state officials unwilling to recognize their plantations and grant labor exceptions to their workers.