On their own terms : indigenous communities, development in the new economy

Around the world Indigenous Peoples are struggling to rebuild their 'nations' and improve the socioeconomic circumstances of their people. As a group they constitute an emerging market of more than 500 hundred million people. Participation in the global economy through entrepreneurship is widely accepted as the key to success by most Indigenous people. Importantly, most want this participation to be 'on their own terms' terms in which traditional lands, history, culture and values play an important role. Using regulation theory, we explore the feasibility of the emerging Indigenous approach to development and conclude that is theoretically sound. Then we present a case study on the Osoyoos First Nation that illustrates how the community has use entrepreneurship to participate in the broader economy 'on its own terms'.