CONSULTING SERVICES
-
Co-creating & Consensus Building
-
Education & Curriculum Designing
-
Event Planning
-
Grant Writing
-
Keynote Speaker
-
Mediation
-
Organizational Assessment
-
Project Management & Liaison
-
Research & Scholarship
-
Strategic Planning
-
Team Building
-
Workshops & Trainings
Supporting intertribal relations & facilitating multi-organizational partnerships and projects.
DR. BROOK COLLEY
(Wasco, Warm Springs, Eastern Cherokee)
(Enrolled: Eastern Band of Cherokee).
Colley’s research has focused on federal Indian law & policy, Oregon Tribes, intertribal relations & conflict, and community health & healing. Her book Power in the Telling: Grand Ronde, Warm Springs, and Intertribal Relations in the Casino Era was published in 2019 by the University of Washington Press and it was a finalist for the Frances Fuller Victor Award for General Nonfiction. In 2014, she received her Ph.D. in Native American Studies from the University of California, Davis, and is currently working on an intertribal Indigenous-led collaboration to enhance first food access and first food production in Southern Oregon. She lives in Jackson County with her daughter, and two pups named Honey and Leonard Cohen.
Brook Colley, Ph.D.
Principal Consultant
Youngbird Consulting
POWER IN THE TELLING
From 1998 through 2013, the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs sought to develop a casino in Cascade Locks, Oregon. This prompted objections from the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, who already operated a lucrative casino in the region. Brook Colley’s in-depth case study unravels the history of this disagreement and challenges the way conventional media characterizes intertribal casino disputes in terms of corruption and greed. Instead, she locates these conflicts within historical, social, and political contexts of colonization.
​
Through extensive interviews, Colley brings to the forefront Indigenous perspectives on inter-tribal conflict related to tribal gaming. She reveals how casino economies affect the relationship between gaming tribes and federal and state governments, and the repercussions for the tribes themselves. Ultimately, Colley’s engaging examination explores strategies for reconciliation and cooperation, emphasizing narratives of resilience and tribal sovereignty.