In the 1980s, he studied indigenous peoples and published a general text on the contemporary Amerindian population of North America.

His primary interests were in political status, historic and comprehensive claims, Indian government and movements.

He argued that the nation is a powerful metaphor which two forms of social groupings – polity and ethnic entity – are fighting to have as their exclusive property.

The latter is a ghost word, escalated to a level of meta-category through historical accident and the inertia of intellectual prescription.

A suggested ‘hard scenario’ for breaking the methodological impasse is a ‘zero option’, when both major clients for being a nation will be deprived of a luxury called by that label.