I have been a professor at UBC since 1990. My research concerns Indigenous peoples and their relations with the state in its various local, national, and international manifestations. In recent years my work has particularly overlapped with colleagues in archaeology and in law.

Much of my ethnographic work has been with the Coast Salish of BC and Washington State, but I have also worked in Brazil, Papua New Guinea, several areas of the US, and Taiwan. I have served on a number of occasions as an expert witness in Indigenous litigation in the United States and Canada, including, United States v Washington (a treaty case) and, the Radek case before the BC Human Rights Tribunal, (a precedent-setting case regarding Aboriginal presence in public spaces and racial profiling).

I am a member of the board of the Museum of Vancouver and chair of the collections committee, which has initiated a progressive program of repatriation to First Nations.
From 1995-98 I was Anglophone Editor of Culture, the journal of the Canadian Anthropology Society.

Research Interests
Anthropology of Law; ethnography, ethnohistory of Coast Salish of BC and Washington; Indigenes worldwide; state-Indigenous relations.

Refereed Books (sole author)

2001 The Problem of Justice: Tradition and Law in the Coast Salish World. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

2004 Invisible Indigenes: The Politics of Non-Recognition. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

2011 Oral History on Trial: Recognizing Aboriginal Narratives in the Courts.  Vancouver: UBC Press. (winner of K.D. Srivastiva Prize for Excellence in Academic Publishing, 2012; Listed in Hill Times, “Canada’s Politics and Government Newsweekly” as one of the best 100 books in 2011 in Canada on Political, Government, Public Policy, and Canadian History).

2016 The Contemporary Coast Salish: Essays by Bruce Granville Miller. Edited by Bruce Granville Miller and Darby C. Stapp. Memoir 12, Journal of Northwest Anthropology, Richland, WA.

2023 Witness to the Human Rights Tribunals: How the System Fails Indigenous Peoples. Vancouver: UBC Press.

Refereed Edited Books

1992 Anthropology and History in the Courts. Special Issue, B.C. Studies 95. (two reprintings)

2007 Co-Editors, Jean-Guy Goulet and Bruce Granville Miller, Extraordinary Anthropology: Transformations in the Field, Lincoln: University  of Nebraska Press.      

2007 “Be of Good Mind”: Essays on the Coast Salish. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.

2021 Stephen Grant Baines and Bruce Granville Miller, eds., “Indigenous Peoples, Tribunals, Prisons, and Legal and Public Processes in Brazil and Canada,” Vibrant 18. Virtual Brazilian Anthropology. (double issue). http://doi.org/10.1590/1809-43412021v18a701

Refereed Journal Articles

1989  Centrality and Measures of Regional Structure in Aboriginal Western Washington.  Ethnology 28 (3):265-276.

1989  After the FAP: Tribal Reorganization After Federal Acknowledgment. Journalof Ethnic Studies 17 (2):89-100.

1990  An Ethnographic View: Positive Consequences  of the War on Poverty. American Indian and Alaska  Native Mental Health: The Journal of the National  Center 4 (2):55-71.

1991  Review Essay: Handbook of North American  Indians. Volume 7, Indians of the Northwest Coast. B.C. Studies 91-92:173-184.

1992 Women and Politics: Comparative Evidence from the Northwest Coast. Ethnology 31 (4):67-383.

1992 Common Sense and Plain Language.  Special Issue, Anthropology and Historyin the Courts, B.C. Studies 95:55-65.

1992 Introduction.  Special Issue, Anthropology and History in the Courts, B.C. Studies 95:3-6.

1993  The Press, The Boldt Decision, and Indian-White  Relations. American Indian Culture and Research Journal 17 (2):75-97. Miller, Bruce G. and Daniel L. Boxberger      

1994  Creating Chiefdoms: The Puget Sound Case. Ethnohistory. 41 (2): 267-293.

1994  Is There a Gender Gap in Tribal Elections? American Indian Quarterly 18 (1):25-44.

1994  Contemporary Tribal Codes and Gender Issues. American Indian Culture and Research Journal 18 (2):43-74.

1994  Contemporary Native Women: Role Flexibility and Politics. Anthropologica 35 (1):57-72. Miller, Bruce G. and Jen Pylypa

1995  The Dilemma of Mental Health Paraprofessionals at Home. American Indian and Alaska Native Mental Health: The Journal of the National Center 6 (2):13-33.

1995   Folk Law and Contemporary Coast Salish Tribal Code. American Indian Culture and Research Journal 19 (3):141-164.

1996-97  The ‘Really Real’ Border and the Divided Salish Community. BC Studies 112: 63-79.

1997  The Individual, the Collective and Tribal Code. American Indian Culture and Research Journal 21 (1): 107-130. Daniel L. Boxberger and Bruce G. Miller

1997  Evolution or History: A Response to Tollefson. Ethnohistory 44 (1):135-137.

1998  The Great Race of 1941: A Coast Salish Public Relations Coup. Pacific Northwest Quarterly 89 (3): 127-135.

1999  Culture as Cultural Defense: A Sacred Site in Court. American Indian Quarterly 22 (1): 83-97.

2001 The Story of Peter Pan: Or Middle Ground Lost. BC Studies 131: 25-28.

2003  Law, Justice, and the Lens of Culture. Wicazo Sa Review 18 (2): 132-145.  

2006  Who Are Indigenes? A Comparative Study of Canadian and American Practices.  American Behavioral Scientist Theme Issue 50 (4): 462-477

2006  Bringing Culture In: Community Responses to Apology, Reconciliation, and Reparations.  American Indian Culture and Research Journal 30 (4): 1-17.

2012 Life on the Hardened Border. American Indian Culture and Research Journal 36 (2): 23-46.

2014 An Ethnographic view of Legal Entanglements on the Salish Sea Borderlands, UBC Law Review 47 (3): 991-1024.

2015 Bruce Miller and Gustavo Menezes, Anthropological Experts and the Legal System: Brazil and Canada, American Indian Quarterly. 39 (4): 391-430.

2015 Bruce Granville Miller and Gustavo Menezes, Anthropological Experts and the Legal System: Brazil and Canada, American Indian Quarterly 39 (4): 391-430.

2016 Sur la frontière: les Salish du littoral et l’érosion de la souveraineté (Coast Salish Borderlands and the Erosion of Sovereignty, translated into French). Special Issue, Pluralismes Juridiques et Interculturalités, Geneviève Motard, Emmanuelle Piccoli, et Christoph Eberhard, eds.  Revue Anthropologie et Sociétés 40 (2): 155-176.

2017 Political Mobilization through Repatriation, “Revista Perfiles de la Cultura Cubana” #20. (translated into Spanish). Identidades y movilizaciones colectivas: miradas desde contextos Americanos.  (translated into Spanish). http://www.perfiles.cult.cu/article_c.php?numero=20&article_id=430

2018 A View of Anthropology from the Canadian Semi-Periphery, Interfaces Brasil/Canadá, Special Issue, Relocating the ‘peripheral’ in Anthropology: Exchanging glances on indigenous social problems in Brazil and Canada 18 (2): 14-31.

2018 Repatriation in Two Acts. Special Issue –Indigeneities and Museums: Ongoing Conversations, ed. Caitlin Gordon-Walker and Martha Black. BC Studies 199: 81-94.

2021 “Lire et écrire Goulet” in Rêves, religions et relations intersubjectives dans les Amériques Recherches amérindiennes au Québec 50 (1) (2020): 173–182, Guest-edited by Robert R. Crépeau, Frédéric B. Laugrand and Lionel Simon. Translated into French. https://www.erudit.org/en/journals/raq/2020-v50-n1-raq06147/

2021 “An Ethnographic and Humanistic View: Does the BC Human Rights Tribunals Hold Promise for Indigenous People?” Vibrant 18. Virtual Brazilian Anthropology. http://www.vibrant.org.br/lastest-issue-v-18-2021/

2021 Stephen Grant Baines and Bruce Granville Miller, eds. Introduction, Indigenous Peoples, Tribunals, Prisons, and Legal and Public Processes in Brazil and Canada, Vibrant 18. Virtual Brazilian Anthropology. http://doi.org/10.1590/1809-43412021v18a701

2022. Morgan Ritchie and Bruce Granville Miller. (in press) “Social Networks and Stratagems of Nineteenth Century Coast Salish Leaders.” Ethnohistory. 

Refereed Book Chapters

1999  Contemporary Tribal Codes and Gender Issues. In Contemporary Native American Cultural Issues, edited by Duane Champagne. AltaMira Press. Pp. 103-12.

1999  Discontinuities in the Statuses of Puget Sound Indian Grandmothers.  In  American Indian Grandmothers: Traditions and Transitions, edited by Marjorie  Schweitzer. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Pp. 103-124.

1999  Salishan. In An Encyclopedia of Canada’s Peoples, edited by Paul Magocsi.  Toronto: Multicultural History Society of Ontario. Pp. 88-93.

1999 J.E. Michael Kew and Bruce G. Miller

Locating Aboriginal Governments in the Political Landscape. In Seeking  Sustainability in the Lower Fraser Basin: Issues and Choices, edited by Michael  Healey. Vancouver: Institute for Resources and the Enivronment/Westwater Research. Pp. 47-63.  

2004  Salish. In Aboriginal Peoples of Canada: A Short Introduction, ed. Paul Magocsi. University of Toronto Press. Pp. 237-250.          

2004  Rereading the Ethnographic Record: The Problem of Justice in the Coast Salish World.  In Coming Ashore: Northwest Coast Ethnology, Traditions and Visions. Marie  Mauze, Michael Harkin, Sergei Kan, eds. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Pp. 309-322.

2004   Tribal or Native Law. In A Companion to the Anthropology of AmericannIndians. Blackwell Companion to the Anthropology of American Indians Series. Thomas Biolsi, ed. London: Blackwell. Pp. 95-111.      

2006   Conceptual and Practical Boundaries: Indians/First Nations on the Border of  Contagion in the Post- 9-11 Era. In The Borderlands of the American  and Canadian Wests: Essays on Regional and Trans-boundary History. Sterling Evans, ed. Pp. 49-66.              

2007   The Politics of Ecstatic Research. In Extraordinary Anthropology: Transformations in the Field. Jean-Guy Goulet and Bruce Granville Miller, eds, University of Nebraska Press. Pp. 1-14.         

2007    Jean-Guy Goulet and Bruce Granville Miller Introduction. In Extraordinary Anthropology: Transformations in the Field. Jean-Guy Goulet and Bruce Granville Miller, eds, University of Nebraska Press. Pp. 186-207.

2007 Introduction. In “Be of Good Mind”: Essays on the Coast Salish. Bruce Granville Miller, ed. University of British Columbia Press. Pp. 1-29.

2013 Anthropology of Art; Shifting Paradigms and Practices, 1870s-1950 in The Construction of Northwest Coast Native Art: An Anthology. Eds, Charlotte Townsend-Gault, Jennifer Kramer, Ron Hamilton. Vancouver: UBC Press.

2016 The Oral and the Written in Understanding Treaties. In The Contemporary Coast Salish: Essays by Bruce Granville Miller. Co-editors Bruce Granville Miller and Darby C. Stapp,Richland, Washington: Memoir 12: Northwest Anthropology.

2016 Currents in Coast Salish Research and Afterword, in The Contemporary Coast Salish: Essays by Bruce Granville Miller. Co-editors Bruce Granville Miller and Darby C. Stapp,Richland, Washington: Memoir 12: Northwest Anthropology.

2021 Anthropology Faces the Public. In How Do We Reach More? Sharing Cultural and Archaeological Research with Others, Journal of Northwest Anthropology Special Issue 4, Darby C. Stapp and Julia G. Longnecker, eds., pp 215-221.

2021 Homelessness and Coast Salish Spiritual Traditions: Cultural Resources for Programmatic Responses in British Columbia. In Land of Stark Contrasts: Faith-Based Responses to Homelessness in the United States, Manuel Mejido Costoya, ed, Fordham University Press. Pp. 193-123.

Invited Review Essays

1993  Unconquered British Columbia. In The Literary Review of Canada 2 (3): 18-19. (5000 words)

1994  Who’s Looking After The Fish? In The Literary Review of Canada 3 (7): 14-16. (5000 words)

1995  North Out of Focus. In The Literary Review of Canada 4 (3): 22-23.  (5000 words)

Other Invited Contributions

2022 University of Toronto Faculty of Law Pro Bono Students Canada’s Indigenous Human Rights Program. Indigenous Human Rights Podcast 38 min 47 seconds. “Expert Witness: An Inside Look at the Human Rights Tribunal System” (interview with Bruce Miller)

2021 “”Thinning’ Anthropological Expert Testimony,” Anthropology Now 13 (2): 30-40.

2021 “Anthropology in the Court and Tribunal,” Weaver-Tremblay Keynote Talk, Anthropologica. 63:2: 1-15.

2012 Reponse to Angelbeck, Bill and Colin Grier, Anarchism and the Archaeology of Anarchic Societies: Resistance to Centralization in the Coast Salish Region of the Pacific Northwest Coast (with CA Comments and Reply). Current Anthropology 53 (5): 576-77.

2012 Foreword to Building Bridges to Justice: Realizing Contemporary Indigenous Visions of Justice in Canada Through the Culturally Sensitive Interpretations of Legal Rights. By David Leo Milward. Vancouver: UBC Press. ix-xviii.

2011 Consultant to and author of excerpts on Aboriginal people and communities in The Chuck Davis History of Metropolitan Vancouver (Harbour Press, 2011, 574 pp.)

2011 “Central Coast Salish” and “Native People of the Northwest Coast.” Entries in the Canadian Encyclopedia.

2007 Response to Nesper, Larry, Negotiating jurisprudence in tribal court and the emergence of a tribal state: the Ojibwe in Wisconsin” (with CA Comments and Reply) Current Anthropology 48 (5): 692-693.

2022        Killam Research Prize
2020       Weaver-Tremblay Award for Applied Anthropology –Canadian Anthropology Society
2017         Canadian Anthropology Society (CASCA) Fellow.
2012         Co-winner, K. D. Srivastiva Prize for Excellence in Academic Publishing.
2007        Elected Fellow, Society for Applied Anthropology.
2006        Anthropology/Sociology Department Undergraduate Society Teaching Award.
1998         Killam Teaching Prize, UBC.
1986-87   National Graduate Fellow, U.S. Department of Education (1 year).
1987-89   Jacob Javits Fellow (2 years).
1983-89   Regents Tuition Scholarship, Arizona State University (6 years).
1985         Phi Kappa Phi Academic Honorary.

I have been a professor at UBC since 1990. My research concerns Indigenous peoples and their relations with the state in its various local, national, and international manifestations. In recent years my work has particularly overlapped with colleagues in archaeology and in law.Research Projects||Ongoing research concerning international borders and Indigenous peoples; use of Human Rights Tribunals by Indigenous peoples; ways in which legal processes redefine Indigenous peoples and rights; non-recognized Indigenous peoples. ||Professor, Sociocultural Anthropology

Canadian Anthropology Society (CASCA) Fellow

Legal anthropology, Indigenous peoples and their relations with the state in its various local, national, and international manifestations; Native North America, with focus on the Coast Salish of British Columbia and the state of Washington

Phone: 604-822-6336

Email: bgmiller@mail.ubc.ca