Like many other American Indian tribes in the United States, customary practices of governance on the Navajo Nation have been reshaped over time in order to streamline governance and mirror the very system that many hold responsible for ongoing colonial conditions in U.S.-tribal relationships. This disjuncture often generates friction between the informal Navajo “grassroots” and formal Navajo tribal council, but at the same time creates an opening for seeing other forms and practices of politics that proliferate in contemporary Navajo (Diné) society. One of the central points of friction generating non-governmental forms of political action is the question of what modes of “development” are most appropriate for the Diné and their land, Diné Bikeyah. As others have recently shown, this problem is not uncommon in indigenous communities, particularly so in regions rich in minerals and other natural resources (Gedicks 2001, LaDuke 2006, Sawyer 2004, Tsing 2005). In our intellectual collaboration as a Diné (Navajo) and a non-Native researcher, we are finding that this political debate over the question of “development” is perhaps more a problem of differing, and possibly incommensurate ontologies and epistemologies than it is a disagreement over specific development technologies. Furthermore, within this zone of difference, the boundaries between “modern” and “indigenous,” as well as “Western” and “Diné” are increasingly blurred and redefined through the shifting social practices of governance and environmentalism.