Beginning at the beginning: Unburdening & healing our histories

 

“The research must be to move the community forward, to heal issues of historical trauma, to promote self-determination, and to make visible the issues in those communities so we can come together as a community and make a plan to remedy the issues.”

- Dr. Pamela Croft-Warcon (Yuwaalaraay), from Lambert, 2014, Research for Indigenous Survival

Welcome to the first step in engaging in this work….

To begin, we acknowledge that the work of unlearning, re-engaging, and sitting with history may bring discomfort, and hope that you find this as a sign of growth and learning. We invite reflections along the way to grow your own curiosity and understanding around Indigenous science research and/or education, such as whose lands do you live and work on? How much do you really know about the history of the places in which you work and live? How have these places shaped and been shaped by local and Indigenous Peoples? Have you been starting to hear Indigenous land acknowledgments? What’s that all about?

Here in the Indigenous Land & Data Stewards Lab, we’ve learned the value of beginning with understanding our histories and how these inform the work that we do. This may mean slowing down or stepping back momentarily to reduce harm and to ensure impact matches intention. We hope you will take this as an opportunity to practice humility and thoughtful patience as you work towards understanding the historical context you work within. We invite you to consider the histories, places, and peoples in relation to your own practice, as well as your own role and positionality, in engaging in this work.

Why are we talking about healing and reconciliation?

Understanding the historical contexts that we work and live in is a critical step towards reflecting on our roles and potential in Indigenous science efforts. Many of our communities bear the legacies of settler-colonialism and related ongoing harms and injustices. While some are recently learning about the intergenerational impacts of these historical legacies, others are living through these legacies every day. We have much to re-examine, including a more thorough and accurate understanding of history to avoid repeating or continuing harms and to support pathways for reconciliation, Indigenous self-determination, and transformation in our efforts.

Why are we acknowledging relationships to land?

Through understanding the lands that provide for us, we better understand our place and relationships to these lands, including respect for the land. Indigenous land acknowledgments can serve as one entryway towards acknowledging broadscale attempted genocide and erasure of Indigenous Nations and Peoples, their histories, and their ongoing relationships and responsibilities within lands and ecosystems. Remember, this acknowledgment is just one starting point, and there is deeper work to be done. If you are unsure whose lands you are on, the Native Land app is a great resource to get started!

Some of you may be asking, “why haven’t I already learned more about this?” and yes, that’s a good question! 

In what is now called the Americas, the mission of Indigenous erasure reaches back over five centuries, so we recognize that it may take some time to remedy this in our history books (we got this!). One reason you may not have learned more about Indigenous histories lies deeply-rooted in the concept of Terra nullius and the Doctrine of Discovery. Terra nullius is a legal concept applied in international law that has been used to justify land theft from Indigenous stewards around the world by claiming the land as “belonging to no one.” Terra nullius and the Doctrine of Discovery, coupled with the desire for resource ownership and control, also inspired the expansion westward across what is now called the U.S. (i.e. “Manifest Destiny”–check out this poem, Manifest Destiny this week, by Fort Collins Poet Laureate and scholar Autumn Bernhard, for further insight!). 

These concepts have historically promoted the idea of “untamed wilderness,” a language and mythology that persists to this day in education and research, neglecting to recognize the existence of Indigenous cultures, lifeways, and knowledges across these same landscapes (something to address in our vocabulary and, while we’re at it, can we do something about the problematic ways these other terms that show up in our field, like “frontiers,” “new world,” “discovery,” “pristine,” “virgin,” etc.?). 

In the context of this blog article, we also recognize how deeply intertwined Indigenous American and African histories remain within the origin stories and founding of imperial and colonial nations. We recommend Kyle T. Mays’ work An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States for further learning on this thread.

What gives? Why are we struggling so hard to see beyond settler-colonial narratives in academic institutions? 

With the construction of the U.S. predicated on the attempted erasure of Indigenous Peoples and the enslavement of African Indigenous Peoples, many of its institutions of learning have been shaped to uphold the same settler-colonial paradigms that justified these actions. That is, the notion that Indigenous Peoples must be converted, “saved,” enslaved, assimilated, or extinguished to create a new home (settlement) to serve settler-colonial agendas. Educational institutions, in particular, bear the implications of furthering these ideals and practices, such as through the use of assimilation policies and boarding schools (warning: video link includes emotionally disturbing content, incl. human rights violations and abuses; you can also read more about this practice here). U.S. Institutions of higher learning also enforced this model through the forced seizure of Indigenous lands to establish land grant universities. Despite the attempted erasure and displacement of Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous communities and lifeways persist and are actively working to transform research and education agendas both within and outside academic institutions.

So what does this mean in terms of natural resources or environmental sciences? 

Contemporary natural resource policies and practices reflect the immense influence of  settler-colonial beliefs and policy agendas such as those described above. One major example of how these belief systems manifested into harmful practices is through the creation of America’s National Park system, which allowed for displacement from traditional and ancestral homelands and treaty violations impacting thousands of Indigenous Peoples. These legacies persist through violation of Indigenous land and resource rights today, continued land dispossession, and undermining of tribal sovereignty.

Environmental and natural resource science institutions and researchers are now faced with the tragic realization that they have been working with heavily biased and incomplete datasets, neglecting to include the knowledges and to honor the rights and contributions of Indigenous Peoples. The nature of this tragedy further sinks in when realizing the magnitude of Indigenous Peoples’ land stewardship, comprising over 25% of the global land surface, also known to include the highest measures of biodiversity. 

What can we do then towards rebuilding relationships and reconciling these legacies in our work?

There is a tremendous opportunity to reshape our collective futures and re-envision new pathways by centering reciprocal relationships. This journey may look different depending on your own role and spheres of influence, something to continually revisit and reexamine as you build your understanding. The key questions to ask along the way include, what kind of ancestors do we want to be for future generations? How will we shape our history going forward? Do we keep going along the trajectory laid out for us by those who came before us, or do we more purposefully work towards healing and addressing these harms?

As you continue your learning journey, we recommend seeking out quality primary sources (a.k.a. written by or clearly approved by Indigenous community members from those lands) to build your understanding of the contemporary and customary ties Indigenous communities hold to those lands. Here are a few great sources to begin with for engaging further below! 

A few resources for further learning

Did we miss anything important in this blog article? Are there any resources that you think should be added? We’d love to hear what you think using this form.

Suggested citation: David-Chavez, D. & Layden, T. (2022). Beginning at the beginning: Unburdening & healing our histories. Indigenous Land and Data Stewards Lab.

 
 
Indigenous Land and Data Stewards Lab