By:
Kahea Pacheco, North America Program Team Member
“How do we sustain? How do we become as adaptable as
possible? How do we work smart? That
is what this weekend is all about.” –Tribal Community Session
The
pressing need to sustain, adapt, and work smart was the impetus for a gathering
on October 20-21, 2012, when tribal community members and researchers gathered
at the University of California, Irvine for the Southern California Tribal
Listening and Strategy Session on Environmental Issues.
This
convening, a collaboration between the United Coalition to Protect Panhe, Women’s Earth Alliance, and UC
Irvine’s Environment Institute, American Indian Resource Program and Office of Civil and Community Engagement,
aimed to build the capacity of Indigenous leaders, students, advocates and
tribal communities, as well as Indigenous and non-Indigenous academic and
nonprofit researchers, local planners, and land and water use professionals to
engage more effectively and efficiently with one another to protect Indigenous
lands, waters, and natural and cultural resources.
During
these two days, tribal community participants were trained on how to
conceptualize environmental and cultural resource protection challenges as research
projects, and then to design such research projects to meet community
needs. Participating researchers were
also introduced to the concept and emerging methods of community-engaged
sustainability scholarship. Once these
trainings were complete, participants gathered together to explore possible
partnerships between the research needs of community members, and the
capacities of attending researchers.
The
weekend started with ceremony, with recognition and thanks given to the Acjachemen
people, upon whose traditional lands we gathered, and with prayers for the
learnings and meaningful conversations we hoped to share over the next two
days. These conversations began
immediately as tribal members were brought together to discuss the
environmental challenges and needs their communities faced. These included the desecration of sacred and
ancestral lands, the pollution of estuaries and waterways, the power imbalance
between what is healthy for people and the environment and what is profitable
for developers, as well as the spiritual impacts of being disconnected from the
earth and the loss of traditional knowledge when it is not passed down to
youth.
“We as a people are trying to protect
whatever’s left of our sacred sites, trying to conserve them. This is a commonality between us all—we see
our communities reflected in one another.” –Tribal Community Session
There
was also space for tribal community members to brainstorm and envision what it
would mean to have healthy, sustainable communities, and share personal
experiences with research conducted in their communities, much of which often
led to the continued invisibilization and disempowerment of tribal
peoples. Resting on this knowledge and
history as a foundation for forward movement, Miho Kim, Executive Director of
the Oakland-based Data Center, supported
participants as they took steps to frame their current community needs as
possible research projects.
“If Native peoples were to take control of their
own learning about who they are and what their practices are, what do we think
we would learn? What would we learn if we drove the inquiry?” –Tribal Community
Session
Meanwhile,
educator and activist Nadinne Cruz led participants in the research track to
explore concepts of research justice, and the crucial practice of recognizing
and subverting traditional power dynamics between researchers and communities
within academic research. Participants
also practiced listening skills, with UC Irvine Sustainability Researcher and
environmental human rights attorney Abigail Reyes, who is also a member of the WEA Advocacy
Network.
Finally,
on the last day of the Listening Sessions, tribal community members gathered with
the researchers in attendance to share their needs and lay the groundwork for
equitable community-engaged sustainability research projects. These conversations occurred within the full
group, as tribal members expressed their concerns with as well as their needs
for research, and on a smaller scale, during one-on-one discussions focused on
true collaboration and Indigenous-led projects.
It
is our hope that the groundwork laid during this Listening and Strategy Session
will lead to many long-term, strategic, regional, inter-tribal partnerships,
which will secure a more just and sustainable future for Southern California
tribal peoples for many, many generations to come.
WEA would like to thank our 2012 Advocacy
Fellow Angela Mooney D’Arcy (Acjachemen), who initiated and developed this
Listening Session to address WEA’s goal of engaging more effectively with
California grassroots Indigenous people.
We would also like to thank Abigail Reyes, from UC Irvine’s Environment Institute,
for her leadership in implementing this convening.
