Land Acknowledgement
The work for this project was undertaken on Duwamish, dxʷdəwʔabš, land, the home of the first people of Seattle. I am incredibly grateful to live on this beautiful land that has been stewarded for generations by the Coast Salish peoples. Acknowledging, honoring, and respecting Indigenous peoples is only the first step towards reconciliation, reparative justice, and resisting the erasure of Indigenous peoples, cultures, and heritage.
Acknowledgements must be paired with real, actionable change to actually fight colonialization. One way to give back to the Duwamish is through Real Rent Duwamish. Supporting tribal soverignty, cultural celebrations, environmental justice, and Indigenous businesses are other ways.
If you’d like to learn more about whose land you live on, you can find out at native-land.ca.
For a more detailed look at the purpose and usefulness of land acknowledgements, I recommend the piece Revisiting “Beyond Territorial Acknowledgments” by Métis author âpihtawikosisân, Chelsea Vowel.
Contextualizing Indigenous Research
For the purposes of this collection, Indigenous Studies research – what is also referred to as Native American, American Indian, Native, or First Nations research – is defined as work that centers Western Hemisphere Indigenous peoples, topics, issues, and events. This includes peoples indigenous to the modern-day countries of North, Central, and South America, who have called these lands home long before European settler-colonization, although many works featured here are concerned with broad issues that affect all Indigenous peoples.
Indigenous knowledge, wisdom, and culture deserve to be valued and shared. Indigenous communities across the world have experienced centuries of violence and oppression at the hands of colonizers. They have often been taken advantage of by non-Indigenous (mainly white) researchers who see them as ignorant objects of study rather than active co-creators of knowledge. By removing paywalls and institutional barriers, Open Access research can begin to connect the benefits of research to the people themselves and contribute to cultural revitalization.
Increasing access to this work can encourage and facilitate research for Indigenous researchers. For non-Indigenous researchers, appreciating Indigenous ways of knowing helps us to expand and critique our worldview to create deeper and more respectful understanding of culture, heritage, history, and religion.
While Indigenous authorship was not a collection requirement, many of these works are written by Indigenous people and/or in connection with Indigenous tribes and communities. My hope is that this collection uplifts and centers Indigenous voices.
For a list of Indigenous Studies / Native American Studies programs in the United States, visit the Association on American Indian Affairs.
I am deeply grateful to Dr. Sandy Littletree, a Díne/Eastern Shoshone professor at the University of Washington, for her teachings on Indigenous Systems of Knowledge. You can read her dissertation! in this collection!