REGENERATING KIN: A CRITICAL DIALOGUE ON ENVIRONMENTAL
POLICY AND INDIGENOUS PRINCIPLES
A Thesis
Presented to the
Faculty of
California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
In Partial Fulfillment
Of the Requirements for the Degree
Master of Science
In
Regenerative Studies
By
Anna Cook
2020
SIGNATURE PAGE
THESIS: REGENERATING KIN: A CRITICAL DIALOGUE ON ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY AND INDIGENOUS PRINCIPLES
AUTHOR: Anna Cook
DATE SUBMITTED: Summer 2020
John T. Lyle Center for Regenerative Studies/College of Environmental Design
Dr. James Blair ______Thesis Committee Chair Geography and Anthropology/Regenerative Studies
Dr. Sandy Kewanhaptewa-Dixon ______Ethnic and Women’s Studies
Professor Claudia Serrato ______Ethnic and Women’s Studies/Regenerative Studies
ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This research takes place from within the structure of California State Polytechnic
University, Pomona, on the land of the Gabrielino-Tongva, but also extending into
Cahuilla, Luise o, Serrano, and Acjachemen lands. In fact, this research includes both space, and people, in tribal lands across this continent and this earth. I would like to acknowledge and pay my respects to the Gabrielino-Tongva people and all Indigenous inhabitants of this land, who have been stewards of this area throughout generations. In unratified treaties, this land was ceded to the United States under the violence of settler colonialism. Thank you to this land who has sustained my family, though we are not
Indigenous to this area. Generations before me, and those after me, are guests on this land which has taken care of us, despite our own participation in settler colonial structures.
I’m so grateful to everyone on my thesis committee for their support, guidance, and mentorship. Thank you to Dr. James Blair for thorough feedback and thought- provoking questions and suggestions. Thank you to Professor Claudia Serrato, always decolonial, my fellow plant advocate, for encouraging a thesis that takes steps towards deconstructing the status quo. Thank you to Dr. Sandy Kewanhaptewa-Dixon for centering Indigenous voices and sovereignty issues, and connecting me with Barbara
Drake. Each committee member challenged me to be realistic, to maintain integrity, for both plants and people, and question my own boundaries. And thank you to Dr. José
Aguilar-Hernández for being a mentor, even when I am not his current student.
Thank you to the Lyle Center for Regenerative Studies for allowing a topic which challenges the structures in place, and pursues more interconnected relationships between humans and nature than are typically found in Western academia. Thank you to Dr. Pablo
iii LaRoche, Debbie Scheider, Karen Mitchell, and Jillian Gomez for keeping the Lyle
Center going amidst challenges and frustrations, excitement and successes.
Thank you to Tongva Elder Barbara Drake for her support, her generosity, and kindness. Thank you for welcoming me to the Tongva Living History Garden and Native village, as a guest and steward. Caring for, and talking to, the plants there began the journey from my undergraduate thesis to this master’s thesis.
Thank you to my family: my parents, Michael and Alicia, and my children,
Amelie and Sophia, and my aunt Rosemary. You have all listened to my complaints and also shared in my excitement. Thank you for research advice, feedback, moral support, and guidance particularly in the grueling final stretches of this process. Thank you to
Felicia Reinert for accountability, you know what it took to finish this in a pandemic, and you helped make it happen.
Thank you to all the participants, who shared with me their time, voices, thoughts, knowledge, and space. Thank you for being open to creating relationship with me, and furthering a conversation for the land, the plants, and the people. Your contributions are valuable beyond measure in this research, and I’m glad to have met each of you.
iv ABSTRACT
Most Indigenous cultures historically employed regenerative methods in their human-environment relationships, interactions, and resource use. Many of these methods stemmed from the Indigenous concept of kincentric ecology, an approach which guides human relationship with ecosystems from a perspective of family connections. Hardly a new scientific concept, kincentric ecology puts a name to a foundational element of
Indigenous cultures and Indigenous knowledge: kinship with the environment. This research centers Indigenous land rights in an examination of relevant environmental policy related to foraging. Additionally, interviews with community members,
Indigenous and non-Indigenous, about foraging, as an expression of intimate interaction with plants and landscape, illuminates the development of relationship with land. This research highlights Indigenous scholars and Indigenous voices in the next phase of environmentalism, as humans face ever-increasing degradation to the planet, and highlights the importance of a multispecies emotional connection to landscape as inclusive of more-than-human elements of nature. Incorporating concepts of aliveness, relationality, landscape stewardship, and a dialogue between traditional ecological knowledge and Western science illustrates some of the dynamics at play in kincentric ecology.
v TABLE OF CONTENTS
SIGNATURE PAGE ...... ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... iii
ABSTRACT ...... v
LIST OF TABLES ...... ix
LIST OF FIGURES ...... x
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ...... 1
Research Questions ...... 3
Plant profiles ...... 5
Note on language and terms ...... 5
CHAPTER 2: METHODS ...... 9
Data collection ...... 11
Data analysis ...... 14
Limitations ...... 16
CHAPTER 3: LITERATURE REVIEW ...... 20
Introduction ...... 20
Indigenous Studies ...... 21
Feminist Anthropology of Kinship ...... 25
Regenerative Studies ...... 32
Conclusion ...... 37
vi CHAPTER 4: SOCIO-ECOLOGICAL RELATIONSHIPS - ENVIRONMENTAL
POLICY AND LANDSCAPE STEWARDSHIP ...... 38
Plant profile: Oak (Wet) ...... 38
Environmental policy ...... 44
Expression of relationship to landscape ...... 50
Caretaking and connection ...... 50
Human involvement ...... 55
The power of place ...... 60
Conclusion ...... 67
CHAPTER 5: ECOLOGICAL RELATIONSHIP IN ACTION - PEOPLE ON THE
LANDSCAPE ...... 68
Plant profile: Mustard (Tongva name unknown) ...... 68
Foraging ...... 70
What is foraging? ...... 72
Populations ...... 77
Ethics and protocols ...... 83
Access ...... 91
Restrictions on landscapes ...... 91
Capacity ...... 96
Conclusion ...... 104
vii CHAPTER 6: SOCIO-CULTURAL RELATIONSHIPS UNDER SETTLER
COLONIALISM ...... 105
Plant profile: White sage (Kasili) ...... 105
Appropriation ...... 109
Value ...... 116
Erasure ...... 118
Conclusion ...... 122
CHAPTER 7: KINCENTRIC ECOLOGICAL RELATIONSHIPS ...... 124
Plant profile: Reader’s choice and Plant profile: Sunflower (Paaxar) ...... 124
Re-kin-izing ...... 125
Aliveness ...... 127
Relationality ...... 130
Conclusion ...... 136
CHAPTER 8: CONCLUSION ...... 138
REFERENCES ...... 147
viii LIST OF TABLES
Table 1. Participants (*pseudonyms used to protect privacy)...... 9
Table 2. Environmental policy documents ...... 9
ix LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1. Intent of environmental policies ...... 47
Figure 2. Purpose of natural resources in environmental policies ...... 49
x CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
Regenerative Studies embraces an interdisciplinary approach to addressing the environmental crises already underway on the earth. Because of this potential for inclusivity within Regenerative Studies, it is vital to incorporate a wide range of knowledge bases into forming the next phase of environmentalism. Challenging the status quo, giving voice to marginalized populations, both human and more-than-human1, regenerative approaches can offer a place to incorporate all of humanity’s and nature’s knowledge systems to enhance human understanding of ecosystems and the human- nature relationship.
Regenerative practices go beyond the palliative remedies and mitigating responses to environmental degradation touted by conservation and sustainability movements. At the root of the environmental issues facing the world lies a social problem. A regenerative approach to the earth involves reframing the human- environment relationship. Regeneration is dynamic, like life on earth, and breaking the status quo of current environmental behaviors requires a radical approach, redirecting energy into creating a vastly different relationship with the earth than humans currently exhibit. The Western relationship to land is primarily economic, providing resources but requiring little responsibility (Leopold, 1949). Embedded in many Indigenous cultures, a kincentric land ethic recognizes human dependence on the earth, and places mutual respect as the basis for relationships within nature (Salm n, 2000). In order to take regenerative actions, an emotional connection to landscape (land, plants, more-than-
1 I use the term more-than-human to include not only plants and non-human animals, but also elements of nature typically considered inanimate, as well as the place as an entity (Larsen & Johnson, 2017). I provide further explanation in the subheading “A note on language and terms.”
1 human animals) is essential. Within the concept of kincentric ecology all elements of nature, including humans, are interconnected, a sense of family2 is cultivated between
humans and nature, and a relationship built on reciprocity and responsibility creates the
foundation of a land ethic (Kimmerer, 2013; Salm n, 2000).
My research examining kincentric ecological principles, is founded in relational
knowledge (Wilson, 2001). This perspective of knowledge is based in relationship;
shared, developed, and created between humans and more-than-humans, not discovered
and owned by individuals (Reo, 2019; Smith, 2012; Wilson, 2001). The process of
knowledge gaining is found within the developing and ongoing relationships, rather than
a certain focused learning or acquisition. Participating in this relational experience
establishes the knowing, as opposed to a “discovery” of an understanding of ecology
science (Kimmer, 2013; Reo, 2019; Whyte, 2013). While this thesis is intended to
be relationship building, it is still research, within Western academia at that. Recognizing, acknowledging this complex relationship within knowledge building also creates accountability for me, the researcher, not only between me and my fellow humans participating in the research, but also to the more-than-humans.
The purpose of this study is to explore gaps in Regenerative Studies regarding
Indigenous thought and environmental relationships. This study seeks to understand the
importance of relationship in a land ethic, and the development of an emotional
connection towards landscape as an integral aspect of engaging in regenerative
environmental practices. This project also challenges colonial mindsets and thinking
2 Recognizing that family, in a hegemonic sense, has a particularly Western construct, I am instead drawing from an Indigenous feminist queer recognition of family and kinship that supports the deconstruction of the white settler colonial heteropatriarchal structure of family (Collier et al., 1997; Morgensen, 2011; TallBear, 2020; Weston, 1991).
2 towards land, place, plants, and landscape, centering Indigenous mindsets, and place- based relationships. The study decenters humans by placing landscape and plants in the forefront, as equal member of the ecosystem, leaving humans as just one of many respondents and participants in the ecosystems. However, this research also allows space for the Indigenous land relationships to bear more weight since an Indigenous concept is at the heart of my research into environmental relationship, and for true regenerative relationship, a reckoning must be made in light of the California Indian experience since contact with white European settlers.
Research Questions
The daunting environmental issues facing the earth seem insurmountable. My purpose in this research revolves around engaging in relationship, an emotional connection, with the environment as an individual and as a community, in order to counter the business as usual extractive methods of human-environment interaction.
Considering a shift in the social and cultural foundation to the human-environment relationship can influence less exploitative behaviors and encourage reciprocal, mutually beneficial behaviors towards nature. Humans can not only build relationship with nature, this relationship can have positive repercussions on society as a whole. My research questions are the following:
• How do kincentric ecological relationships inform a regenerative future?
• How accessible are kincentric ecological relationships under U.S. environmental
policy?
These questions invite a recognition of, and development of, kinship in the environment and in ecosystems: interspecies and intralandscape. They show how relationship building
3 with the environment influences sustainable and regenerative actions, behaviors, and mindsets, and they find the regeneration of kinship amongst participants in the landscape as relevant to current environmental relationships and issues. However, these questions also expand within this research to reveal the importance of regeneration of Indigenous culture and sovereignty, and how settler colonialism continues on repeat, recreated by settler society on people and landscapes.
Significance
Regenerative Studies by its very nature aims to lead humans into a more positive relationship with the environment. While some regions and societies experience mutually beneficial relationships with nature, our predominantly industrial, fossil fuel reliant, capitalist lifestyles contribute to degrading global environments, and degrading human- environment relationships. My research addresses the social and cultural issues within the environmental dilemmas facing the earth. I argue that the ongoing conversation around how to proceed living on earth in a regenerative manner is complicated by settler colonialism, land rights, and capitalist relationships with landscape. An ecological framework informed by kinship conditions the possibility for a more regenerative relationship with the environment, and a more sustainable existence on this planet.
Regeneration itself is a concept held in many Indigenous cultures so my research, on kincentric ecology, an Indigenous concept, lends itself to contributing to the field of Regenerative Studies (Jacob, 2013). Incorporating diverse disciplines and knowledge,
Regenerative Studies allows for varying ontologies and epistemologies. This research influences the field of regenerative land ethics, informs the development of environmental policy that incorporates humans into an active, regenerative relationship
4 with landscape, and contributes to a growing field which values Indigenous ways of
knowing. Additionally, this research works to decolonialize environmentalism, work
towards environmental justice, and challenge settler colonialism.
Plant profiles
Born from an interest in human-plant relationships and in order to center plants in
this research, I open each findings chapter (beginning at chapter four) with a plant profile.
I use the Western name for the plant and in parentheses I use the Tongva name3, if I was
able to find it. Each plant serves to represent the theme of that chapter. For this research
the oak (wet), mustard (Tongva name unknown), white sage (kasili), and the sunflower
(paaxar) make appearances as profile themes. The information presented is by no means
an exhaustive study of the plants but provides an introduction to a plant which stands for
a particular relationship. This relationship can inform the reader about human-landscape
relationships, settler colonial relationships, or my own, and possibly the reader’s,
personal plant relationship.
Note on language and terms
In this research I employ the words landscape, nature, ecosystem, and
environment to refer to and describe an ecological network of organisms, human and
more-than-human, animate and what is typically considered inanimate, but which are
living together, interacting, communicating, and responding to each other. I am choosing
to use the term more-than-human to be inclusive of place and encompass any element of
nature that is not human but has membership in the ecosystem (Larsen & Johnson, 2017).
3 A great resource for the Tongva language is the following Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/TongvaLanguage/
5 This term can refer to plants, animals, landmarks of the landscape, and elements of landscape such as wind, water, mountains. Current literature makes use of the terms more-than-humans, other-than-humans, or nonhumans. I chose more-than-human because
I believe that speciesism and hierarchical relationships can take the hit of feeling slightly less than elements of the landscape which have been relegated to the position of natural resources, national landmarks, or commodified products. Native relationships to ecosystems may include a less hierarchical approach, but in general this hierarchy plays a major role in environmental relationships and I believe it deserves dismantling.
There may be moments when the term more-than-human feels problematic or somehow displaces Indigenous peoples. Or worse, relegates Indigenous peoples to some hierarchical standing as separate from human. That is not my intention at all. These terms are imperfect, and my intention is to upset hierarchy and settler colonialism, while furthering the multifaceted relationships in ecosystems, as well as furthering the coexistence of Indigenous sovereignty (Carroll, 2015).
I also use the terms Indigenous, Native, and California Indians (all of which I intentionally capitalize) when speaking about the various Native peoples in California, and also cultures which express the concepts of kincentric ecology specific to a landscape. I use them in ways that seem appropriate at the time, and again, my intention is to dismantle settler colonialism, partially by reminding the reader of the present-day existence of Indigenous peoples and their experience, as best as I can share them from my white researcher perspective. California Indians is a term used widely in California by
Native peoples, though it sometimes generalizes vast populations of distinct tribal communities and is complicated by issues around federal recognition by the United States
6 (Anderson, 2005). Specific tribal names are used when they apply to particular people or peoples, environmental interactions and relationships, or specific regions.
Throughout my research, in an effort to illustrate the importance of species equity and species democracy and recognizing the value of plants as family members I am mindful of using the pronouns they and them when referring to elements of nature and the landscape, such as plants, more-than-human animals, and even water and mountains
(Kimmerer, 2013; Miller, 2019; Shiva, 2005). This allows for queering the human-nature
relationship and challenging the limits of hierarchical frameworks in Western scientific
research and language (Chen, 2012). Humans use linguistics to maintain their superiority
over nature, as well as over other humans. Race, sexuality, gender, cultural and ethnic
identity, have all felt the brunt of language which demeans and eliminates identity and
compassion. “Animacy is political,” as it reflects and informs power structures,
objectifies and dehumanizes the participants not at the top of the social order (Chen,
2012, p. 30). By using non-gendered, non-objectifying pronouns when referring to more-
than-human elements of the environment, those elements are imbued with animacy and
personhood, while at the same time decentering humans. My research challenges the
status quo and embodies this shift in relationship by way of using they/them pronouns to
recognize animacy in the more-than-human world.
Language is an integral aspect of community, social structure, and relationships,
and plays an important role in human perception of the world. Robin Wall Kimmerer
(2013) describes what she calls “the grammar of animacy,” a major difference between
English and Indigenous languages (p. 55). English refers to inanimate beings as an “it” or
a “thing” whereas in most Indigenous languages hardly any element of the natural world
7 is inanimate. All of nature, animals, plants, rocks, oceans, are imbued with a life, an existence, a personhood. Deserving of the respect honored to the living, to a member of the community, a member of the family, nature then, enters into a relationship with humans. This relationship is not about economics, it is about connection, justice, and rights, not to serve humans but to serve the whole earth. A kincentric perspective on the environment changes the way humans speak about their surroundings and elements of nature, thus influencing their mindsets and behaviors. A sense of reciprocal responsibility can develop within a relationship founded in recognition of identity.
8 CHAPTER 2: METHODS
Table 1. Participants (*pseudonyms used to protect privacy).
Method: Semi-structured Self-Description Length interview Teresa Chuc Vietnamese, Cantonese, Japanese, 50 minutes tribally adopted by Tongva Elder, educator, co- creator of Regenerative Collective Jo Dominguez De-tribalized, Blackfoot, 50 minutes Mexican, tribally adopted by Tongva Elder, co-creator of Regenerative Collective Doug Kent Californian, author, educator 60 minutes Deborah Small Eastern European, Californian, 52 minutes artist, writer, educator, member of Chia Café collective Enrique Salm n Rarámuri, educator, author 54 minutes Amanda* Acjachemen, educator, Indigenous 47 minutes advocacy Tracy* Gabrielino, small business owner, 104 minutes cultural resources Julia Bogany Tongva Elder, educator 60 minutes Pascal Baudar Belgian, author, artist, wild food 60 minutes practitioner Judith Larner Lowry Californian, author, Native seed 55 minutes expert and business owner Abe Sanchez American/Mestizo, educator, 98 minutes member of Chia Café Collective
Table 2. Environmental policy documents.
Method Description Document Analysis The Wilderness Act of 1964 Document Analysis Code of Federal Regulations Document Analysis CA State Parks Rules and Regulations Summary
9 The goal of this research was to explore the Indigenous concept of kincentric ecology through speaking with people who dedicate at least part of their busy lives to plants. This research was a qualitative study in which I conducted semi-structured
interviews with Indigenous scholars, educators, and community members, as well as non-
Indigenous people who are also plant lovers and plant advocates. I also examined
environmental policy related to foraging within the Los Angeles area, or Tovaangar4. The interviews shed light on the lived experience of people and their interactions with their environments. Indigenous perspectives have historically been eliminated through genocide and colonialism as well as appropriated through ongoing settler colonial practices, therefore I wanted to be sure Indigenous voices were recognized in this research. I chose interviews as a method because interviewing represents a form of relationship building and they are a collaboration between the researcher and participant
(Reo, 2019; Wilson, 2001). Despite the trauma and repercussions of settler colonialism,
Indigenous communities continue to carry, develop, and transmit knowledge, particularly ways of knowing and being which are unique to place-based relationships to land. Since environmental policies directly affect place-based relationships to land, I chose to conduct document analysis to corroborate the lived experience of people in the Los
Angeles area, recognizing experiences specific to Southern California. An analysis of foraging policies present in the Los Angeles area provides an understanding of how
4 Maps can help us visualize ourselves geographically, and of course contribute to our knowledge of a place in space and time. The maps we are most familiar with stem from settler colonial frameworks. Check out these great resources to realign your awareness towards Indigenous lands: https://native-land.ca/ and https://www.latimes.com/projects/la-me-tongva-map/
10 policy influences relationship to land not only for Indigenous peoples but everyone living
in the region.
Foraging, in this sense, includes the gathering of foods, medicines, and materials
from the environment for personal and community use. Since foraging involves a direct
interaction with the environment, on a rather intimate level, the document analysis of
foraging policy provides a context for the development of human-environment
relationships. Examining environmental policies through the lens of kincentric principles
leads to an awareness of where environmental policies succeed in building relationship
between humans and nature, but also where they fall short in allowing the development
of relationship and connection to the environment. These two sources of data, interviews
and document analysis, complement each other and provide insight into the future
application of kincentric principles in sustainable living.
Data collection
After gaining approval from the Cal Poly Pomona Institutional Review
Board (IRB) under protocol IRB-19-169 I reached out to potential interviewees by email,
using an IRB approved recruitment script. I contacted individuals that I was already
aware are plant lovers and advocates, or that I knew participate in Indigenous cultural
revitalization and building relationships to plants and land, through their previously
publicized work which includes books, documentaries, academic articles, educational
programming, and social media. The interviews were semi-structured interviews, so that along with a set of questions as a guide, there was room for the conversation to expand and include some oral history or other lived experiences.
11 I reached out to fifteen people and conducted a total of eleven interviews. Ten were face to face, and one was conducted over Zoom audio. I met with people in their offices, homes, parks, botanic gardens, and at the Lyle Center for Regenerative Studies.
The interviews ranged in length from about 45 minutes to about one hour and 45 minutes. Some participants were more conversational than others. Some participants had their own agenda for the conversation, which I have attempted to include in the findings.
I did not want the interviews to be confidential because 1) I want to create more awareness around this idea of relationship with land as critical to environmental issues and 2) since the participants are already publicly engaged in plant or Indigenous advocacy and education through publications, community events, and academic settings.
Most participants agreed to being named in my thesis, however one asked to remain confidential towards the end of the interview. Another participant asked to determine confidentiality based on reading an excerpt once I had finished writing up the findings but due to constraints of the semester and the Covid-19 pandemic, I did not have time to
clear material with this participant. I assigned pseudonyms to these two participants.
The interview questions revolved around relationships towards nature and the
environment. I intended the interviews to be collaborative relational interactions, but this
was received differently by each participant (Reo, 2019; Wilson, 2001). I hoped that
interviews as a method would not feel extractive, but the reality is that Indigenous
communities often have a contentious relationship with sharing information because of
years of appropriation and silencing. I informed the participants that these interviews
were to be used in connection with my research for the Master of Science in Regenerative
Studies at Cal Poly Pomona. Though there was no direct benefit to participating in this
12 research, I believe that by being available in the CSU library system my research can make an impact on individuals and campus communities and contribute to an ongoing recognition of Indigenous peoples and concepts. Many of the participants wanted to make
sure that I would make my thesis available to them, since the university library is not
accessible to the public. Upon completion, I am emailing each participant a PDF of my
thesis. I audio recorded the interviews using a smartphone app, then downloaded them
onto a password-protected laptop. The interview conducted on Zoom audio was recorded
through Zoom and saved to my password-protected laptop. I used ExpressScribe software
to transcribe the interviews.
Regarding environmental policies related to foraging, I chose three relevant
documents to analyze. The first was The Wilderness Act of 1964, which can be found
online. I chose this document because it provides a definition of wilderness that has been
integrated into Western thought and relationship to land. The second document was the
Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), particularly Title 36, 2.1 which stipulates the use of
natural resources and thirdly I examined the California State Parks Rules and Regulations
Summary, which are based on the CFR. These documents provide a federal and state
perspective on human-environmental relationships. The CFR is available online as the
electronic code of federal regulations or eCFR. The California State Parks Rules and
Regulations Summary is on the California parks government website.
13 Data analysis
This research aims to examine the world through knowledge of both a Western science perspective and an Indigenous practices and principles perspective. The interview questions revolve around viewpoints on environmental issues, as well as the applications of establishing a kincentric ecology worldview. My research exists under the framework of blending the valuable contributions of Western environmental sciences and equally important, the immense wealth of knowledge in Indigenous science and worldviews. I coded the interviews for themes related to applying kincentric ecology in supporting regenerative systems, practices, and environmental policy, as well as the effects of environmental policy on developing kincentric relationship with the landscape.
In order to manage the massive amount of data, in the form of quotes from the interviews, I created a large excel spreadsheet, also known as a matrix (Miles et al.,
2014). This matrix featured row headings of the participants names or pseudonyms. I had one column defining each person’s description of their background and identity. That was followed by column headings which consisted of each of the six kincentric principles that
I had determined beforehand were most relevant to environmentalism. These principles were aliveness, relationality, land stewardship, place-based culture, traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), and collaboration. I also coded for certain themes that appeared throughout the interviews: access, appropriation, trauma, erasure, healing, home, disconnect, foraging, and environmental policy. The coding was an iterative process and after coding and recoding, some of these categories melded together, or did not appear as relevant as others. Reviewing the matrix, I was able to see which categories contained a
14 lot of data, or related quotes, and which categories were sparse. Regarding using matrices for qualitative research, Miles et al. (2014) state, “The conclusions drawn from a display can never be better than the quality of the data entered” (p. 115). Again, coding was not a singular event, during the coding process I often had to return to the interview transcripts and re-examine the conversation to be sure I was doing justice to the interview.
I also conducted document analysis through a review of environmental policy related to foraging in order to visualize applications of kincentric ecology within a political framework. The environmental movement has historically maintained environmental injustice, settler colonialism, and inequity for Indigenous peoples (Bacon,
2018; Gilio-Whitaker, 2019). Examining the political and legislative frameworks which influence environmental practices informs the application of Indigenous principles in regenerative systems and gaining of support for Indigenous principles, and Indigenous peoples’ rights, within the realm of environmental policy. From historical treaties through current environmental laws and restrictions, an examination of the documents through the lens of kincentric ecological principles provided a record of the implications of previous environmental relationships and the possibility of an alternate, future relationship between humans and nature.
I used NVivo 12 qualitative data coding software through the GIS lab at Cal Poly
Pomona to assist me in coding the documents and producing visual representations of the information gleaned from the policies. NVivo is a data organization tool which allows for cataloguing text and image data, querying the data, and extensive visual analysis based on parameters created by the researcher during the data analysis process. After copying and pasting the document information into a Word document, I uploaded the documents
15 to NVivo 12. I then coded the data for intent and purpose. Intent refers to the broad intent of the policy document, what does the document portray as its intention for relationship with landscape. Purpose referred to what the document presented as the purpose for natural resources. An iterative process, coding the data exposed themes which I was then able to clearly demonstrate graphically. For graphics, I created word clouds of the most frequently used words in the two separate themes: intent and purpose.
Limitations
To be very clear, I am not Indigenous to this land. I was raised in Southern
California, but I am of European descent and live with the privileges which that entails.
Despite my efforts towards subverting settler colonialism I acknowledge the fact that my existence and participation in society contributes to settler colonial structures. Both my participants and I have implicit biases, and there is the simple fact that I do not know what it feels like to be a Native person on their Native land. I conducted my research through Cal Poly Pomona, part of the Western academy, an institution with colonial roots and which sits upon unceded Gabrielino-Tongva land. Only recently, in 2018, did the
CSUs choose to remove Columbus Day from their calendar and replace it with
Indigenous Peoples’ Day. The CSU system benefits from its position on lands across
California, in wonderful locations, all of which were taken from Native ancestors, and their current descendants.
At first, I wanted to employ an Indigenous paradigm, but Indigenous does not apply to me on this land and to say that it does would exhibit appropriation and feel very much colonial. That said, I hoped to conduct this research with acknowledgement of my privilege while still creating relationship, accountability, and awareness around
16 Indigenous research methods. I wanted to conduct this study about kincentric ecology. I wanted to explore if I could see evidence of kincentric principles in the plant lovers and plant advocates that agreed to speak with me. An important understanding that I came to realize is that, of course, kincentric ecology is not restricted to a theoretical concept. For the Indigenous people and communities in which kincentric ecology is a way of life, is culture, is living, there is no academic theorizing involved. The environment is a genuine family member, along with all the accompanying relationships, requirements, obligations, and expressions. During this research process I began to worry that applying the word kin, from my Western academic settler colonial framework was only another form of colonialism, another appropriation towards a community that I was hoping to give recognition (Tuck et al., 2012). Max Liboiron (2020) speaks about kin as “a word on fire,” that now “everything is kin,” kin this and kin that, making the critical distinction that “you can’t claim kin, kin claims you.” Where I thought I was giving credit, to cultural methods and practices which support sustainable and regenerative behaviors towards landscape and ecosystems, was I simplifying an Indigenous way of knowing and being into a checklist of behaviors? While I wanted to conclude with recommendations for Indigenous-led environmental ethics, practices, and policies, was that meaningful at all without land reparations? However, during this research I was also able to see that kin of course is not only an Indigenous concept and while Western industrial societies do not in general view nature as kin, each individual I spoke with had love and kinship for plants. But the paradox remains, as Liboiron (2020) asserts, genuine kinship is not based on the individual claiming kin.
17 I thought I would have simple categories of participants: Indigenous and non-
Indigenous. But humans are far more complex than that and the categories were not mutually exclusive, and it was not my place to determine who belonged and who did not.
For this research, one of my initial questions was related to identity. Geared towards cultural or tribal affiliation and heritage, the question allowed for self-identification. For one participant this was a highly controversial topic as they believe that Indigenous identity should be proven through corroborated record keeping and verified identification cards. This type of vetting was not part of my research protocol because my research revolves around an Indigenous concept, not an identity. I also felt that as a white, non-
Indigenous person, I was not in a position to ask for identification of participants because I was not looking to police them. I made notes of how people identified themselves, as well as their professions and interests, and that became part of the data.
There are limitations inherent to conducting interviews because humans are complex and emotional beings. Some participants did not want to answer a certain question because they felt it was too personal, or they related a more tangential answer rather than respond specifically to the question asked. Sometimes I could ask the question again or redirect, but other times a participant felt it was important to express their feelings on a different topic. Because the interviews were semi-structured, I was not able to ask every question to every participant therefore I did not collect an objectively equal set of responses from each participant. I did my best to incorporate the main themes as I saw them rise to the surface through the conversations.
The research also had the limitation of time. Completed in the second year of the
MSRS program and mostly during the second semester, the time to set up and conduct
18 interviews, assemble the interview data, code, and write was constrained by the semester.
This research also took place during the Covid-19 pandemic which upended life for many, myself included. To create a more relational research paradigm, perhaps with a community influenced deliverable I would have needed more time. However, I was able to speak with a range of participants and they contributed their thoughts and impressions to me about plants, landscape, and environmental policy. After combing through their words and ideas I was able to narrow the themes into this thesis that highlights an alternate way of viewing our ecosystems.
19 CHAPTER 3: LITERATURE REVIEW
Introduction
My research lies within the three fields of Indigenous Studies, Regenerative
Studies, and Feminist Anthropology of Kinship (Kinship). While many overlaps exist
amongst these three areas of study, my research emphasizes the regenerative and
sustainable relationships that are developed, and fostered, between humans and more-
than-humans in their shared environments. This concept of relationship threads its way
through all three of these fields of study. Indigenous Studies reveals the importance of
place-based values and regenerative land ethics not only to Indigenous peoples, but also to the land. Kinship itself embodies relationships, often categorized by blood relation, marriage, and residence. Yet kinship has many varied expressions across different
cultures and societies (as does Indigeneity). And Regenerative Studies, as a
multidisciplinary field with a plethora of applications, attempts to go beyond
sustainability to incorporate a whole systems approach, valuing interconnected
relationships and non-linear systems. Relationship to the environment, landscape, and all
the elements therein finds synergy within these three fields, yet, tensions reveal
themselves as well. My research in kincentric ecology seeks out nuances within
Indigenous Studies, Kinship, and Regenerative Studies as kincentric relationships have
relevance in each field, and as relationality becomes increasingly critical in facing
environmental dilemmas.
20 Indigenous Studies
I am not Indigenous to the region in which my research takes place therefore I do not have the ability to contribute an Indigenous paradigm. Following an Indigenous paradigm attempts to resolve some of the complications, power dynamics, and colonial structures inherent in simply integrating Indigenous knowledge into a Western paradigm
(Nadasdy, 1999). As a white member of settler colonial society, these issues remain unresolved in my research, but I hope to frame my research in Indigenous contexts and worldviews (Wilson, 2001). The field of Indigenous Studies holds space for Indigenous peoples, who having faced genocide and erasure, managed to survive, but continue to experience the catastrophic effects of settler colonialism. Patrick Wolfe (2006) notes that settler colonialism is an ongoing structure that remains in place long after the initial colonial event. Yet this structure is founded in a multitude of traumatic events: massacres, sterilizations, bounties, removal of children to boarding school. Settlers dispossess Indigenous peoples from their lands, landscape relationships, and identities producing and reproducing the elimination of Indigenous peoples (Bacon, 2018;
TallBear, 2019; Whyte, 2018). Settler colonialism, and white supremacy, are inherently
degenerative to both native land and peoples (Hopkins, 2020). Maintenance of those
structures creates and maintains injustice towards land and people. Indigenous Studies
covers issues of Indigenous identity, settler colonialism, cultural revitalization,
Indigenous science and knowledge and traditional ecological knowledge (TEK),
sovereignty, decolonization, and many other facets of Indigenous life. Focusing on
Indigenous knowledge and TEK, my research aligns with the Indigenous research
concept of relational accountability (Reo, 2019; Whyte, 2013; Wilson, 2001). Under this
21 premise, knowledge itself is relational and active, not an entity which can be owned or discovered, but rather it is built and shared with all, human and more-than-human (Reo,
2019; Smith, 2012; Wilson, 2001). This exists in contrast with Western knowledge practices in which information is pursued and gained by the individual, often hoarded and claimed as property. Indigenous knowledge has a basis in praxis, in collaboration, in connection. Additionally, Indigenous knowledge as process, founded in complex relational ethics, remains adaptive, not static (M. K. Anderson, 2005; Berkes et al., 2000;
Muir et al., 2010; Reo et al., 2017; Reo, 2019; Senos et al., 2006; Watson et al., 2003).
Indigenous peoples, often relegated to the past by Western society, continue to build knowledge, adapt, evolve practice, and create culture. The field of Indigenous Studies challenges the Western myth that Indigenous peoples exist only in the past, while confronting the inequities still experienced by Indigenous peoples today.
The field of Indigenous Studies includes the exploration of Indigenous sustainability practices. Sustainability is not a new concept in Indigenous environmental practices, since most Indigenous communities live sustainably on their lands (M. K.
Anderson, 2005; Marchand et al., 2014; Shilling, 2018). Yet, Indigenous worldviews and ways of knowing remain outside mainstream science (McGregor, 2009; Smith,
2012). While Indigenous practices are held apart as a niche within the field of sustainability, sustainability is actually quite prevalent in Indigenous Studies, because of its application in land rights and responsibilities, sovereignty, and environmental justice.
However, the term regenerative is only recently more employed, occurring most often in connection with regenerative land ethics practiced by Indigenous peoples, and the importance of shifting human relationships to nature (Armstrong, 2018; Kimmerer, 2013,
22 2018; Martinez, 2018). An Indigenous land ethic revolves around reciprocity and respect, reverence and gratitude, kinship with land (more-than-humans, and elements such as water and mountains), and responsibility (M. K. Anderson, 2005; Cajete, 2000;
Kimmerer, 2013; Reo, 2019; Salm n, 2000; Shilling, 2018). These are all qualities of intimate relationship, illustrating the key role that relationship plays in a land ethic. Yet these principles may not appear in mainstream sustainability research, and are only recently becoming recognized in Regenerative Studies.
Relational accountability as a framework for research, and land ethics, applies in interactions with all elements of the environment, research with Indigenous peoples, and also the more-than-human participants (Barnhill-Dilling & Delborne, 2019; Muir et al.,
2010; Reo, 2019). A key element of TEK is participation, which defies the extractive perspective of Western science and sustainability. The Western scientific approach often seeks to apply TEK to the environment without actually participating in the ecosystem relationships (Cajete, 2000; Whyte, 2013). Discussing river relationships and the
Aboriginal Peoples in the Bourke region of New South Wales, AU Muir et al. (2010) highlight “the importance of good social relationships for good ecological relationships” in Indigenous ecology (p. 262). This approach confronts the deeper relevant issues related to the mass ecological degradation with which humans are dealing; beyond environmental effects, social and racial injustices accompany the effects of global warming, compounding inequities. It seems that all the technology and sustainable practices in the world cannot replace healthy and regenerative human-nature relationships and environmental ethics. In her book, Earth Democracy, Shiva (2005/2015) outlines the principles of an earth democracy, arguing for interconnectedness, compassion, and living
23 diversity, while condemning exploitation and violence. These principles lie at the heart of sustainable and regenerative ecological and social practices. A mindset of equality among species, even humans learning from their fellow ecosystem inhabitants, counters individualism, supporting a “democracy of species” (Kimmerer, 2013, p. 173).
Embracing collaboration, a facet of Indigenous knowledge building, also allows for adaptability, resilience, and survival through the environmental crises resulting from climate change (Miller, 2019; Reo, 2019; Tsing, 2015; Whyte, 2013).
As place-based cultures, Indigenous peoples have unique relationships with their lands and extensive knowledge existing within an active practice of relationality (Basso,
1996). For Indigenous communities, the violence and trauma perpetrated by settler colonialists not only harmed the people, but also place, their home, and their ecological relatives (Kearney, 2018; Rose, 2011). Place, as a sentient participant in the ecological family, along with humans, plants, animals, all the more-than-human elements of nature, still experience this violence through environmental exploitation. As humans look to ecological restoration in order to regenerate landscapes, and regenerate biodiversity it is important to realize that restoring land without restoring relationships is futile (M. K.
Anderson, 2005; Kimmerer, 2011, 2013, 2018; Muir et al., 2010). Ecological restoration as a concept can include not only human relationships with the landscape and more-than- humans, but serve as an argument for restoring Indigenous sovereignty, thereby creating reparations as restorative action as well.
However, fields of study are never without tension, and Kim TallBear (2016) describes her conflict with Indigenous Studies as she considers her navigation from
Indigenous Studies to Science and Technology Studies (STS). TallBear (2016) criticizes
24 Indigenous Studies for remaining defined by the humanities and social sciences. To counter the separation, categorization, and hierarchical distinctions of Western academia, arguably a highly un-Indigenous epistemology, she encourages we become “promiscuous disciplinary travelers and radical experimental surgeons, reattaching knowledges one to another in our approaches to the problems we tackle” (TallBear, 2016, p. 73). She invites a production of contemporary Indigenous sovereignty that includes both science and
Indigenous knowledge as equals, a narrative including nonhumans, and advocating for
Indigenous thought in scientific academic conversations (TallBear, 2016). She challenges
Indigenous Studies to open to science and challenge it with Indigenous ontologies
(TallBear, 2016). Her essay expands the idea of Indigenous sovereignty, away from a concept associated with the past, and thrusts it forward, creating Indigenous sovereignty futures.
Feminist Anthropology of Kinship
This research is an exploration in relationship, connection, how humans and
more-than-humans develop relationships with each other individually and in community.
Any search into relationship leads to an exploration of Kinship Studies, of which I take a
feminist, and often queer, perspective. Commonly assigned as a solely human attribute,
the concept of kin has been examined extensively through the eyes of anthropology,
leading the various categories of kinship. Evans-Pritchard (1940) centered kinship
through descent lineage (bloodline), while Lévi-Strauss, relegating kinship to an
exchange of women between men, emphasized alliance through marriage (Rubin,
1975/2011). Stack (1974) expanded the notion of kin to residence and extended kin survival structures of Black American women. Within Indigenous Studies, and
25 occasionally Regenerative studies, a broader understanding and expression of kin exists
and is experienced by humans, more-than-humans, and their environments around the
world. Kin, and making kin, is in fact a multispecies and ecosystem endeavor (Haraway,
2016; Miller; 2019; Rose, 2011; Salm n, 2000; Tsing, 2012, 2015). Rubin (1975/2011)
notes that a Western understanding of kinship systems reproduce fixed forms of socially
organized sexuality. Through a feminist perspective she argues for the elimination of
deterministic sexuality, dismantling sex/gender, even advocating for an androgynous and
genderless society (Rubin, 1975/2011, p. 61). Marilyn Strathern (2020) argues for
challenging the limits of Western frameworks of relationality, making kin and relation-
making relevant in current environmental crises. Kinship from an Indigenous perspective
dismantles the limitations of Western notions of kin, and disrupts the heteronormative
nuclear family (Morgensen, 2011; TallBear, 2020). Kinship, without the dualistic, binary
boundaries of Western definition has critical applications in regenerative relationships
with the environment, which guides the path of my research on kinship with landscape
and plants. Additionally, Rubin (1975/2011) asserts that kinship is a form of structural
organization, and this organization conditions power. Power in relationships, in
communities, in societies, and I argue in environments as well. What are the power
dynamics playing out on the landscape? How does power flow, or not, in relationships
between humans, more-than-humans, and their environments? Where is power held,
wielded, and/or shared in the landscapes in which they all find themselves?
An Indigenous concept, kincentric ecology refers to a personal relationship between humans and nature (Salm n, 2000). The environment exists as the framework for culture, and through which a reality based on intimate and reciprocal relationship is
26 experienced (Cajete, 2000). Before the Industrial Age humans were more likely to realize their reliance on their environments for providing all of their needs. Environmental impacts, as a result of human or environmental factors, had to be assessed and managed rather quickly. Whether abundant or dwindling resources, extreme weather, or shifts in seasonal patterns, humans were tuned in to their local ecosystems and observed, as well as influenced, changes that affected their survival and the survival of their fellow ecosystem inhabitants (E. N. Anderson, 1996; Wahl, 2016). However, Indigenous peoples’ relationship to their surroundings goes beyond survival. Indigenous cultures around the world knew that recognition of the natural world, and all the elements therein, as kin was integral to their survival (Salm n, 2000). Kincentric ecology frames the perspective that humans and nature are not separate but part of an extensive ecological family (Black Elk, 2016; Salm n, 2000). Within this framework, humans are not superior to anyone else in the ecosystem, whether animal, plant, or other element of nature.
Kincentric ecology informs a land ethic without the borders of human and non-human, all aspects of the natural environment have personhood, affording them rights, agency, intelligence and respect, as teachers, relatives, leaders, and companions of humans, in addition to participating in their own communities and plans (M. K. Anderson, 2005;
Bhattacharyya & Slocombe, 2017). There is recognition of mutuality, an acknowledgement of reciprocity, connecting people and their environments in a give and take on both sides for the benefit of each, within the framework of relatives. Under a framework of kinship, the landscape is a protagonist (Tsing, 2015). The kincentric ethic informs daily activities and is applied to resource management, stewardship, caretaking,
27 and environmental justice (M. K. Anderson, 2005; Bhattacharyya & Slocombe, 2017;
Dudgeon & Bray, 2019; Kimmerer, 2011, 2013, 2018; Salm n, 2000).
Kincentric ecology represents a human-nature connection based deeply in relationship. A process of cultivating emotional relationships and connections, in contrast to the distance and separation fostered in a Western human-nature dynamic. Developed from birth, human-nature relationships include the Hupa’s entwining of a sapling and a newborn’s umbilical cord, and many California tribes (Yuki, Wappo, and Sierra Miwok) which incorporated plant and animal names into human names, creating alliance, not dominance (M. K. Anderson, 2005). Instead of being the dominant species in the ecosystem, within Indigenous cultures humans are more often than not the students. First
Nations in Canada have a social relationship with grizzly bears in which the bears are the elders who teach the humans (Bhattacharyya & Slocombe, 2017). Many other Indigenous cultures learn from the local animals and plants in their landscape, taking lessons from their habits and ways of living. Indigenous cultural origin stories are also consistently tied to animals and plants, with human life dependent on the gifts and generosity of the natural world. The Skywoman story of the Great Lakes region, the Mayans and
Rarámuri and Corn, the Abenaki and the ash tree, the Hopi and a spider along with various plants; all these stories illustrate the connection and interdependence between humans and nature (Kimmerer, 2013; Salm n, 2000). The kincentric worldview is also embedded in Indigenous languages, making kinship with nature integrated with thought processes and daily interactions (Kimmerer, 2013).
Language can indicate relationship based on a recognition of personhood or not.
Most Indigenous languages do not refer to animals, plants, and natural elements as
28 an it (Kimmerer, 2013). They are spoken to, and about, as beings and individuals, not as things. Objectified as a thing easily allows for ownership and property relations, particularly within capitalist relationships. The language of Western science, issuing the purported laws of nature, classifies the natural world as unthinking and therefore less alive, dead even, only worthy of transactional relationships (Buhner, 2002). However,
Native languages are predominantly verb based, recognizing the aliveness of the environment from water and rocks, to plants and animals. This acknowledgement speaks to agency and active relationships (Cajete, 2000; Kimmerer, 2013). Humans are by no means the only source of power and impact on the earth or in regional ecosystems.
Recognizing agency for all aspects of an ecosystem informs human attitudes and behaviors towards a kincentric perspective. Recognizing more-than-humans (non-human animals, elements of nature, and plants) as beings capable of action and participation invites engagement in a social relationship with them as inhabitants of the same ecosystem (Bhattacharyya & Slocombe, 2017). The grammar of the language reflects and supports the moral and ethical foundations inherent in Indigenous human-nature relationships as well as provides the framework for emotional connection, whether positive or negative.
While humans can and do form bonds with inanimate objects, primarily humans build relationship with alive beings in their surroundings: friends, family, pets. When all aspects of nature are viewed as alive, then that bond extends to the plant world, animal world, and even elements of nature such as rocks, soil, and bodies of water (Buhner,
2002; Miller, 2019). Kincentric ecology embraces that bond as necessary for proper behavior in the ecosystem (Salm n, 2000; M. K. Anderson, 2005). The term biophilia
29 was made popular to define this affinity towards all life on the planet (Wilson, 1984).
Biophilia recognizes the importance of bonding with nature, acknowledging the aliveness of the natural world, and that this bond is available outside the bounds of traditional
Western methods of scientific study (Buhner, 2002). Yet, biophilia still feels anthropocentric in its discussion of relationality. The biophilia concept places humans at the forefront of the effects of the bond, asking what this bond does for humans, how it serves humans, analyzing why biophilia is beneficial for human existence (Clowney,
2013; Wilson, 1984). In contrast, kincentric ecology frames this human-nature emotional bond as integral for all, decentering humans, making the relationship between humans and nature mutually engaged, not one of human dominance. Biophilia is often used as a framework for conservation ethics (Clowney, 2013; Simaika & Samways, 2010). While conservation or sustainability efforts no doubt benefit from an understanding of biophilia, a kincentric perspective revolves around a democracy of species based in a more visceral tenderness within the human-nature bond, and the building of empathy for nature in order to eliminate environmentally destructive practices (Buhner, 2002; Kimmerer, 2013;
Miller, 2019). For those living in kinship across species, the loss of biodiversity or extinction of species feel as a loss of close family members (Rose, 2011). Another
Western concept, deep ecology, attempts to acknowledge the right to life of all species and an ecocentric perspective, yet falls short as it appropriates non-Western cultures,
TEK, and maintains Malthusian population panic (Watson, 1989).
Indigenous relationships to land, animals, and resources are often maintained through ethical guidelines. Indigenous peoples have intimate and exhaustive knowledge of their environments, and influenced by a relationship of kinship and reliance, their
30 knowledge serves to enhance their land ethic. Much of the industrial world, not insignificantly quite removed from nature, ties religion to a dominance over the natural world; maintaining the perspective, and justification, that nature exists to be subdued and conquered (White, 1967). However, in most Indigenous cultures, local religions and cultural practices provide a framework making conservation part of the ethical code (E.
N. Anderson, 1996; M. K. Anderson, 2005; Salm n,2000). Part of being a well socialized and ethical member of the community includes appropriate enactment of gratitude, respect, and decency, usually through ceremony and ritual, as well as regenerative and sustainable environmental practices (E. N. Anderson, 1996; Bhattacharyya & Slocombe,
2017). Beyond following a certain harvest schedule, appropriateness comes from careful observation of the natural world, and honoring the needs of other species, tied to a sense of responsibility and kinship. Indigenous peoples in California use specific songs, stories, and sacred events to celebrate key elements of their livelihoods, such as the Concow
Maidu goose dance, and the Kashaya Pomo strawberry festival (M. K. Anderson, 2005).
The Canela Indigenous people in Brazil practice a multigenerational “education of affection” in parenting their plant children, through listening, tending, touch, and singing specific songs to individual plant species (Miller, 2019, p. 90). Kinship informs behavior relating to resource management as well in such concepts as the honorable harvest, and rules which facilitated honoring the plants and animals which sacrificed themselves for human use (M.K. Anderson, 2005; Kimmerer, 2013; Martinez, 2018). These guidelines are specific to each ecosystem and culture, but these practices highlight the importance of leaving enough behind for other humans, animals, and the health of the species being harvested (E. N. Anderson, 1996). Because all elements in nature, the surrounding
31 environment, are relatives, this relationship discourages exploitation of resources, which
in turn creates a regenerative land ethic. An emotional component, connecting humans to
their kin provides respectful, responsibility- oriented resource use.
Regenerative Studies
The field of Regenerative Studies looks beyond conservation, preservation, and sustainability. The word regenerate connotes new growth, to refresh, to renew, to activate with new life and energy. Popularized by Robert Rodale in connection with organic and regenerative farming and soil health, the term regenerative represents systems, practices, and principles which improve the health of the system (Rodale, 1987). Lyle (1994) explains that a regenerative system provides for continuous replacement, and even accumulation, of resources, through its own natural functions. A regenerative system continuously restores itself. Often applied in agriculture, or design and development technologies and strategies, regenerative practice remains outside of the mainstream worlds of education and business. In contrast, sustainability has become commonplace, tacked on to almost every aspect of life, sometimes only serving as a tool to advertise big business (Shilling, 2018).
The foundation of Regenerative Studies illuminates the origins of human exploitation of the earth, a clear abuse of self-ascribed and perceived power. Stemming from Western science and religions, the human-environment relationship has been one based not only on separateness, and human superiority, but human dominance as well
(Buhner, 2002; White,1967). Though not often recognized, and the repercussions not often fully understood, Western science is heavily influenced by (and influences) colonialism, racism, and industrial capitalism (Herman, 2016; Shiva, 1992; Smith, 2012).
32 Internalization of Western frameworks have affected human perception of the world around them, creating an illusion of distance and disconnection from nature (Buhner,
2002; Polanyi, 1944; White, 1967). And with that disconnect comes exploitation. As early as the end of the Industrial Revolution humans realized the destruction and degenerative practices that were prevalent in capitalist, industrial systems (Geddes, 1915;
Howard, 1898). Leopold (1949) recognizes the Western relationship to land as purely economic, providing resources but requiring little responsibility. This disconnect still defines modern Western relationships to land and Regenerative Studies, though attempting to change the human-environment status quo and address degenerative behaviors and structures, falls short of truly addressing regenerating relationship with the environment and nature. However, Western regenerative thinkers challenge the concept of wilderness and nature, recognizing they are social constructions, and that humans and human activity are not separate from nature (Cronon, 1996; Evernden, 1992; Pollan,
1991). Yet even as knowledge grew about ecology, ecosystems, and in general a systems approach to the environment, humans still approach the environment as separate from themselves (Odum, 1971, 1997; Tansley, 1935).
Lyle (1994) agrees that environmental issues stem from issues in the human relationship with nature, and that human technology is a manifestation of this skewed relationship with nature. There is therefore great potential for human technology to align with nature, if the underlying relationship between the two is healthy. If humans innovate technology from the perspective of interconnectedness with nature, then regenerative outcomes are more likely (Wahl, 2016). Though Lyle (1994) acknowledges the need for an altered relationship with nature, one not based in separation but rather involvement,
33 there remains within Regenerative Studies a glaring lack of acknowledgement that this type of relationship is not a new concept. While Regenerative Studies does not deny the existence of Indigenous lifeways and knowledge, the field lacks inclusion of Indigenous knowledge and culture as modern, ongoing, and currently relevant to the field.
Regenerative practices inherently exist throughout many Indigenous cultures, and
Indigenous peoples relationships to land and environment (Kimmerer, 2011, 2013;
Marchand et al., 2014). Failure of Regenerative Studies to distinguish Indigenous contributions to sustainability practices, not only continues the maintenance of structural power dynamics which do not benefit Indigenous peoples, but also maintains power dynamics which threaten human-ecological relationships.
By the early 2000s, the term regenerative was beginning to gain ground as a concept beyond sustainability. Throughout Regenerative Studies literature, many authors touch on the problem of the human relationship to nature, the social-emotional component of environmental issues (Cronon, 1996; Evernden, 1992; Lyle, 1994; Mang &
Reed, 2017; Reed, 2007; Wahl, 2016). Applied both ecologically and socially, Mang &
Reed (2017) assert that regenerative practices provide an inclusive framework which improves the health of human and natural communities, regenerates resources and creates surplus, and allows for caring and deep connection to place.
Important principles for combating environmental destruction are discussed in
Regenerative Studies literature, yet often regenerative principles are discussed as new concepts, discoveries even, without acknowledgement of historical and modern application of these principles by Indigenous peoples. Now that all the land has been stolen, conquered, and claimed, cue another facet of colonization, that of Indigenous
34 principles. While attempting to be less extractive of earth’s resources, those in the field of
Regenerative Studies ought to be wary of extracting Indigenous knowledge from the cultures and people who are living it, and creating a piecemeal construction of environmental ethics, without the supporting cosmology.
Wahl (2016) expands regenerative design and development to include the designing of regenerative cultures. He recognizes the reality that Indigenous lifeways have at times resulted in stretching ecological limits too far, giving the examples of
Easter Island and Babylon (Wahl, 2016). By Wahl’s (2016) definition, a regenerative culture does not require stepping back in time to create a pre-industrial utopia. In his book, Designing Regenerative Cultures, an inspiring treatise on creating a regenerative future, he devotes about five pages (out of 287) to the discussion of the value of
Indigenous knowledge for the current critical juncture in environmental crises. He applies the relevance of Indigenous knowledge in assisting nature’s regenerative systems, in learning from nature’s ecosystems, in place-based cultures, being in community, and even listening to, and building relationship, with the environment (Wahl, 2016). Wahl
(2016) even advocates for the preservation of Indigenous cultures and languages.
However, the fact remains that Indigenous peoples around the world have suffered genocide and survived, been stripped of their lands and cultures. Simply recognizing the value of their knowledge and practices, and extracting that knowledge to use and apply to
“save the world” from environmental disaster, without considering restoration for both
Indigenous peoples and their lands violates Indigenous sovereignty and serves as ongoing settler colonial violence.
35 Following the concept of relationship through this literature review,
unfortunately, the science of sustainability and Regenerative Studies continues to support
the mechanization of the human-environment relationship. For example, through the
quantification of such factors as ecosystem services (Bennet et al., 2015; Brauman et al.,
2007). The US Department of Agriculture, home of the US Forest Service, even has an
Office of Environmental Markets, claiming ecosystem services as a potential new economic driver for rural areas in the United States. Regenerative Studies requires more focus on relationality with nature and the environment, less rationality. Missing from mainstream sustainability and concepts such as ecosystem services is kinship relationships, an expansion of, and regeneration of, connection with landscape.
Rationality leads to dehumanization and entrapment (Ritzer, 2008). A loss of personhood or aliveness for the environment as a whole, and for individual aspects of ecosystems.
And that objectification and loss of relationship leads back to exploitative relationships with the earth. Acceptance of uncertainty and collaborative species engagement form the future of environmental practice (Haraway, 2016; Kearney, 2018; Rose, 2011; Tsing,
2015). Regenerative Studies carries much potential to exceed expectations in building and developing regenerative ecosystem relationships as long as these practices stay grounded in restoring human and nature relationships, based in responsibility, along with restoring and regenerating Indigenous sovereignty as part of moving forward to face global climate uncertainty and environmental degradation.
36 Conclusion
My research takes place both on Indigenous land, and within the Western academic university setting, a relationship which contains complexity. The importance of relationship lies within the three fields of Indigenous Studies, Kinship, and Regenerative
Studies. TallBear (2016) argues that all the disciplines are complicit in colonialism, and through her assertion that these disciplines require mending in order to align with
Indigenous ways of knowing and being, it is appropriate that my research seeks to follow
Indigenous perspectives in a Master of science program. Western societies have drifted far from understanding relationality with nature, yet the lack of intimate relationship is a relationship in itself. Though not always at the forefront of the conversations, in any field, the social and emotional aspects of environmental practices become more and more relevant as climate change and environmental exploitation threaten more and more of the global population.
37 CHAPTER 4: SOCIO-ECOLOGICAL RELATIONSHIPS -
ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY AND LANDSCAPE STEWARDSHIP
Plant profile: Oak (Wet)
California is home to many iconic tree species: the sequoia, the redwood, the bristlecone pine. Yet there is one that does not come with the fame of a national park or win the contest of oldest, tallest, or largest. Quercus spp. The oak tree. In the Gabrielino-
Tongva language, Wet. Despite their lack of renown, oaks are an integral part of the
California landscape and the oak woodland landscape is a rather characteristic background in the state. The oak woodlands and savannas that represent much of
California were created and maintained by California Indians, following a practice of regenerative stewardship through harvesting, burning, pruning, irrigating, and sowing, among other methods (Anderson, 2005). Oaks can be massive, regal, and often serve as major landmarks. For the Indigenous people of California oak trees are a major source of life-giving sustenance. The oak was cultivated by California Indians, illustrating kincentric landscape stewardship and Indigenous policies towards the environment. As a “cultural keystone species” for California landscapes, cultivated, and incorporated into land rights and responsibilities, the oak tree represents this chapter on landscape relationships (Garibaldi & Turner, 2004).
There are nine Native oaks in California that grow as trees (Pavlick et al., 1991).
Others grow as shrubs, low to the ground. Some oaks are deciduous, some are evergreen.
The average person may not be able to tell the difference between each type of oak, but most can identify oaks in general due to their signature look. Thick bark, grey to brown.
In large oaks, the branches stretch out like the gnarled fingers of an elderly giant.
38 Canopies are wide and create expansive shade leaving dappled sunlight filtered onto the earth below. Walking amongst oak trees you can feel their weight, their presence. This tree bears a heaviness, a seriousness, yet every massive oak tree begins their life as a tiny acorn. As far as seeds go, the acorn bears the weight of their future self. A large, heavy seed, acorns are not dispersed by the winds, but must be moved by forest friends such as birds and squirrels, or humans. Only one in 10,000 acorns becomes a mighty oak, most of them help feed the many more-than-humans which rely on the fats, proteins, and carbohydrates contained in the seed. The oak is a great provider for their ecosystem.
For California Indians, the oak is kin. Symbol of fertility, strength, and legitimately more nutritious than modern corn and wheat (Pavlick et al., 1991). The acorn harvest of the autumn was, and is, a time of celebration. Cultural practices and ceremonies, part of an active and vital relationship between oaks and people, marked the seasons. During ceremonies, offerings of acorn mash were made by the Coast Miwok,
Ohlone, Maidu, and Chumash (Pavlick et al., 1991). The Yuki, Maidu, and Pomo marked their calendars based on the oak reproduction and the Wintu spiritually bonded human life cycles of birth, puberty, marriage, and death to the acorns and oaks (Pavlick et al.,
1991). Games, medicines, materials, and food were all provided by the oaks to members of their ecosystems. The Great Oak, Wi’áasal, is cared for by the Pechanga Band of
Luise o Indians. This oak is over 1,000 years old, 100 feet tall, and 20 feet in circumference and “represents strength, wisdom, longevity, and determination”
(Pechanga). This particular oak is a coast live oak, Quercus agrifolia, and stands as a testament to relationship and resilience of both Native peoples and landscape.
39 Much of the oak acreage which existed pre-colonization was converted to farmland, orchards, housing developments, and capitalist development. Two important
California environmental processes are no longer available to the oaks as landscape stewardship: floods and fire. Oaks may benefit from periodic floodwaters, which deposit essential nutrients in the soil and wash away small mammals who gnaw on the young saplings (Anderson, 2005). Channelization of rivers throughout California began in the
1930s and drastically altered the ecosystems and the landscape. Regular burning helps oaks by eliminating insects and pathogens, which attack acorns before they can germinate, preventing oak regeneration (Anderson, 2005). Fire suppression has been common as land policy since the creation of the Forest Service in 1905. Managing the landscape for timber production, the U.S. Forest Service feared fire and refused to understand the benefits which Indigenous peoples had used in California ecosystems for generations, focusing instead on complete prevention and quick suppression (Forest
History, n.d.). In trying to protect what had been turned into a commodity, the no fire policies contributed to catastrophic fires due to the build-up of understory material which had historically been reduced through prescribed burning by California Indians.
Subsequently affected by increased disease, the interruption of Indigenous practices inhibited the success of trees which rely on fire in their life cycle. Current threats to oaks still include the loss of those critical processes of fire and flooding, and continued urban, suburban, agricultural, capitalist and industrial development.
40 Relationship to landscape
This chapter examines how humans view the environment and interact with
landscape. Employing the term landscape to include all aspects of an ecosystem such as humans, more-than-humans including animals, plants, and elements like rocks, water,
and wind, kincentric ecology places humans as part of the ecosystem community. Many
Indigenous Peoples view this as a partnership and familial relationship based in
reciprocal responsibility. Engaging in social relationship with nature and acknowledging
agency in the ecosystem community changes the structure of interaction from rights
based to responsibility based (Bhattacharyya & Slocombe, 2017). The term caretaking
can encompass this role and is used in various Indigenous cultural practices, however
without any connotation of control (Bhattacharyya & Slocombe, 2017; Salm n, 2000).
Whereas Western relationships to landscape focus on domination and exploitation,
kincentric ethical guidelines lead to landscape stewardship which enhances ecosystems
(Anderson, 2005; Salm n, 2000). Indigenous peoples throughout history influenced their
environments drastically, maintaining biodiversity and habitats for themselves and the
more-than-human members of their community. The “wilderness” that settler colonialists
claim to have discovered was actually a well-tended landscape full of reciprocal,
interconnected relationships (Anderson, 2005). Instead of a list of ecosystem services
which hold economic value in human systems, Indigenous resource management is
founded on kincentric relationship, where the resources themselves are considered
relatives (Miller, 2019). In this context, resource use becomes a respectful interaction
between willing participants. The result, in pre-contact California for instance, was a
landscape contributed to by anthropogenic actions, yet not anthropocentric in nature
41 (Anderson, 2005). Since agency is granted to all members of the ecosystem, caretaking of the landscape and resource use involves a conversation with those members, and when use is granted that is considered a choice by the plant, animal, or other element of nature
(Bhattacharyya & Slocombe, 2017). In this relationship which requires permission from the ecosystem members, humans are expected to express gratitude in response to that sacrifice, which is also a foundation of kincentric attitudes (Anderson, E. N., 1996;
Bhattacharyya & Slocombe, 2017; Kimmerer, 2013).
Modern conservation practices for the generic individual can be narrowed down to a list of good Samaritan actions: reduce, reuse, recycle. A set of consumerist actions to display environmental awareness, fairly easy to participate in, and inherently trivial
(Leopold, 1949). Within kincentric ecology, conservation practices are embedded in the religious, moral, and ethical codes of the culture (Anderson, E. N., 1996). Though regional differences exist, explicit values such as reciprocal guardianship, inter- relatedness, respect of ancestors and place, and balance influence management by First
Nations in Canada and Maori of Aotearoa (New Zealand), honoring Indigenous principles and rebuilding relationship to landscape (Artelle et al., 2018). An approach to the environment and resource management based on a value system incorporating kinship, caretaking, and not only sustainability, but regenerative practices, allows for ecosystems to recover and re-establish regenerative cycles. Values-led management, as an expression of relationship to landscape, may be critical for ecological restoration and ecosystem resilience (Garibaldi & Turner, 2018; Kimmerer, 2013). From Standing Rock, to rainforests, to wetlands, to ecosystems across the earth, Indigenous peoples and allies,
42 locally and globally, are working towards including and centering Indigenous practices in
land stewardship.
My research began in the Regenerative Studies program at the Lyle Center for
Regenerative Studies, founded by John T. Lyle. In his book Regenerative Design for
Sustainable Development, Lyle recommended reimagining the term landscape to “include all the life and nonliving materials within and on the land, both natural and human” even
“the air moving over it, and all the dynamic processes occurring within it” (Lyle, 1994, p.
25). His definition has kincentric undertones as it includes more-than-humans, and all elements of the landscape. Lyle recognized that all these pieces have relevance within the landscape, beyond human beings. Regarding members of this landscape, a distinction exists between those who live as residents and those who live as inhabitants. Residents of landscape are considered temporary, less invested, less rooted (Orr, 1992/2013). All the aspects of landscape outside of human beings are considered inhabitants, not residents. In a way then, by human definition, only humans are afforded this ability to live divested from place. But does that really benefit us? In contrast, inhabitant implies investment in the land: emotionally, physically, culturally, spiritually. Anderson (2005) connects people's relationship to their landscapes directly with their relationship to their food, using the term “visitor,” as oppose to resident. She contrasts modern trips to the grocery store with the intimate connections that California Indians had through landscape stewardship and foraging or gathering. She states “we can only be visitors” of the land while disconnected from our food sources (p. 290). As inhabitants, all species, all elements of the landscape maintain a reliance on and deep connection with their ecosystems, very often expressed through active relationship, such as foraging.
43 Environmental policy
This distinction between resident and inhabitant becomes particularly revealing within environmental policy. United States environmental policy uses language which places humans outside of their landscapes. Separate, usually as residents, not inhabitants.
Policies create the concept of wilderness or nature in which humans are not welcome unless simply passing through. Included in the methods for my research I conducted an analysis of environmental policy documents related to foraging. I narrowed the policies down to three key documents that represent the overreaching U. S. attitude towards the environment: the Wilderness Act of 1964, the Code of Federal Regulations (2010), and the California State Park Rules and Regulations Summary (1999). These documents define the relationship individuals are expected and permitted to have with nature, as well as with foraging. Firstly, the Wilderness Act of 1964 provides the following definition of wilderness:
A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his works dominate the
landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of
life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.
An area of wilderness is further defined to mean in this Act an area of
undeveloped Federal land retaining its primeval character and influence, without
permanent improvements or human habitation, which is protected and managed
so as to preserve its natural conditions and which (1) generally appears to have
been affected primarily by the forces of nature, with the imprint of man's work
substantially unnoticeable; (2) has outstanding opportunities for solitude or a
primitive and unconfined type of recreation; (3) has at least five thousand acres of
44 land or is of sufficient size as to make practicable its preservation and use in an
unimpaired condition; and (4) may also contain ecological, geological, or other
features of scientific, educational, scenic, or historical value.
This is the key piece of the document that I examined because it sets forth the definition of a wilderness that was in place even before 1964 in Western environmental policy and attitudes. This definition, founded in a dichotomy of human vs nature, has been integrated into the psyche of Western thought. Words and phrases that stand out to me in this definition are dominate, untrammeled, undeveloped, primeval, without human habitation, natural conditions, primitive. This definition of wilderness is significant in that it classifies nature as pristine and untouched; it describes nature and landscape as inherently separate from humans and human influence and characterizes any possible human influence as domination. Placing humans as visitors not inhabitants and implying human influence as inherently negative. This perspective fuels a divisive relationship with wilderness, one that human beings struggle with consistently as we look for solutions to climate change. Additionally, this creation of wilderness simultaneously erases Native peoples and their relationships with landscapes, reserves wilderness for a privileged class and race who can escape to it at will, and vilifies those who present an alternate vision for a future that incorporates humans back into active, continuous relationship with landscapes (Cronon, 1996).
In direct opposition to this perspective, many Indigenous languages do not have a word for wilderness or nature, and the cultures do not distinguish human beings from the natural world. Humans play an integral role in the ecosystem along with all other members of the system. “There is no compartmentalization of nature from humans
45 (Anderson, 2005, p. 39). Anderson (2005) shares that when Europeans arrived in North
America, what they saw as wilderness was in fact an environment well-tended by the
Native peoples.
While the Wilderness Act defines the Western human-environment relationship, I look toward the other documents for specific instructions on foraging. The Code of
Federal Regulations (CFR), which is utilized by many departments and agencies of the federal government, explicitly prohibits “possessing, destroying, injuring, defacing, removing, digging, or disturbing from its natural state...plants or the parts or products thereof” (CFR 36, 2.1). The CFR also influences state policy as seen in the California
Department of Parks and Recreation’s Rules and Regulations Summary. That document states, “natural scenery, plants, and animal life are integral parts of the ecosystem and natural community and as such, disturbance or destruction of these resources is strictly forbidden.” Humans and human activity related to foraging are not included as part of the ecosystem and natural community. Their motto emphasizes the impermanence of humans in the natural landscape, “leave only footprints, take only memories.” These policies directly impact foraging since they criminalize foraging type interactions with the landscape. These documents present an affront to a way of life that includes participating in the landscape as an inhabitant.
Through the language used in the documents, I explored how these documents prevent or support the development of kincentric ecological relationships. I used NVivo
12 software to code for two themes within the three documents: intent and purpose.
Intent refers to the broad intent behind the documents, for which I created a word cloud in NVivo 12 composed of the most frequently used words.
46
Figure 1. Intent of environmental policies This word cloud shows the words future, generations, people, preservation, wilderness, and park as the prevailing message of intent behind these three documents.
While words related to future generations are not necessarily bad as an intent for the land, the main theme is preservation of a wilderness, which by earlier definition does not include humans as inhabitants, and preserves these areas specifically as a novelty for people, rather than the entire landscape, which would include all species and elements therein. Preservation is complicated by the history of the U.S. relationship to Native peoples and creation of national parks for the purpose of preservation. This particularly settler colonial issue can be exemplified in the dialectic positions of John Muir and
Gifford Pinchot. While inconsistencies occur within their respective stances, in
47 general Muir was a preservationist, while Pinchot was a conservationist (Meyer,
1997). Muir advocated for the preservation of what he presumed were pristine
landscapes, allowing visitors to enjoy and refresh themselves in nature, while under
Theodore Roosevelt’s administration Pinchot successfully advocated for forestry, which
included industrial logging and ideally sustainable use of natural resources (Meyer,
1997). Muir and Pinchot, both arguably nature lovers, represent the Western binary
relationship with the environment. One is disconnected from equal membership in
ecosystem and one encourages ownership and use by humans. It should be noted as well
that they lived and developed their relationships with the environment during ongoing
forceful Indian removal and dispossession policies. These now “protected and preserved” landscapes were, and are home, to Native peoples, part of ceremony, food, medicine, sacred sites, entire cultures.
Next, I coded for how the documents presented the purpose of natural resources, and developed this word cloud:
48 prlmllve lmpruvements ii; endul'lnl nature a : 111111101condfflons f1nns make c::I parka - il I resourcesforces ; a. "a ; I stategathering ec111o11cal • 1- I! n g J dlssemlnadon I a _g-· alsllen ovment a1111ears Influence I I i I =echaracter area plants dominate @• -; a1 ;E ·-= act!5 CD natural'=i aflectedcantrast leave E a ~ ii :I •id _acres c:: 1iilallWI ernessI l iil : ..D M 11 ~11!= =usecondl!on 1I i i 1 0 i i i I I § .IJI E•amerlcan'i i I 12! e l l! = e s tuturee u I sa a. ! earthE 1· ,..I: a - I 1. gruwtha preserve100 mav i - a. = c., I protectedbenefits humus I herebJI I administereddisturbance rect11111Zed Ii.S 'fl s destruct111nhuman prtmml s • • c: 11ulollc11parts pnnecdon E:i. • ii landscapepresen ! :,nahlblted
Figure 2. Purpose of natural resources in environmental policies
This word cloud includes terms such as gathering and community but highlights that the
purpose of natural resources remains as wilderness, and natural, for enjoyment, not a way
of life. Illustrating that the purpose of natural resources is not as a complementary
member of the ecosystem, but simply for enjoyment and preservation, for man, not the
whole ecosystem. The all-encompassing, man; a distinction never actually attributed to
all, but rather a uniquely white, male, Christian identity (Tsing, 2016). The documents I
examined feature preservation as the dominant narrative, yet under the framework of
Western settler colonial relationships, these policies lack in kincentric principles. Even
when advocating for protection of resources, the way to accomplish that, according to
49 this messaging, remains based in the removal of humans from the landscape,
and relies on the framework of Indigenous removal first and foremost.
This section on relationship to landscape examined environmental policy and overall mindsets towards nature. Environmental policy, and the preservation/conservation dichotomy has contributed to, and somewhat dictates, the Western human-environment
relationship, which falls somewhere between hands-off protection and industrial resource
use. While surely this is a spectrum, it is an ideology which influences our current
landscape relationships.
Expression of relationship to landscape
Since environmental policy affects the way humans steward and interact with the
land, policy was part of the conversations with my research participants. Discussions also
included ideas about landscape stewardship and features of human-landscape interaction.
I also included references to place-based cultures, which falls under a kincentric theme,
since they are relevant to specific landscapes but also to landscape relationships.
Recognizing place-based culture also acknowledges how power dynamics play out in
landscapes, which is particularly relevant to Indigenous communities. The topics revealed
though my conversations with participants centered around caretaking and connection,
human involvement, and place as power.
Caretaking and connection
Teresa and Jo form the base of the Regenerative Collective, a collaboration of
people actively decolonizing landscapes. We met at the Parkour Garden, a garden space, and a healing space, regenerative in community and in landscape. Though not originally
Native to Tongva land, both Teresa and Jo were tribally adopted by a Tongva Elder
50 and practice Indigenous principles in their interactions with plants and landscape. In relation to landscape stewardship, Teresa pointed out that in Indigenous cultures the relationships between the people and the plants are a result of being part of each other’s daily lives. She said, “I think that’s a very deep connection, because when you’re using the plants, you’re also taking care of the plants and you’re trying to maximize their growth. Because they give to you and you’re giving to them, and you’re caring for them.
It is a deep relationship.” In this relationship, what benefits the plants also benefits the people and vice versa. Similarly, Jo commented on the interconnectivity between humans and plants saying, “every culture has a basis with plants. We build our homes, we grow our food, we get our oxygen.” An acknowledgement of reliance is present in this type of relationship. Current environmental policies on foraging do not encourage this type of daily reliance on the landscape. In order to use resources in this regenerative way, caretaking becomes an important element of relationship. Caretaking is often associated with kin relationships making it an appropriate term to describe Indigenous kincentric practices. Salm n (2000) refers to caretaking the land as use which enhances the environment, a mutually nurturing relationship. Caretaking builds bonds. Nurturing is an expression of kinship, exhibited between parents and children, elders and grown children, aunts, uncles, cousins; kinship represents these family relationships and caregiving responsibilities. Kincentric ecology includes the environment as one of the many kin in a human’s life. Teresa advocated for a caretaking model of relationship when she shared the importance of, “Educating people to see that they are part of the land...more of a steward relationship or practitioner of nature versus this exploitive relationship, where you can just take, take, take, and when you’re done taking here, you take there.” She used
51 the term “practitioner,” connoting an active relationship, active engagement, but not in an
extractive manner. Active as in participating as one member or component out of many in the landscape.
Jo touched on how landscape stewardship includes care of the land with future generations in mind, a deeply kincentric principle, and at this juncture he hopes to adapt a
goal towards restoration saying:
This land has been extracted, completely transformed, with no conscious, with no
care for the people who’ve been taking care of this land, and no care for the future
generations who might have to deal with whatever landscape is left over.
Future generations are an integral piece of Indigenous stewardship. Seventh generation
thinking, coined by the Haudenosaunee (called Iroquois by the French) Confederacy,
considers actions and decisions in the framework of community and long-term
consequences (Lyons, 1980). Deborah, author, artist and Indigenous ally, recognized
the kincentric principle included, that this future is not just for future generations of
humans, but the whole ecosystem. When asked what she provides for plants, Deborah
acknowledged, “that’s probably the question we should all be asking instead of what the
plants do for me...what can we do for the plants, the pollinators, the insects, everything,
the fungi.” She mentioned, “I’m always trying to learn what else I can do I guess, to help
the plants, to help the land” and this attitude centers on what will benefit the plants and
ecosystem, not just humans. Caretaking expands to become part of ecosystem resilience as well as human survival.
Julia is a Tongva Elder who extends herself tirelessly in cultural education to the community through many avenues: basketry, teaching at the Claremont Colleges, thesis
52 advising, sitting on various boards. Through her efforts she continues a future for her Tongva people. She shared the importance of connecting to plants through school or community gardens as a way to learn “respect and understanding,” that, “It’s not something you have to take or something you have to make money off of. It's something that just helps everyone.” Degrading the environment ultimately impacts everyone, and
Julia shared, “because they’ve separated, people that don’t know to respect [nature] I think have separated themselves that they’re part of that nature.” Julia referenced the illusion that humans are separate from nature, while she noted that “we always say that we didn’t have the word for nature because they’re part of us right?” Most Indigenous languages do not have a word for nature or wilderness because those words imply a distinction between human existence and ecosystem existence. Julia recognized the connection between this separation of nature and capitalism when she spoke about people making money off of the environment. Commodification and commercialization will appear in chapter six, as these elements of capitalism become particularly relevant to the Indigenous experience globally.
When asked about ways she connects with the environment Amanda, an
Acjachemen woman who works in Indigenous advocacy and land rights, replied, “I guess that’s a hard question because you know Native people don’t really, we’re not really separate from the environment so it’s like a difficult question to answer because I mean it’s like, existing. How ever you exist is connecting.” This lack of separateness is an important foundation for kincentric relationships. In contrast, Doug spoke about how humans and the environment have been divided, with negative consequences. He said:
53 Our landscapes came from this essential thing in our life, this fundamental, crucial
part of our life, to a discretionary, oh no I got to take care of the garden again this
weekend. I'm going to blow it off. Lo and behold, the fire risk gets bad, obesity
goes up, bone density goes down, pollution goes up, California Native plants go
down, species loss increases.
As one part of an interconnected system, human influence on the environment or lack of human influence has a multitude of repercussions, on humans as well as their environments. In a sense, caretaking the environment is part of caretaking ourselves.
Climate change and global warming has revealed that we cannot afford to view the human-environment relationship as discretionary.
While the Western science of restoration ecology developed in the late
20th century, the field does not focus value on kinship relationships with the environment.
At the heart of restorative ecological practices are the Indigenous practices and
relationships which extends further back than the colonial Western science practices
(Anderson, 2005). Judith acknowledged that in restoration, “it’s aftercare, and long-term
care that we are so poor on in this country” and she added, “life is maintenance, as one of
my employees wisely said. And this kind of care for the land is something that’s been
part of our history as a species,” but one which she believes is lacking in current human-
environment interactions, whereas in kincentric relationships caretaking is recognized
as integral to human-landscape functioning (Salm n, 2000). Doug also argued that
humans should be making more of an impact on their environments, albeit in a
regenerative manner. He said, “every ecological restoration effort that I've ever worked
on and know about never has using the landscape as part of the program. Despite the fact,
54 for thirteen thousand years we know they actively used the landscape.” Both Judith and
Doug acknowledged that Native peoples actively managed their landscapes, and both said
that is missing in current management practices. Active management of the landscape founded in connection and caretaking is an essential part of kincentric ecology. Human
involvement then would seem necessary to maintain ecosystems.
Human involvement
When starting this research, I naively assumed that the Indigenous participants and allies would encourage human participation in the “wilderness” areas, and that all-
encompassing restrictions on foraging from environmental policies would be unwelcome.
However, distinctions became apparent between access to land versus human
involvement in stewardship. While some participants felt the plants should be left
alone, others felt strongly that human involvement was integral to healthy landscapes and
regenerative environmental stewardship. About environmental policy that restricts
collecting plant material Deborah said, “I think it’s good. That you’re not supposed to...I
think we’re really in a time of transition, and it’s probably best to leave a lot of the plants
alone.” Teresa shared:
We have such a huge habitat loss, and especially with the fires. We have to save
food and everything for the squirrels and birds and stuff too. So, we have to
always remember that interconnectedness. That it’s not just us. It's the water, it’s
the plants, the other plants, the animals, and the habitat. And so, I think
environmental policies are in place to protect the Native plants.
Letting the landscape recover is an important practice in Indigenous stewardship and may
be warranted due to the current landscape degradation in Southern California (Anderson,
55 2005; Berkes et al., 1989). The foraging policies do offer protection to Native plants, but
they have also notoriously been misdirected when it comes to the functioning of larger ecosystems. Teresa mentioned habitat loss from fires, however a major factor in the
current massive fires which occur in California are a direct result of fire suppression,
which was environmental policy for the last hundred years.
In regard to whether environmental policies inhibit her personal relationship to
land and plants, Judith said, “I myself have never come across any policies that made me
feel that I was being kept separate, maybe because my ongoing work is as I say
promoting territory.” Judith has spent her life advocating for Native plants, and
mentioned she consistently felt able to connect to land through private property as well
as parks and forests. For her, human involvement has been to promote territory for Native
plants, which is controversial in that it lacks promotion of territory for Native people and
contributes to a broader erasure of Indigenous existence (erasure is further addressed in
chapter six).
However, Doug shared that current protections for California environments
often make him feel unwelcome in the landscape. He feels that many of the restrictions
“make humans the villain,” saying, “you are not welcome in nature. That your impacts
are harmful,” and in some fenced off areas make “nature look like a prison.” Illustrating
the need for humans in the environment, Doug gave the example of cattails. He said,
“Historically, the Native Indians would have done everything, food crop, shelter crop,
they would have made clothes, so they would have constantly been in that stream keeping
the flow going.” Without human intervention, the cattails end up overgrowing and
shutting down streams. He cited another example, the Native chia:
56 There was massive changes in the environment but did the fact that we stopped
predation, change how it spread? Because that was the staple crop. I mean there
was huge festivals on chia seeds for Native Indians, and now we don’t even touch
it. It's a scarce plant, you cannot touch that salvia. Ok, thirteen thousand years this
plant has adapted and evolved to predation, and now it stops. And now, I can’t
find it...yeah I don’t know if it’s foraging. I think it’s lack of foraging that’s
changing our environment, not the foraging.
Chia (pashiiy in Tongva), like many plants and species in Southern California, has been impacted by urban expansion, but Doug’s examples show the importance of foraging as part of the stewardship relationship. What Doug referred to as “adaptation to predation,” from an Indigenous perspective is considered a symbiotic kin relationship in which the plants need humans, and the plant-human relationship and interaction is critical for the plant’s success and ecosystem balance (Anderson, 2005; Kimmerer, 2013; Salm n,
2000). Pascal felt the same way, highlighting the importance of putting “people back in the equation,” even addressing the concern of “well what if everybody does it?” His response was, “well, if you go for invasive plants it’s not a bad thing,” and that
“99.99999999% of the population doesn’t want to go in nature to pick up their food, that’s the reality of it.” This statement aligns with Doug’s thoughts, and Abe also said,
“that’s the big concern, everybody’s afraid you’re going to take it all,” but he repeatedly commented that for the most part “it never happened.” Abe explained that he finds it is actually quite difficult to get people interested in taking the time and the physical effort to gather out in the landscape and as a result much of our plant resources and relationships are underutilized. He mentioned that plant-human relationships like with the oaks, or
57 mesquite, which both provide a hefty nutritive content, have decreased to the detriment of both participants. Even in arid desert environments, Native plants were highly productive due to the care and tending by California Indians, for example the Cahuilla tended to mesquite, and the Gabrielino-Tongva tended to oaks (Anderson, 2005).
An intentional ecosystem balance existed and was crafted by Native peoples with their environments. However, this relationship was interrupted by settler colonialism, and its absence on a large scale is perpetuated by industrial capitalist structures (Bacon, 2018;
Whyte, 2018). Individuals develop relationship to landscape and plants, but regional ecosystems are no longer managed by Indigenous practices for long term environmental
health. Enrique said that human involvement in landscape stewardship is “ecologically
sensible.” He described collecting plants as:
Participating in the ongoing cycles of creation. In other words, the plants need us
to interact with them. They like it when we interact with them. That's part of their
job, that’s why they’re here. Because they’re providing for us and when we
collect, we’re at the same time helping to spread their seeds, helping to spread
their root systems sometimes.
In this way, landscape stewardship functions as an extension of the kinship relationship
with the plants. For Pascal, appropriate landscape stewardship provides solutions to
environmental issues regarding food security and invasive plants. He said:
We are surrounded by a huge amount of food. And 90% of it is non-Native and
invasive. And the way we deal with it in America is there are only two solutions,
is you’re going to spray pesticide on it, or herbicides on it, or you’re going to do
58 habitat restoration, and you are going to rip everything up and throw away the
resource. Which at this point becomes food waste.
He said there are some people who think “nature should be a museum. Meaning by that,
man is bad and should not touch nature.” Pascal went on to say, “it’s a very dangerous viewpoint because some plants like black walnuts are in danger because they are not used anymore,” echoing Doug’s concern about the Native chia. Pascal said, “I'm really trying to do is create an invasivore cuisine. It’s a cuisine based on all those plants that are invasive, so we start looking at them as food and we don’t waste a resource. And then I plant the Native plant that I use as accent.” Invasivore cuisine is a term popularized in the last decade or so amongst environmentalist foodies. The invasivore movement essentially uses eating as a method for managing unwanted species in the ecosystems. Pascal strives to go beyond sustainability practices and “actually be beneficial for the environment in what you do.” For Pascal, this regenerative approach involves two things. He said, “I’m going to help the environment by having those things [invasive plants] removed from the environment in a positive way, and I can also help people to find some organic ‘really delicious and nutritionally sound’ food source.” His approach addresses the social injustice of food insecurity which was also important to Teresa and Jo.
But Teresa also pointed out how she felt policies are a good thing, and at the same time, local Indigenous knowledge is often overlooked. She said, “policies against foraging can support Indigenous groups. I think it would be good also to have those policies be Indigenous led. Because they have the knowledge, and the knowing of how, and if you’re to gather, trim, what plants and when and stuff.” Teresa emphasized, “I think having Indigenous-led is very important. Having somebody on the board who’s
59 making the policies be Indigenous to that land. So, not just any, someone from Lakota or
Iroquois Nation making decisions about Tongva territory.” Teresa made an important
point about putting power back in the hands of the Indigenous peoples of the land, in this
area the Gabrielino-Tongva. Environmental stewardship and decision-making in a region
often become a question of who has leadership in that region, and who has the capacity to
be involved in landscape caretaking. Is it an individual relationship, is it an individual
responsibility, is it an environmental ethic supported by policy and funding?
The power of place
Indigenous cultures are often place-based; their religions, ethics, practices, and
social relationships influence and are influenced by the land they inhabit. Because of their
intimate and exhaustive knowledge of their landscape, as well as the recognition of that
landscape’s aliveness, the human-nature relationship within Indigenous cultures, both as
individuals and as societies, is deeply meaningful and based in respect, reciprocity, and
kinship (Artelle et al., 2018; Basso, 1996; Bhattacharyya & Slocombe, 2017; Kimmerer,
2013; Salm n, 2000). This relationality towards landscape and place is reflected in origin stories, lifestyles, ceremony, ritual, ethics, values, and morals. This relationship to place then informs land stewardship which is founded in holistic perspectives, respect for landscape, and maintains humans as part of the ecosystem, not the center, thereby creating uniquely appropriate ecosystem analyses (Artelle et al., 2018). Place-based orientation to landscape creates regional and local knowledge, which has revealed important environmental benefits, engaging in sustainable practices and realizing environmental health (Artelle et al., 2018; Bhattacharyya & Slocombe, 2017). Western culture, under a framework of imperialism, settler colonialism, and industrial capitalism,
60 creates landscape relationships devoid of intimate connection, and which actively counter
Indigenous sovereignty and relationship (Bacon, 2018; Berkes, 2012; Smith, 2012). In contrast, Indigenous peoples’ place-based cultures are rooted in an intimiate, familial daily relationship with the landscape: a multispecies collaboration of place-making.
When asked about her relationship to land, Amanda said:
I am Acjachemen. Our ancestral territory is in what’s now known as Orange
County...It absolutely informs my relationship to place because tribal people are
place-based people, so everything we do is in the frame of what our teachings
direct us to do regarding our land, and water.”
As Amanda alluded, the teachings are founded in the recognition of the importance of relationship to land and water. The landscape relationships are both small scale, such as particular plants, and large scale, such as rivers; the landscape as a whole is considered.
These teachings are not uniform across all Native cultures, they are unique to different tribes and tribal locations; the relationship develops out of interaction with the place
(Basso, 1996).
California is a very special and unique landscape. Resource rich, bountiful, wealthy in every sense of the word. Mountains, deserts, beaches, in California you can ski in the morning and surf the coast in the afternoon. From Native California to settler colonial California, the land holds an allure that many who live here are aware of.
Currently, California has an economy larger than most nations, ranking fifth in the world by GDP (Evans, 2019). Growing produce or celebrities, the state has a reputation for fulfilling a cornucopia of dreams and has a population of almost 40 million people.
When I asked participants to identify themselves culturally, three of them, who are not
61 Indigenous Californian, indicated Californian as their identity. For the reasons mentioned, it is no surprise that people identify strongly with being Californian even though they are not of California Indian descent.
However, identity politics plays a role in the history of landscape stewardship in
California, as well as the current experience for Native peoples in this region. Amanda shared, “evidence shows that what took 300 years to happen in terms of ecological devastation in Mexico, happened over the course of the first 60 years of the missions of California.” The Mission Era, which ended in 1833, did not allow for Native peoples to return to their lifestyles pre-contact. Indigenous families and communities had been decimated by Spanish colonization. After the Missions, much of the land became private property under Mexican rule. And not long after that California became part of the
United States, and the Gold Rush brought more settlers to the new state ravaging the landscape and the Native peoples. California Indians faced ongoing attacks from U.S.
Military forces, vigilantes, and individuals executing an assault and genocide on the First
Peoples of this land (Madley, 2017). Amanda noted that colonization “dramatically altered the ecological landscape” and she said “there is no post-colonial, like we’re still in a colonial world. And so, understanding that history is important for folks just to understand that tribes have been forcibly removed from their lands.” The Gabrielino-
Tongva and the Acjachemen tribes are recognized by the state of California but have not received federal recognition. Though federal recognition does not solve all the issues surrounding sovereignty, it provides significant land rights, funding, and services while state recognition can function more like a historical and cultural acknowledgement.
Highlighting the importance of considering the effects and long-term repercussions of the
62 past, Amanda said it informs “why people don’t have access or don’t have these
traditionally developed relationships with place now. I mean it’s about living within that
settler colonial institutional framework.” Existing within the settler colonial structure under identities created by the settler state lives out the terms of white possession and
Indigenous dispossession (Coulthard, 2014; Moreton-Robinson, 2015). Tracy, a member of the Gabrielino Band of Mission Indians, was indignant about this situation and offered an explanation which gives an example of ongoing effects of settler colonialism. Tracy said:
My tribe sits in Los Angeles basin, and Orange County, all the resources that we
have no exchange for. Land, the water, the oil, all the minerals, the real estate…
And the people want to give us a, excuse my language, a fucking little placard
that doesn’t do shit for me personally. You are mocking me...They don’t want to
let go of those resources, they don’t want to give up the land, to say this is the
right thing to do...
Having firsthand experience through cultural resource work, viewing the excavation of burial sites from the San Gabriel Mission and the disrespectful treatment of the remains of her people, the trauma of genocide is not left in the past for Tracy. The devastation is continually renewed and the frustration and anger about the past and current injustice is fresh. Natural resources, of which California is so bountiful, largely do not benefit the
Native California peoples. Tracy scoffed at the state recognition, saying it was:
Nothing that we can truly, really utilize. A plaque. A name. A label. How is that
sustaining my way of life from one day to the next? How does that fucking pay
my bills? Put food on the table for my kids?
63 Look around Southern California: Tujunga, Tongva Park, Azusa, Rancho Cucamonga,
Cahuilla Park, Gabrielino Trail. There are place names in towns and cities, parks and streets, across the state, derived from Native place names or commemorating the existence of California Indians. But it is often an existence relegated to the past. An
“honor” that does not actually bring honor or serve the living peoples bearing the tribal identity. We are living in a capitalist system right now, and both Tracy and Amanda recognized the need to be able to live comfortably within it. Property and ownership play key roles in capitalist society, and most of Southern California’s resources are not in the hands of California Indians. However, there exist many different types of human- environment relationships, beyond an owner and property binary, and benefiting from resources is not limited within a capitalist relationship. Anderson (2005) notes that
California Indians practiced an ownership system rooted in usufruct rights (p. 133).
Usufruct rights allow for a combination of both individual and communal rights to space and resources but are largely unrecognized as legitimate within Western/European settler societies (Gluckman, 1965; Tully, 1993). Gathering sites were well tended and visited repeatedly over time. Usufruct rights represent a more kincentric relationship to land use, incorporating responsibility. Rights and responsibilities which counter the myths of the ecologically noble Indian, as well as the environmentalist myth of nature as “wilderness,” untouchable and unmarred by humans (Nadasdy, 2005). Anderson (2005) points out that
“California Indians practiced resource management at four levels of biological organization: the organism, the population, the plant community, and the landscape”
(p.135). The entire ecosystem was cared for and considered, from individual plants to the relationships between all the humans and more-than-humans. In California, the Native
64 peoples used many practices which encourage their landscapes to thrive. Burning was was especially important in California, knowledge that was ignored for a century. There is power in this place and the people who have been displaced from their land and their human right to that power, to that knowledge, to that responsibility deserve to regain access and leadership in this place. To regain that power which was forcibly taken from them.
Many people realize that industrial capitalism and settler colonialism have negative impacts on the environment, and human involvement can potentially benefit environments as opposed to simply degrade them. They may disagree about how that looks or who should be involved. Yet it is not only ecosystems and landscapes, but reparation is also needed between peoples. California Indians deserve reparations for the genocide they experienced at the hands of settler colonialists. Settler colonialists who still have control of their land. How can one even begin to make amends? I do not have an answer to that, because it is not my place to answer it, but the reality is that not making amends equates with not recognizing wrongdoing. Recognizing wrongdoing involves recognizing benefit from the structure, the policy, the events, the actions both historical and present day. Critical in reparations is listening to the side that has not benefited from the arrangement. There continues to be a need for amends, for the people, and amends for the land. Kimmerer (2013) states:
Restoring land without restoring relationship is an empty exercise. It is
relationship that will endure and relationship that will sustain the restored land.
Therefore, reconnecting people and the landscape is as essential as reestablishing
65 proper hydrology or cleaning up contaminants. It is medicine for the earth. (p.
338).
While reestablishing those relationships between humans and their environments proves to be no simple task, there is even more involved. These landscapes bear the trauma of colonialism, industrial capitalism, and mismanagement, but they also hold the blood of the many California Indians who were slaughtered in the “claiming of the landscape” by primarily white settlers.
California holds power. The landscape holds power in money, in resources, in story, in futures, and in dreams. Southern California, specifically the Los Angeles area, known as Tovaangar in the Tongva language, is vacation, destination, and home, to over
10 million people. Regeneration of Indigenous land rights, regeneration of ecosystems, and human-environment relationships must be innovative and unique to the California
Indians in the region, unique to the landscapes particular to the L.A. area. Jo spoke about regenerating the land in Los Angeles as a cultural effort. He said:
Regeneration to me is not, even in the field, it’s not like a whole umbrella term.
It's very specific to the area. Like L.A., what does regeneration, what does
regenerative culture mean in L.A.? And I definitely believe restoring Native
plants, restoring the L.A. river, all that, that’s, that should be part of our culture.
Restoration of relationship to land, to water, to ecosystems, restoration of people, and healing the trauma specific to this landscape must be accomplished to move forward in landscape and resource management in California.
66 Conclusion
This chapter opened with a profile of the oak tree. A species that is a caretaker for
many members of their ecosystem communities. A tree that has found status, post
contact with settlers, through city and street names, housing developments, and landscape
beautification. But is there resource management in place regarding oak trees as
providers? There is not. Is there a dominant cultural veneration of the oak in California?
No. The oaks are threatened because of current environmental practices and frameworks which do not allow for their regeneration. Practices that do now allow for their beneficial ecosystem relationships, including rights and responsibilities. Displacement of California
Indians, and traditional knowledge and ecosystem relationships that were highly sustainable, creates disengagement with landscape, with environment, and with home.
My examination of environmental policies towards wilderness and foraging reveals the divide between home and livelihood, home and nutrition, home and caretaking. Through conversations with my participants it was clear that caretaking and connection, human involvement, and recognition of place-based relationships play important roles in ecosystems and landscape stewardship, specifically this Los Angeles region. Various
aspects of these relationships play out when people engage with the landscape through
foraging, which is discussed in the following chapter.
67 CHAPTER 5: ECOLOGICAL RELATIONSHIP IN ACTION - PEOPLE
ON THE LANDSCAPE
Plant profile: Mustard (Tongva name unknown)
Mustard. Brassica rapa. Black mustard, field mustard, Mediterranean mustard.
There are many different names for and varieties of mustard, but I will focus on the visions of mustard that followed me while writing this thesis. I spent the spring of 2020 writing up this research and spring is mustard’s time to shine. Because it really does shine, blanketing the hillsides with clusters of brilliant yellow blossoms. The epitome of golden sunshine; but this plant is not the state flower for the Golden state (that designation belongs to the well-known California poppy). Mustard is not Native to
California but has made a very successful home here since around the late 1700s.
Mustard, though naturalized, aka super common now, was brought to California by
Spanish missionaries. Interestingly, this was confirmed through the study of pollen found in the adobe bricks which were used to build the missions (Hendry & Kelly, 1925;
Hendry, 1931). Though the exact timing of the spread of mustard is debated...was it from the Mission Era or after the Gold Rush, the new plant adapted incredibly well to their new environment, which was somewhat similar to their original home in Europe. Mustard represents this chapter related to foraging because they are readily available all over
California, whether perceived as weed or food, as intruder or as a landscape regenerator during a transitional era.
The title of weed depends on the eye of the beholder. Mustard is considered a weed because of how they germinate quickly, spread easily, and generally get in the way of more desired, cultivated plants. Weeds, however controversial, provide benefits to the
68 landscapes they colonize. They prevent erosion, contribute to soil health, and protect the soil from baking in the sun. They infiltrate areas experiencing “ecological emergencies” yet, “weeds find it difficult to elbow into undisturbed environments, and they will usually die out if disturbance ceases” (Crosby, 1986, p. 169). Crosby (1986) points out that conquest is a particularly disruptive endeavor. Razing forests, massive herds of livestock, overgrazing grasslands and woodlands, left “colonizing plants with opportunities unheard of since the invention of agriculture” (p. 152). Well, even now we live in a world of almost constant ecological disturbance, and mustard is happy to be accommodated; mustard loves disturbed areas, such as roadsides and fields. Though the entrance of mustard onto the California scene was really a side effect of the catastrophic Mission Era,
California Indians incorporated the plant into their diets and landscape relationships, like many other introduced species throughout the world that have had varying levels of impact (Pfeiffer & Voeks, 2008; Reo et al., 2017).
Mustard has leaves of a deep, bold green, contrasted with paler green stems and stalks. The leaves are lobed, and a little rough around the edges. All parts of the mustard plant are edible, in varying stages of growth. Mustard shoots up a stalk which can grow up to six feet, continually producing leaves. However, towards the top of the plant the leaves become sparse. Mustard then produces gorgeous bright yellow flowers. The flowers are small, but their color is not. Reminiscent of buttercups in shape and color, the flowers are responsible for the now signature yellow hillsides of spring in California.
Seen from the freeway while driving is how many people experience mustard in southern
California, unaware of this plant’s past, or that this plant is a nutritious commonly foraged food source.
69 This chapter examines the topics of foraging and access. Foraging informs this
research because this is a way people can be in direct relationship with land and plants.
Access addresses people’s capacity, in a legal sense and in a personal sense, to participate
in developing this direct relationship. When approaching foraging as an expression of
relationship it feels important to recognize the limits and opportunities which exist for
people. During the interviews the connection between these themes developed as people
expressed their personal ability to engage, as well as what they perceive as the major
complications with societal engagement with the land. Whether imposed by
environmental policy, rules and regulations, by a person’s circumstances, or a person’s
beliefs, all together this contributes to the situation we as a species face in confronting
our individual and collective behaviors and attitudes towards the environment.
Foraging
There are many different words to describe the act of humans picking up plants or materials from the environment. Foraging, harvesting, collecting, gathering, wildcrafting; all these words have different connotations, especially in the plant lover’s world.
Foraging perhaps calls to mind rooting around through the brush, finding food. Or more of a noun, as in forage for livestock, plant material for grazing. Harvesting connotes ripeness, but also agriculture, mass production and monoculture. Collecting suggests glass cases and pinned insects. Beautiful, but painful, preserved for the enjoyment of colonial scientists. Gathering implies a nomadic hunter-gatherer society, a relic from the ancient past, not applicable to a modern cultivated world. Wildcrafting represents specifically getting plants from wild areas, utilizing uncultivated plants. From an
70 Indigenous perspective wilderness is a misnomer, the pre-contact landscape was in fact a cultivated landscape.
For my research, I define foraging as the gathering of foods, medicines, and materials from the environment for personal or community use. Foraging then, is an expression of relationship to land and plants, an intimate interaction between humans and more-than-humans, and serves as one method of building relationship with land and the environment, as well as individual plants (Tsing, 2012). Whichever word one uses, the attitude, method, and protocols one brings to the actions demonstrate the characteristics of the relationship. Is the experience rushed, the behavior nonchalant, even entitled? Is
the behavior thoughtful, grateful, perhaps even containing elements of reciprocity?
I chose to use the word foraging, as opposed to some of the other options because
the word is trending right now in popular culture. And honestly when I began this
research, I did not realize the negative connotations the word foraging carries. The word
foraging can be found in the title of many popular regional guidebooks and nature
publications encouraging the average person to get outside and realize they are
surrounded by nutritious plants growing both near and afar. Through the sidewalk cracks
outside their home, the city park close by, or the wilderness area they may frequent on
weekends. According to my research, authors that were not inclined to use the term
because of their own negative associations, were encouraged to do so by their publishers,
precisely because foraging is perhaps the word of the decade, attempting to make this
connection with nature more accessible. I also chose the term because even though it is
not explicitly referred to that way in environmental policy, the concept of foraging as
a pastime is the general idea referred to in documents for agencies such as the National
71 Park Service. These documents are not dictating larger resource management protocols,
but rather an individual’s legal right. The Indigenous peoples I spoke with during this
research do not use the word foraging, I suspect because the word does not hold the
significance of a lifestyle, as well as lacking any cultural frameworks. The way the term
is currently used lacks the intention of a way of life that sustains not just individuals, but
communities5. For generations. Not only sustainably, but regeneratively.
What is foraging?
During the interviews I was able to ask the majority of participants for their
definition of the word foraging. No one gave a specific definition, but rather mused on
what the word implied and how they felt about it personally. Doug, himself an author of a
foraging book, had very positive connotations for the word foraging. About his own style
of foraging he said:
Foraging is a graze and go. I see foraging as the least amount of energy for the
greatest amount of caloric intake. So, it doesn’t have to be wildlands, it doesn’t
have to be, it’s wherever you are and it’s eating the spontaneous foods that the
Skywoman and the turtle have provided us... But for me it’s really about graze
and go. Swoop down, pick it up, shove it in, and move on.
While Doug’s explanation of foraging, particularly the swoop and shove, is a very
individual relationship towards his own nutrition, his protocols in a following subsection
evidence a broader intent to his environmentalism and a deep care for the environment
and all plants. In this quote he references Skywoman from Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin
Wall Kimmerer, which Doug was reading along with his students in a class he was
5 The field of anthropology includes a broader understanding of the ethnobiology of foraging (Moritz et al., 2020; Solway et al., 1990; Steward, 1955).
72 teaching on Edible Landscapes. This was his first time reading the book and he said he loves it, especially the core philosophy of reciprocal relationships, though he reflected that humans fall short when it comes to giving back as much as they receive from the environment.
Some relationships with foraging are grounded in generational teaching as well as survival. Pascal, also an author of books on foraging and wild cuisine, said that when he was younger, growing up in Belgium, his grandmother would send him to gather wild edibles. He said:
Foraging was just part of life. And old people, the elders, at the time, which is
more like my tradition, my background, the elders knew all those basic things
because they knew that if you forget this stuff you get in trouble.
He explained that during WWII people who knew how and what to forage were able to survive. Pascal also viewed foraging as “a tool to find a way to help the environment,” evidence of an individual reciprocal relationship. Pascal said that through foraging, “I’m going to do habitat restoration, I’m going to eat everything...I’m doing good for the environment.” Both Doug and Pascal felt that their behaviors towards foraging were helpful to the plants and environment, even though lacking a specifically Indigenous cultural relationship to plants, they nonetheless exhibited aspects of kincentric ecology within their methods. They felt foraging naturally included a certain sense of reciprocity because of how they felt the practice can contribute to the health of the ecosystem.
Both Doug and Pascal are white, male, and do not have the generational trauma of land dispossession that California Indians have experienced. A darker interpretation of foraging emerged in conversation with my other participants who were Indigenous to
73 California or Indigenous allies. Three participants felt the word foraging described a hobby. Jo said that “foraging kind of has a hobbyist characteristic to it.” Teresa agreed saying, “I think foraging is people just taking the plants and not necessarily...yeah like a hobby or a sport.” And Enrique also said:
Foraging. I don’t like that word...it’s like a hobby...it’s like people who sort of
read a book about edible plants or medicinal plants and then they will every now
and then try to go out and identify stuff and then pick some things and take it
home and have some fun with it.
Enrique’s description is exactly what the foraging books seem to invite, a casual relationship to the landscape, which the average person is encouraged to participate in at their leisure. Enrique mentioned:
The word itself reminds me how there’s this disconnect between the forager and
that that’s being foraged. It's like a game to people. And I'm probably wrong, I
imagine actual foragers don’t think of it that way, but the word itself reminds me
of that.
For these folks foraging was lacking in mindfulness. It was essentially just for fun, a game. However, the next level of association was more negative. Deborah said, “Well, it’s not my favorite word, that’s for sure,” and she felt the word foraging connoted an “oh let’s go out and see what we can get” type of attitude. She remarked, “I never say I forage for something. But I do gather and collect.” Interestingly though, the word collect can have the connotation of taking something to be displayed or examined, not necessarily with positive associations. Museums have collections, scientists collect specimens, law enforcement collects evidence, individuals collect stamps. And for what purpose? Some
74 of these are personal, some can be used against the person within systems that are lacking in equity and justice. Museums have notoriously obtained their artifacts through nefarious methods, stealing by imperial colonial governments. Judith associated the word foraging with this type of colonial behavior saying, “I don’t like the word very much because it has a lot of connotations of just another take, another exploitation.”
Following this extractive association with foraging, Julia asked, “isn’t that destruction just because you want something?” While Julia’s response touches on the lack of mindfulness brought up earlier, she also equated a certain level of personal desire to destruction. A greed that that has driven colonial governments in taking from nations and land that belongs to others and is already embedded with cultures and livelihoods. In a broader sense, commenting on society’s approach to nature Jo said, “we already, systemically, like large scale forage...we forage oil...And so when we take on this extractive, taking approach, just consuming approach, we’re not taking care of our home.” Unlike my definition of foraging, the gathering of foods, medicines, and materials from the environment for personal or community use, Jo included the commodification and profiteering of oil on a global scale. Can my definition of foraging be applied to oil?
Extracting oil and selling it on the global market for major profits does not fit my definition since it presents levels of consumption based in greed and capitalist growth.
For Jo, the extractive association with the word forage was founded in consumptive behaviors and lacked the element of caretaking, which is integral to Indigenous interaction with landscape. Industrialized nations consume resources at rates which defy regeneration, resulting in negative environmental repercussions. Global warming, loss of biodiversity, famine, drought, super storms, flooding, can all be traced back to depletion
75 of natural resources and fossil fuel extraction. While many people benefit from these
resources, many others, and the environment itself, suffer the consequences.
Framing the American capitalist narrative of individualism, Enrique also
said about foraging, “that’s the other thing it reminds me of, it reminds me of this is
for me. Whereas, for Indigenous people our interactions with the plants are about us.”
The Indigenous us which Enrique refers to has a kincentric lens, including all elements of the landscape, not just the people. Enrique pointed out, as an Indigenous person, “I'm not really foraging, I'm participating in the ongoing cycles of creation.” Enrique felt the word foraging has a very non-Indigenous connotation, instead he said Indigenous interaction with plants is "this reciprocal kind of, if you want to call it collecting, or gathering. Not just taking what you want.” This frames a regenerative interaction with the environment.
In contrast, fossil fuel extraction, large scale mining operations, and destruction of forests, all in the name of progress and human benefit, the ever important us, are some of the most violent environmental interactions undertaken on the earth (Jalbert et al., 2017;
Nixon, 2011; Peluso & Watts, 2001). Often described as environmental degradation, these exploitative practices are inherently the least regenerative actions human beings participate in, producing a degenerative relationship with land. In execution and consequences, these actions have proved closer to ruination than creation (Stoler,
2008). And the repercussions are felt upon humans, more-than-humans, every aspect of the landscape.
One participant did not have such negative feelings about the word foraging and did not relate the term with the extractive behaviors just described. Abe expressed a
transitional opinion towards the word foraging. He said, “I didn’t know until recently that
76 it’s now kind of becoming a bad word, which I think is silly.” Abe remarked on how our society is driven by fads, and that right now foraging is "in.” He said that people fall into two extremes about foraging, “everybody is into foraging because it’s the thing. But then you have this other group, and some of my friends included, who are all like aggghhhh don’t, foraging, you’re going to go and take everything away.” While Abe was less affected by the word itself, he pointed out that for some people the word was associated with a mindset of taking and did not include reciprocal actions. While most participants felt foraging was a negative word, there were a couple of participants for whom the word itself was far less important than the actions one was taking in the environment. The participants who were Indigenous or Indigenous allies felt negatively towards the word foraging. The difference seemed to lie in the attachment to meaning behind the word, especially the impression of a lack of reciprocity and care.
Populations
Some of my interviewees expressed concern about too many people foraging in the environment and that the environment would be ravaged. Asked about foraging,
Deborah said:
Things have gotten out of hand just because greater Los Angeles area, if you look
up the population of greater Los Angeles area, it’s 19 million. That involves a few
counties and things, but that’s gigantic. So, if people go out to forage it’s just
unimaginable.
The impact of 19 million individual foragers on the landscape would no doubt be detrimental without directed resource management. Teresa exclaimed, “this is L.A., L.A. is how many people?!” Judith said, “I know it feels wonderful to gather in the wild
77 because that’s, was the basis of my early efforts as a seed person, but there’s too many of us.” She did not give a direct example, but Judith mentioned, “I’ve just already seen too much disappear from unlimited foraging.” There seemed to be this overall impression that the landscape would be overrun with foragers. Doug also acknowledged the impact of unregulated foraging in California:
40 million people, 19 million down here, and we couldn’t do it anymore. You
can’t support hundreds of people going in the wilds every Saturday morning to go
pick this one spot that’s off this road because everybody’s driving there. So, that’s
why these MPAs started coming in and all these protected areas is because you
just can’t have a hundred people coming in and grabbing the seaweed anymore or
grabbing the clams.
The MPAs Doug referred to are Marine Protected Areas, designated for the conservation of marine flora and fauna. Interestingly, Indigenous and non-Indigenous participants both referenced population numbers as an issue. When people talk about population this way, I think about Hardin’s racist population control rhetoric (Mildenberger, 2019). Complaints about too many people feels like a reference to Malthusian theory (1798), Garret Hardin’s
Tragedy of the Commons (1968), and Ehrlich’s Population Bomb (1968). There are alternatives to this thinking that propose more complex arrangements and share the benefits of the commons (Berkes et al., 1989; Ostrom, 1990). Evidence shows that the issue is less about too many people, and more about unequal distribution of resources, and lack of environmental ethics. Yet, despite evidence to the contrary, perhaps population as the problem is somewhat ingrained in people’s thinking. I can speculate that the population issue stems from being raised in capitalist industrial society, where
78 competition for resources is the norm, scarcity is the theme, along with inequity and all the –isms. Much of the damage done to the environment is not based in individual behavior. While here in the U.S. we all participate in capitalist, industrial society, it is the corporations, fossil fuel industry, and big business (such as Big Ag) that deliver the most damage to landscapes and the people on them. The free-for-all, take everything, exploitation of the environment attitude is a product of colonial, industrial, profit driven society and though we live under these conditions we can also work to change them and not attack individuals for their participation (Mildenberger, 2019).
In contrast, about the current effects of foraging, Doug said, “You don’t even notice it anymore, nobody does it. Nobody.” And Pascal agreed:
People are going to say, well what if everybody does it? Well if you go for
invasive plants it’s not a bad thing...Foraging, who is in the population interested
in foraging? Come on. 99.99999999% of the population doesn’t want to go in
nature to pick up their food, that’s the reality of it.
In general, people do not go to the hills of California, gathering mustard to put on their table at the end of the day. Abe remarked, “yes I agree that it is a concern. Because there are just too many people in the globe. And we can’t, we do have potential of wiping things out.” But he also said, “they thought the same thing was going to happen with basketry materials cause the foraging, they thought they were going to wipe out the plants, right...Well, it didn’t happen...I mean, it’s potential. They all have potential right.”
At this stage, a panic about population is unwarranted, though environmental ethics can, and I argue should be, questioned. The larger concern is industry and commerce,
79 depleting natural resources, destroying habitat, generally violating the earth and landscapes.
Realistically, these days, the entire population, nor even a significant portion, of
Southern California does not spend their time foraging, so what is the problem with foraging? Participants did recognize issues with mass foraging directed at certain species in particular, and stemming from capitalist foundations. Doug shared:
There's the person that’s going to go into our wilderness or anyplace and profit
from it. That ethic is different, that’s capitalism. And we’ve seen that, we’re
busting people in the MPAs, we’re busting people along the coast for taking
our Dudleya, the live forever, and exporting them. So that isn’t governed by
ethics. That is just governed by profit and what you can get away with.
The Dudleya is a genus of succulents, many Native to California and surrounding regions. The plant is also called live-forever because some can live to 100 years old, but several species of the Dudleya are now listed as endangered. Apparently Dudleya is quite the rage in Korea and China, selling for up to $50 a plant, and shared widely on social media, often serving as a signal of consumer privilege (Loudenback, 2018; McCormick,
2018). Foraging plants, such as the Dudleya, and then exporting them commodifies them, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation. As Abe described:
They did a big bust on people there who were taking them to ship, to sell in the
international market. It's ornamental plants. So, that because it became expensive
and money people were making on it, well people were out there taking what they
could out there. I mean those things happen, that’s a bad foraging. That's a bad
reason for foraging when those things happen.
80 As a commodity, the Dudleya are stripped from their habitats, just another cog in the economic wheel. The economy, an entity driven by corporate greed, shows little concern for long term environmental care or biodiversity. Hardly a regenerative practice, commodifying the plants fosters environmental interactions based on profit and without a kincentric ethic.
Another great example of exploitation of a plant due to commodification is happening with white sage. Deborah and a colleague, Rose Ramirez, wrote an article entitled Saging the World (2020), and as part of their research they visited the Etiwanda
Preserve in Rancho Cucamonga which contains coastal sage scrub and chaparral habitat.
She said:
We talked to the rangers there, and they talked about the numbers of people
coming in to poach. They used the word poaching. And it’s gotten out of control
up there. They said in April, May, and June they get like one bus a day, everyday
people are in there trying to steal it.
The word poaching is loaded with connotations of criminal behavior, stealing or killing animals, trespassing on property. In a legal sense, poaching does involve illegally taking plants or animals often including trespassing on land use rights, and also refers to violations of environmental conservation and the protection of renewable resources
(Muth & Bowe, 1998). While the Etiwanda Preserve is open to the public, foraging there is prohibited according to state law. Julia pointed out:
They catch trucks every day with loads of bags of sage right. And I said, but you
know what, I don’t blame the person that’s getting the sage. I blame the people
that are paying them couple dollars, they’re trying to feed their family.
81 In recent years this location has become a hot spot for illegal harvesting of white sage, as white sage and their uses have been increasingly appropriated and gained popularity on
the internet. As Julia noted, those that gather the sage are hoping to earn some money and
may not even know that it is illegal. Though these are individuals contributing to habitat
destruction and species loss, they are also victims of industrial capitalism: the creation of
foragers as a class of hired workers, and exploited labor. The sage is not for themselves,
but rather large corporations who sell bundles and kits, an attack on culture addressed in
chapter six. The rangers attributed the increase in illegal harvesting on social media.
Deborah said:
It's created all this desire, and plant lust, and things like that. So, it’s scary when a
plant goes viral like that. When everybody around the world wants it. It's crazy.
Because really it’s only Native to Santa Barbara County down through Baja. It's a
very small area and yet, you can buy this plant everywhere.
Deborah used the terms “plant lust” and “viral” which encapsulate the fervor which the
human population can bring upon a species, threatening the regeneration of that very
species. Similarly, with the Dudleya, social media increases demand of the plants, leading
to commodification and exploitation. However, this lust and viral attention is not unique
to modern social media. That unbridled greed, combined with the individualism
contained in the American narrative, led settlers to decimate many populations, such as
the passenger pigeon, by the late 1800s through mid-1900s. Many species in North
America experienced that focused attention as part of settler colonialism and
subsequently were slaughtered to extinction. Many extinctions were a result of European
colonialism clashing with Indigenous traditions and efforts towards preservation were
82 often too little too late (Murphy, 2019). Some species, like the bison, were targeted in
order to destroy the livelihoods of Native American populations. During the 19th century
white settler colonialists were moved to protect and conserve natural resources, the first national park (Yellowstone) was established in 1872, but conservation efforts and
protected areas served as barriers to Native peoples, denying them access to their lands,
continuing colonial structures.
With a view to the future, Enrique said, “there’s just too many of us. So, we need
to come up with some kind of culturally sanctioned ways of gathering so that we’re not
overharvesting.” I maintain that there are not too many of us, but that we definitely
need environmental ethics which determine regenerative actions and behaviors in our
landscapes. Culturally sanctioned gathering would stem from environmental ethics and protocols primarily found in Indigenous relationships to landscape.
Ethics and protocols
While Indigenous peoples around the world practice culturally sanctioned ways of
gathering, that protocol is not necessarily embedded in federal environmental policy. U.S.
policy towards foraging ranges from completely off limits, to allowing gathering small
amounts, to large scale timber operations. The policies do not include protocols for
emotional engagement with the landscape. Curious as to whether the plant lovers and advocates I spoke with shared similar environmental ethics and protocols for gathering, I asked people specifically about their personal, or cultural, protocols towards plants. The participants had varying levels of protocols they were willing to share with me. From an
Indigenous perspective, Enrique shared this protocol:
83 Well, my grandmother on my mother’s side always reminded me that you know
when one is collecting, say berries from a bush for example, you always collect
the ones in the middle, and you leave the ones on the lowest part of the bush for
our little relatives. You leave the ones on the top for our taller, and flying,
relatives. The ones in the middle were for us. And that’s just the sort of way of,
you know we’re remembering that it’s not just us out there using this landscape.
And if you approach collecting that way then you’re just always thinking about
that concept. That it’s not just us, it’s we’re part of this larger whole.”
This method embodies an important kincentric perspective, valuing all elements of the ecosystem as relatives who make use of the same resources, because humans are not the only species reliant on the landscape.
Julia shared the importance of giving something in return. She said:
If you’re not carrying tobacco with you to offer then you take your hair. For some
reason, they thought the hair in the hairbrush was good. No, it has to hurt.
Because that’s the life that you’re getting to a new life. You know, not just take
them the junk, and you want something new, but you want to give them junk for
it.
Giving tobacco or a strand of hair, freshly plucked as Julia pointed out, is a common
Indigenous practice to demonstrate reciprocity toward the plants. Kimmerer (2013) equates seemingly small offerings with ceremony and says that “the power of ceremony is that it marries the mundane to the sacred” (p. 37). Jo said, “If we were to take, we have to give first. Every time you go out...we always make an offering, our hair, our prayer, a plant. So, definitely always when foraging, plant first. Learn that first, learn that first.” Jo
84 was highlighting the importance of being thoughtful toward reciprocity; what can a person give, before taking. Not just planting plants, though Jo was discussing that, but also planting your offering first, before expecting anything in return. Essentially, there is “no free gift,” and reciprocity, obligation to give back, to conduct those small ceremonies, is what makes the world go round (Kimmerer, 2013; Mauss, 1990). Teresa similarly shared:
Our Elder taught us, always ask for permission from the Indigenous people of the
land, and if you need to take something you need to offer tobacco, or your hair, or
a prayer, or a song. And you have to ask the plant for permission too, and usually
there will be signs, and you tell the plant where they’re going. And you only take
what you need, and not more than that.
Teresa and Jo pointed out asking permission, from both the plants and the Indigenous peoples of that area, recognizing that this land is someone’s homeland, long before it was colonized. Jo also mentioned their efforts are to continue the work of their Elder’s ancestors, in “restoring and taking care of the land.” Indigenous permission and sovereignty is not usually on the forefront of people’s minds in Southern California because of the erasure of Native peoples, which I will discuss in chapter six.
A deep connection to plants and the environment was evident for all the participants I interviewed, making this ethic consistent across cultural backgrounds.
When asked about the ethics of foraging Doug described many foragers, “as almost spiritual about their relationship to the land because they had to overcome their lawn and garden industry fearmongering in order to actually start eating these weeds and these
85 plants.” That fearmongering contributes to Western relationships to landscape revolving around separation. Pascal also mentioned that foraging was tied to spirituality saying:
It’s really a personal thing, and I think everybody would have a different
relationship with that you know. But for me, foraging is like meditation,
especially if you’re going in nature, it’s just you and the plant. You don’t feel
separated from it, you just feel like you’re completely part of it.
Interestingly, both Doug and Pascal referenced a personal relationship with nature and plants, which is more rooted in Western individualism as opposed to spirituality linked with cultural practices. Though Pascal continued his thought with a foundational ethic that applies in Indigenous cultural relationships to land. He said:
Respect of nature comes from that relationship. If you love something, you’re not
going to disrespect it, you’re not going to trash it. But it’s extremely spiritual, and
I think it was the same thing in many ancient culture. You look at all the ancient
religion, it’s all nature based.
Doug pointed out that ethical protocols go beyond the interaction between the person and the plant, they affect the whole environment. Though Doug did not mention offering anything to the plants in the moment, he follows principles similar to the Indigenous protocols that Enrique mentioned. He said:
You're only taking one third of the plant, you’re leaving one third of the flowers,
you’re making sure there’s never bare soil. You're doing some things to protect
the actual environment so it doesn’t degrade...Not to leave the landscape in worse
shape.
86 While Doug may not mention specifically looking out for other species, he does mention the impact on the land. Because of the broader environmental effects, Doug said, “I think those ethics, if we do have a code of ethics...it has to be extended to invasive plants.”
Doug then shared an experience from his recent publication Foraging Southern
California, a pocket guide to regional edibles. He said that the publisher did not think it necessary to include protocols such as “cut, don’t tear, only take one third of the plant, never leave exposed soil,” regarding invasive plants, that these plants could just be ripped out. But Doug argued for maintaining the same ethical standards for the weeds, like mustard, as for Native plants because of the larger environmental impacts. Speaking about mustard specifically, Doug described the plants as “an effect of our nature,” brought to California by people (the Spanish), and mostly contained until “nitrous oxide from tailpipe emissions started fertilizing the daylights out of it.” Doug argues to
“embrace the very nature we create” by embracing the plants that have taken advantage of human induced environmental conditions. He also advocated for taking responsibility for those conditions, particularly tailpipe emissions.
This response brings up an important issue regarding taking responsibility in ecological relationships, and human relationships. Doug said non-Native plants, are
“people followers,” they “are Natives to us.” Which is partly true. Plants, like mustard, do follow people. They came to the U.S. with the Spanish, they followed people around
California, they increased in numbers with the advent of car exhaust. But following people is a loaded statement since at first those people were colonizing California and committing genocide on the California Indians. Some people assert that non-Native plants, or invasive plants, are all part of “mother nature’s melting pot,” congruent
87 with the multinational blending of immigrant cultures in America, even saying that decrying invasive plants is anti-immigrant and nativist (Raffles, 2011). Unfortunately, that separates the plants from the colonial history which frames them. The distinction of Native itself is a creation of the colonial state (Coulthard, 2014; Mamdani, 2012). The plants in question are legacies of colonialism (Mastnak et al., 2014). Additionally, “the construction of the settler as native, by claiming settler indigeneity” through plants adds to the legacy of Indigenous dispossession (Blair, 2017). The issue is complex yet, ignoring the realities that created the questions we face now regarding which plants belong and which do not, and twisting the argument towards nativism, erases the Native peoples and the struggles they currently face under ongoing settler colonial rule.
The conversations about ethics continued to result in mixed feelings around the foraging of Native versus non-Native plants. Doug mentioned:
There’s no difference between Native and non-Native, I will eat anything within
arm’s reach of wherever I am... I am simply an opportunist. But, there’s always
this guilt when I eat Natives, I don’t know what it is. I think I've just been bred
like I shouldn’t touch Natives, Natives are better off without me. But I know
scientifically that’s not true.
Doug called himself an opportunist, which fits his self-proclaimed “graze and go” foraging style. But he also mentioned feeling guilty for taking Native plants. Most
Indigenous participants and allies advocated for protections of Native plants because they are more vulnerable to habitat loss and excessive foraging. At the same time, they advocated for freely foraging non-Native plants. Teresa said, “forage yellow mustard, I completely support that, 100%. They can gather as much yellow mustard as they want.
88 And those non-Native grasses, I support that, go for it, I encourage it.” Deborah spoke
about gathering purslane, lambsquarter and orchard nettle and exclaimed, “I say, go for
it!” But ethically she mentioned, “I think it would be nice to also, it’s still a plant, still
offer it something, or thank it.” Being knowledgeable plant lovers and gatherers, participants recognized value in non-Native plants for their qualities as superfoods for example, Abe said “I encourage you to gather your mustard, your lambsquarters, your mallows, they’re all superfoods, they’re all very good for you,” and he said, “These are things that at least are going to sort of not put so much heavy damper on the Natives.”
Abe believes harvesting the non-Native plants helps support the well-being of the Native plants. And about invasive species Judith said, “Have at it. I mean there really are so many good ones...I recommend that, but few people can collect enough to make a dent on the weeds.”
Pascal is doing his best to make a dent on invasive plant species and encourages others to do the same. As a “wild food artist” and naturalist he shares practices, traditional food preservation techniques, and recipes on his Instagram, inviting creative participation with local environments through foraging. He said in relation to his protocol:
I'm really going for the invasive and non-Native. My protocol is looking at the
plant and say I love you, but I'm just going to cut you now...I'm a weirdo because
I talk to the plants, you know sometimes I'm sorry or whatever.
While Pascal focuses his attention on using invasive plants, he still speaks to them, offering love and an apology. He jokingly called himself a weirdo, though engaging in multispecies communication is not unusual in plant lovers.
89 Though recently popularized through newspaper articles, food shows, and social media, eating invasive species is not a new concept. Like many methods practiced by
Indigenous peoples, this movement is making a comeback. Regarding non-Native plants Enrique said, “We learned which introduced plants were going to work for us, and which ones weren’t.” While some non-Native plants have destructive effects on environment, others are incorporated into the ecosystem, for human and more-than- human use. Part of adaptive environmental change, Indigenous peoples have always been capable of responding and adjusting stewardship and policy towards their ecosystems
(Reo et al., 2017). Gathering non-Native plants is supported by many Indigenous peoples as these plants often contain medicinal qualities and high nutritional content.
These plants, though perhaps not full of historical cultural meaning, have been incorporated into the ecological family as relatives and as food. All the participants agreed that non-Native plants were not in danger of being overharvested.
Enrique mentioned earlier that for Indigenous people gathering is participating in the cycles of creation and he said:
I keep up with ceremony as often as I can. Because every ceremony, every
Indigenous ceremony, is about our participation in the recreation and the ongoing
creation of the earth…and as an Indigenous person it’s our responsibility to
participate in that ongoing creation.
In the way that Enrique spoke about the plants, these cycles of creation are less about
Native versus non-Native plants and more about the regeneration of plant relatives and regeneration of healthy ecosystems. And whether the term is foraging, or another less controversial word, the participation is the part that is a key piece of kincentric
90 relationships. However, in order to participate in this ongoing creation people require access to landscapes.
Access
When I began this research, I assumed that participants, especially Indigenous
peoples, would feel negatively about environmental policy on foraging. That did not end
up being true, because they expressed a desire to protect plants in order to encourage
regeneration of landscapes. However, access to land was still quite problematic. For
Indigenous peoples access to land is fraught with the trauma of genocide and removal,
settler colonial structures, and ongoing fights for environmental justice. Locally, the
Gabrielino-Tongva still face barriers to federal recognition, limiting their ability to
gain control of their homelands. Non-Indigenous participants also experienced limitations
on access to landscape though without the same generational trauma. The main themes
affecting access were physical access to land and limitations related to personal capacity.
Connecting these topics, Amanda said, “I don’t have the luxury of being able to have the
relationship with my land that my ancestors had. None of us do.” Current California
looks far different than pre-contact California, and the experience of making a living,
making a life, amongst the urban sprawl and protected areas, no longer affords people an
atmosphere conducive to building relationship with land and plants. That being said,
all the participants I spoke with found connection with land, even if they yearned for
improved opportunities.
Restrictions on landscapes
Souther n California contains a lot of privately-owned public land, land and under
the control of various agencies of the state and federal government, such as the National
91 Park Service, California Department of Parks and Recreation, National Forest. For the
Indigenous participants access to land or lack thereof was directly related to the loss of their homelands. The Los Angeles area, Gabrielino-Tongva homeland, remains unceded territory. Unceded is an official way to say stolen. These territories were stolen from the
Native peoples inhabiting this region.
When asked about restrictions to expressing culture on the land, Enrique said,
“the biggest one, this is the same for a lot of Indigenous people, access. To landscape… and access to the places where they need to hold ceremony.” As mentioned earlier, ceremony is a component of stewardship and environmental ethics for many Indigenous peoples. He also said:
We read stories about Native peoples regaining access to places and so on, to
ceremonial places. At the same time, there’s other parts of the landscape that are
either being destroyed because of extractive industry, or now climate change, or
just having access reduced because of private land ownership.
Settler colonialism plays an integral role in keeping land out of Indigenous hands.
Amanda explained the ongoing issues for Indigenous peoples with land that is
“returned”:
Even when places are you know, deeded as open space and turned into land
trusts, they’re turned over to groups of wealthy white people to run it. And if
we’re lucky they you know will invite a tribal person to do a prayer or sing a
song, but they’re not trying to have tribal people as equal voting members on
boards, or decision makers.
92 Being invited to participate as a token Native person is much different than being part of
the team holding ownership. Amanda experiences ongoing displacement from her
homeland through these policies and structures that maintain settler colonial systems.
Some open space areas are even dangerous. Amanda described her relationship with her
homeland as “contentious,” because some landscapes designated as open space include
places like Camp Pendleton marine base. As a military training zone, this is not
accessible for land stewardship or even safe landscape relationship building.
Amanda brought up a salient point, both financial and ethical. She said, “even
state and federal parks like we may be able to access them but that’s dependent on
paying, you know, and a lot of tribal folks rightfully don’t think that we should have to
pay to access our homelands.” Tracy felt similarly that she should not have to pay
entrance fees to land that was stolen from her people. She was frustrated at having to pay
to enter the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Gardens (now California Botanic Garden)6, where we met for the interview. Tracy also felt she should not have to pay for the restoration of
lands and species impacted by colonialism and capitalist greed. She said, “Look at the ocean, can’t even eat abalone because there’s so little of it. It's on the endangered list. Not by my people.” She spoke about the sustainable lifestyles of the First People, her people, before colonization and argued that Indigenous voices are left out of these relevant environmental conversations. Reo et al. (2017) argues that leaving Indigenous people out of environmental policy conversations maintains a rhetoric of vulnerability that erases
their capacity for self-determination and environmental stewardship. Though Indigenous
peoples are often left vulnerable to the effects of climate change, they are often left out
6 Entrance to the non-profit gardens was free until 2009 when a fee was put in place due to the economic recession at the time.
93 of instituting innovations and adaptations (Reo et al., 2017). The U.S. government’s
denial of federal recognition for the Gabrielino-Tongva complicates land claims and
efforts at Indigenous stewardship in this region.
Some participants spoke about getting permits to gather and while the permits
offer access to the plants and land, they can also create barriers. Additionally, getting permits did not seem like a big deal for some but for others it was a hassle. Speaking of her work with the Chia Café collective, a grassroots Southern California Indigenous group revitalizing culture and Native plant relationships, Deborah noted, “Usually we have some area where, that we’ve been given permission or permits.” That felt easily accomplished. And other participants mentioned gathering on friends’ private property.
Pascal said that he has access to private land for foraging, especially for Native plants, which he uses sparingly. Judith recalled going “out into the wildlands, which were usually privately owned because I would have permission to collect seed.” However, if one does not know someone with large enough property to gather, or does not know how to navigate the permitting process, these can act as barriers to accessing the land.
Timing was an issue with getting permits since plants do not follow a bureaucratic schedule. Abe said:
You have the issues with gathering where you need permits. That's another big
barrier. If you are Native American, there’s one good thing, but you have to find
out what type of land...is it federal, is it state, is it county? Most of these parks,
depending, Native people, and most people can too as well, get a permit to go and
gather. But there's little hoops you gotta go through.
94 Abe shared an experience of gathering mesquite in Anza-Borrego with a friend who is
Cupe o, on their ancestral land. They received a two-week permit, and it took a couple of weeks to get approved. He mentioned mesquite pods need to be gathered before they fall to the ground, and he recalled the logistical challenges of timing the permit to coincide with the mesquite’s schedule, as well as getting a group of people together with the time to gather, and willingness to hike. Abe said only a handful of people were able to attend the mesquite gathering that year. Making the situation more complicated, climate change affects plant life cycles; less predictable seasons, temperatures, and plant reproduction all impact the timing for gathering.
Pascal mentioned the challenges he’s faced trying to get permits from the Angeles
Forest in order to gather invasive plants. He said, “they will not answer me...it’s always about liability.” About the policies on National Forest land, Pascal said he agreed that
Native plants should not be foraged, but also declared:
If I go into Angeles Forest and I remove oxalis, or I remove mustard, or I remove
chickweed, this is all non-Native plant…So, if you show up and you want to give
me a ticket for that, I’m going to put you on video and shame you on YouTube.
With an internet presence spanning social media, published books, and interviews, Pascal has the platform to call out restrictions he finds absurd, though his focus is on cuisine and artistic engagement with wild food. Pascal often finds himself face to face with the different land practices of different agencies. The area we walked through was Parks and
Recreation, Army Corps of Engineers, and the electric company. He said the electric company does not spray herbicides, but they do mow down the weeds. As we walked across an invisible boundary into Army Corps of Engineer land Pascal pointed out the use
95 of herbicides saying, “They’ve been spraying so much Roundup on the ground in this location,” and he pointed out that it was oddly inconsistent usage, “why spraying that one, but not that one, and not that one, but spraying that one too, but not that one,” and either way, “it’s dangerous to, as a forager, because what if they sprayed the same day and you pick it up.” Not only is the approach towards invasive species confusing, but the use of herbicides like Roundup make the plants unsuitable for consumption.
Another restriction on the landscape is of course urban expansion that creates habitat loss, which Teresa mentioned, saying:
Some plants, like juncus, I wish there were more around. Tule. But because so
much habitat loss, Native habitat loss, there isn’t. So, just like I have to go to the
mountains to see Native plants most of the time, when before, it was everywhere.
Teresa also noted the oaks, and many participants brought up the difficulty of finding
Native chia. Urban expansion destroys habitat for more-than-humans while also pushing access to plants farther and farther away for the human communities. Not everyone who lives in urban areas has the ability to travel outside of their typical routines, illustrated by the next issue: capacity.
Capacity
People’s capacity to participate in their environments became apparent in conversation about foraging and landscapes. Capacity is affected by many circumstances including people’s lifestyles, education, location, jobs, economic status. During the interviews people’s personal capacity to access the land was most influenced by factors such as economics, fear, and a general disconnect from nature.
96 Economics
A couple of participants felt that plenty of opportunity exists for people to
develop relationship with land. About connecting with land Deborah said, “Everyone can
walk in the state parks, the national parks, the various parks in their neighborhoods, I
guess,” and she said that if one has land then cultivating or growing plants was a great
way to connect. And Judith pointed out, “almost every park or agency has chances for
volunteers to interact with the lands in a restoration context.” However, these comments
omit the idea that not everyone has the time or ability to volunteer at these locations,
leave urban areas, or even have access to green space in their neighborhoods. Cultivation
of plants also takes space, and time, which is not readily available in a capitalist
economic system.
Doug shared what he saw as the overall rhetoric around landscape in California.
Starting with the settling of California, he said, “Everybody was trying to extract
money. We went in the hills, we pulled all the clams off the ocean, all the good things
from all the things, and then we had to start protecting these areas.” Historically, with the
settling of California from the Mission Era through the present, settler colonialists have
extracted what they want out of the landscape. The Native peoples as labor, the natural
resources for profit. As Tracy mentioned earlier, California Indians were not stripping the land and commodifying the resources. As protections were enacted to prevent settlers from stripping the resources, Doug felt there began to be a general discouragement of interaction between people and land, particularly after the initial profits were all extracted from the landscape. This sets up the premise that landscape does not provide sustenance, it is solely a place to look at and conserve.
97 Amanda shared multiple issues related to our capitalist economic system. She said, “Most of the people from my community can’t even afford to own property in our own homelands so how do we have relationships with those places when we can’t access them.” Amanda made clear to relate economic status and intergenerational disadvantage to the genocide which the Spanish missionaries and settlers brought upon California
Indians. Amanda said:
Just the economic realities of being the survivors of multiple state sponsored
attempted genocides, most California Native people are, don’t have a lot of
financial resources and so the time to be able to go gather, to be able to have those
relationships. I mean everything about the system we’re in today makes it so that
the relationship is contentious.
After the Mission Era Native peoples in California faced continued threats. In the mid- nineteenth century, California Indians were hunted down and murdered by vigilantes, settlers, state militias, and the U.S. Army, killing around 16,000 Native people directly, while others suffered and died in hiding, on reservations, and enslaved (Madley, 2017).
Additionally, Native children across the U.S. were forcibly removed from their families to Indian boarding schools, which began about 1860 to “kill the Indian, and save the man,” rhetoric spouted by Captain Richard H. Pratt advocating to “civilize” Indians.
Families were destroyed, generations of cultural transmission were interrupted, identity and self-determination were stolen, along with the land and resources.
While many retired Elders can spend more time on cultivating relationship with land and promote cultural revitalization through that, Amanda said that as a wage
98 earner, “I mean it’s just not something I have the capacity to do. Like, I can’t afford a car,
public transportation sucks, I have to work like two full time jobs to make ends meet.”
Economically, there exist these barriers of time, space, and energy to participate
in the landscape. Additionally, engaging in the landscape through the agencies
controlling the lands does not address the fact that these lands are not in control of the
Native peoples.
Fear
A few participants mentioned fear as a barrier between people and plants. The fear may
have developed in various facets and is part of a greater narrative towards a distancing
between people and the environment. Doug said:
There’s money in fear. And if we call a plant an invader, or an invasive, or a
weed, then we can monetize that fear, right, through Round-Up and Monsanto…
we’ve spent tens of millions of dollars telling everybody that we have to spray the
very plants that would provide us nourishment.
Doug recognized the role that corporate industry plays in discouraging people from the
land, and in poisoning the landscapes with industrial herbicides.
Abe also brought up fear of personal safety as one of the barriers he sees for people to engage with the land and plants. He said:
The big, big barrier is learning to get people how to identify these edible
foods...Some look like others...everybody is afraid of getting the wrong thing,
getting poisoned. I mean they made movies about it, what was that movie the guy
that ended up running away and died...this is what we’re up against.
99 Since people spend less and less time connected to their landscapes, the plants become less and less familiar. Identification can be problematic, although there are resources such as books and even apps, which assist with plant recognition. Abe acknowledged that technology was helpful for plant IDs, but it also contributed to the decline of time spent outdoors. Abe also mentioned the environmental policies themselves as a barrier.
He said, “another fear factor, is you can get a big fine. You're talking about a thousand dollars or more depending if you’re busted to gathering out there or whatever.” In Abe’s experience, he said these fines unfortunately have negative consequences, not in preventing gathering so much, but in the lack of care taken during gathering. Abe related the damaging result when he said:
It’s people who don’t have a relationship with the plant, it’s people who are
sneaking in there who don’t have a permit, who are afraid of being cited. Cause
you’re already scared that you’re going to get a thousand-dollar ticket. So that’s
the person that’s going to go in there and rip things out. I mean, because we have
all these laws, all these things to be fearful about, that’s when foraging becomes
worse.
Abe said that some protection is good, but it can also make people “less sensitive, more abrasive when they gather.” The policies intended to protect the plants can result in rushed gathering, which is more harmful to the plants and the surrounding environment.
Whereas if policies were based in an ethic of relationship with the plants, that could have a positive effect on foraging behaviors.
100 Disconnect
There is no doubt that a general disconnect results from urban living, as people are less connected to plants, seasons, and larger landscapes. Abe talked about the disconnect he feels is an ongoing issue for people to build relationship with plants, which is related to access and the resulting loss of knowledge about the plant life cycles. He said, “people don’t have access to land, they don’t have access to, they don’t know when it’s ripe...you have to remember that when you’re going to go out and gather these foods, they’re short term...they are seasonal.” Abe also mentioned:
So, people today, our society is so fast paced, that I might educate you and tell
you, but...You have these windows that you have to be on, you have to be looking
to those windows, and when it’s ready you got to run in there.
Timing is important in gathering, and landscape and natural resource management. As discussed earlier, permitting can take too long and inhibit legally accessing the plants.
Abe also shared that not everyone is physically ready or able to participate in gathering.
He said:
It’s not like a little plot of garden and stuff whatever. You gotta go up hills,
you gotta go up, I mean gathering chia is not an easy thing. And then you gotta
worry about the rattlesnakes...it’s very labor intense...these are the barriers we run
into.
Lack of physical health and fitness was also brought up by Doug in chapter four, related to the health benefits for humans of caretaking and connecting with the environment.
Many in the Unites States suffer from diseases related to nutrition and physical health, however Indigenous communities experience higher rates of illnesses such as heart
101 disease and diabetes, as well as higher rates of mortality, than any other ethnic group7.
Indigenous fitness8 is a term gaining in popularity that addresses the challenges in health and nutrition specific to Indigenous communities9. Abe brought up another interesting point, “you talk about connection with the plants, we’ve also lost connection with our taste buds.” His work, as part of the Chia Café Collective, strives to reintroduce Native foods10, flavors, and recipes to people. He related that people are saturated with the tastes of processed foods, sugar, salt, fat, and white flour and are no longer accustomed to the flavors of acorn, yucca, and chia. To address the taste bud issue, Abe said Chia
Café Collective reintroduces Indigenous foods by mixing them with familiar ingredients.
He gave an example of cornbread with chia seeds, or bread with acorn or mesquite flour.
Enrique tied together many of the obstacles, the end result being a separateness from nature, fostered by the Western world and capitalism. He said:
If you don’t let people on the land then they can’t develop a relationship with it.
They can’t learn the names of these plants and their life cycles and how they
interact with certain insects and what happens to them during different seasons of
7 The disparity in mortality for American Indian and Alaska Native populations in the U.S. is shown here: https://www.ihs.gov/newsroom/factsheets/disparities/ 8 Devon Abbot Mihesuah, an enrolled citizen of the Choctaw Nation, relates the concept of Indigenous fitness through decolonizing diets and revitalizing Indigenous foods and activities in her book, Recovering Our Ancestors’ Gardens: Indigenous Recipes and Guide to Diet and Fitness (2005) as well as an article, Decolonizing Our Diets by Recovering Our Ancestors’ Gardens (2003). Also, the following site features a holistic approach to Indigenous wellness: https://www.wellforculture.com/ 9 As a result of trauma from settler colonialism, Indigenous communities continue to contend with physical and mental illnesses that stem from U.S. violence and cultural genocide (Smith, 2005). U.S. federal policies of removal, and life on reservations, interrupted traditional foodways and lifestyles often resulting in development of the “commod bod” (Vantrease, 2013). 10 Chia Café Collective created the book Cooking the Native Way in order to reintroduce Native American cultural foods of Southern California (https://heydaybooks.com/book/cooking-the-native-way/).
102 the year. They just cut that off, and so it increases this idea that we’re not part of
the landscape, we’re separate from nature.
He went on to say that in most Native languages there is no word for wild, which rejects the concept of being separate from the natural world. But as mentioned in earlier, separateness from nature infiltrates the psyches of modern Americans through words and distinctions like wilderness, nature, and wild.
There are many factors which contribute to the disconnection of people and landscape. Yet, existing separate from the landscape, independent of nature, is one of the biggest falsehoods inculcated into Western frameworks. Some factors are felt by all citizens of the land, some weigh more heavily upon the Native peoples, as they deal more directly with the burdens of displacement, and the effects of genocide. This research is not an argument that Native peoples are ecologically perfect. The romanticized, noble,
Indian environmentalist is a stereotype that does as much damage as any other (Deloria,
1998). However, relationships that are based on being part of the natural world, as opposed to dominating it, have a long record of being sustainable and provide an alternative to the binary of nature vs human (Cronon, 1996). Additionally, debating whether Indigenous peoples knew all the consequences of their actions in the environment also removes the focus from addressing the genocide, and ongoing harm of settler colonialism. So, along with white supremacy and settler colonialism, it is time to dismantle “wilderness” and create Indigenous-led ethics that drive society’s interactions with landscape towards sustainable and regenerative behaviors.
103 Conclusion
This chapter examined people on the landscape through perspectives of foraging
and issues related to accessing landscapes. While there were mixed feelings about the
word foraging, all participants encouraged building relationship and interacting with
plants and landscape. Tension was revealed around gathering Native and non-Native
plants, exemplified by the non-Native mustard that carpets the California landscape, as
well as threatened Native plants such as Dudleya and white sage. A persistent, and I
assert misplaced, narrative of overpopulation was also present in most interviews.
Participants offered consistent environmental protocols, illustrating their care and
emotional connection with landscapes and the plants they gather. Protocols such as
asking permission, leaving enough for the other members of the ecosystem, and giving
something in return were practiced by the plant lovers and advocates I spoke with.
Additionally, it was apparent that while an individual relationship with landscape and
plants is available, kincentric ecological relationships are not part of Western cultural
relationships to land and plants. The restrictions people feel upon the landscape were not felt evenly. This was due to structures of settler colonialism and capitalism, and a
narrative of disconnection from the environment. The next chapter further discusses
effects of these structures, because a discussion of landscapes brings up a critical discussion of power relationships in play on those landscapes under colonization.
104 CHAPTER 6: SOCIO-CULTURAL RELATIONSHIPS UNDER SETTLER
COLONIALISM
Plant profile: White sage (Kasili)
In the Tongva language, Kasili. White sage. Salvia apiana. A beautiful plant,
carrying a subdued hue on their lance shaped leaves that means, I know how to survive
with little water. The hue of desert landscapes, of mountains in the distance. A pale
white, grey, green, silver which invokes the sacred, magic, life, and death. Yet beneath
the ethereal color, the plant has strength. A hardy member of coastal sage scrub and
chaparral habitats, a keystone species for the Gabrielino-Tongva, Cahuilla, Serrano,
Acjachemen, and other Indigenous peoples throughout what is now Southern California
and Mexico. Used in foods, medicines, healing, and ceremony, Kasili remains an
important element of Native cultures and communities. Kasili is a member of the
ecological family that includes humans and more than humans. As part kincentric
ecological relationship, Kasili is a relative, a teacher, a helper, a guide, and one to be
cared for as well (Salm n, 2000).
Kasili represents this chapter on relationships under settler colonialism because
white sage has experienced many deleterious effects of settler colonial structures.
Appropriation, displacement, commodification, and commercialization; structures led by
settler colonial activities and industrial capitalism. When starting my research into
Indigenous relationships with our more-than-human relatives, Tongva Elder Barbara
Drake told me that white sage is threatened. She asked me to make sure I included in my research a section on what Kasili is going through, so that people could have another
105 opportunity to understand what is at stake, and what the issues are surrounding this wonderful and sacred plant.
Type “white sage” in Google, and some of the first hits are smudge sticks for sale
(2-day shipping!), and local New Age stores as well as large corporate brands, offering sage bundles, purification kits, gift boxes including a feather and an abalone shell. All organic, of course. The commercialization and commodification of white sage is a deeply personal issue to Native peoples, and a threat to Kasili themselves. Considered sacred, an integral part of Tongva spirituality, Kasili is now available to anyone who desires to cleanse their surroundings and get rid of negative energy, commercializing an aspect of
Native ceremony which was prohibited for Native peoples not very long ago. It was not until 1978 when the American Indian Religious Freedom Act overturned state laws banning American Indian spiritual practices. Additionally, cultural appropriation not only disregards Indigenous protocols, it contributes to imperialistic behaviors and the erasure of modern Indigenous peoples, who are here despite the United States government endorsed genocide of Native peoples.
While it is true that white sage proves to have antimicrobial properties and does indeed cleanse the air, gaps exist between public knowledge, understanding, and intention. And what of the health of Kasili, and their ecosystem. Ethical and sustainable harvesting of white sage is a serious concern for Indigenous peoples as well as conservationists. Though not officially listed as an endangered species, white sage habitats face destruction from human development. Where is the sage being gathered, with whose permission, who is collecting the sage for sale, what are the impacts on
Kasili’s habitat and community? The white sage bundles for sale may claim sustainable
106 and ethical harvesting but there is no real regulation or accountability for this process.
Meanwhile, Native peoples struggle to maintain their own rights to gather, on their own land, land that was forcibly taken from them. It’s downright insulting.
In San Bernardino County, near what used to be known as the Tongva village of Kuukamonga (now the City of Rancho Cucamonga), the North Etiwanda Preserve maintains an area of coastal sage scrub and chaparral habitat. Set aside in 1998 in order to mitigate the effects of construction of the 210 freeway, the original 762 acres has expanded to include over 1200 acres of habitat devoted to protecting wildlife and plant species unique to Alluvial Fan habitats. An alluvial fan forms as a river flows down out of the mountains, spreading sediment out as they reach the wide valley, forming a distinctive triangular shaped area at the intersection of valleys and mountains (National
Geographic Encyclopedia, 2013). At the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains, the Etiwanda
Fan spreads out into a veritable sea of housing developments, Chaffey College, and Los
Osos High School. Not only related to habitat preservation, there is also recognition by
San Bernardino County, of the cultural and religious importance of the land to local
Native peoples including the Gabrielino-Tongva Nation (North Etiwanda Preserve
Management Plan, 2010). White sage, an important member of the Preserve’s species diversity, has been negatively impacted by human influence in the area such as flood control, urban development, and mining. This protected area then has become all the more relevant as a site of maintenance and restoration of Kasili’s landscape.
In 2018, four people were arrested for illegally harvesting white sage from the
North Etiwanda Preserve. The Preserve has specific regulations, in keeping with standard state park and federal environmental policy, that prohibit gathering, harvesting, or
107 destroying any materials from within the Preserve (different rules apply in federal forest
land, which remains slated for more commercial and consumptive usage, such as
logging). This policy is intended to protect and preserve sensitive habitats and species
throughout the United States. Permits are often available for Tribal Nations to gather
plants for ceremonial uses. However, the four individuals arrested at the North Etiwanda
Preserve were found with 400 pounds of white sage, surely they had the commercial
trade in mind. With so many smudge kits for sale, and so many consumers looking for
natural products, the demand for white sage as a way to earn easy cash places Kasili in a precarious position. For the Tongva, and surrounding Tribal Nations, the treatment of Kasili is a serious matter. As stewards and caretakers of the Los Angeles Basin, or
Tovaangar, and all the rivers, plants, and animals within this land, the treatment of
Kasili reflects the treatment of the Native peoples here, and the future of this land and all the people on this landscape are tied to the care and keeping of these ecosystems that are our ecological family.
Wildlife depend on Kasili for food. Mountain sheep, deer, antelope, elk, rabbits, and woodrats enjoy the leaves, and grouse, quail, and small mammals forage on the seeds
(Montalvo et al., 2017). Ecologically speaking, Kasili also has special relationships with
Native bees. We all know that the honeybee is a crucial environmental indicator, and under threat from human influences such as pesticides, urbanization, agriculture, and habitat loss. What many people do not realize is that the honeybee was brought to North
America by white settlers in the 1600s (Horn, 2005). There are about 4000 species of bees Native to North America, and over 1000 species Native to California! Pollination of the entire country took place through the efforts of these Native bees, as well as a myriad
108 of other Native pollinating insects. The best pollinators for Kasili are Bombus and
Xylocopa, respectively the bumblebees and carpenter bees (Montalvo et al., 2017). There are 26 Native bumblebee species in California, and a handful of Native carpenter bees
(Las Pilitas Nursery, n.d.). These bees are much larger than the European honeybee, which proves especially important for Kasili.
White sage employs a particular pollination mechanism in their flowers which only large bees are effective at triggering (Montalvo et al., 2017). The large Native bumblebees and carpenter bees are best suited to do the job, while honeybees, though they visit the flowers frequently, are too small to transfer pollen effectively. The relationship, and it truly is a relationship, developed through geologic time, between
Native insects and Native plants remains important for preservation. For the species themselves, for biodiversity, the greater ecosystem, human and more than human. Where is our compassion, our thoughts, our action, when it comes to species outside of our own?
We can barely care for humans beyond our own tight circle, yet entire species, and rivers, and mountains require our assistance. What we would classify as our humanity, but what in reality should encompass our more than humanity.
Appropriation
On the podcast All My Relations Dr. Adrienne Keene and Matika Wilbur explore
the subject of appropriation in an episode titled Native Appropriations. To begin, Wilbur
reads aloud a quote from Lenore Keeshig-Tobias, an author and advocate for
Indigenous writers. Back in 1990 Keeshig-Tobias said cultural appropriation is “taking
from a culture that is not one’s own, intellectual property, cultural expressions and
artifacts, history and ways of knowledge,” which Keene points out has been the
109 experience of Indigenous peoples “since contact” (Keene & Wilbur, 2019). A surprising amount of people do not understand the problem of cultural appropriation. The average
U.S. citizen does not like to be told what they can and cannot wear or whether they can or cannot do something, particularly if they feel it inhibits their self-expression in some way. They might decry an accusation of cultural appropriation as “unfair!” The reality is that the unfairness lies in the power structures that determine who is allowed to participate and who is not, who is allowed the freedom of behavior and who is not. Also quoted in the podcast, Sonny Singh, a musician and writer, clarified, “the thing about cultural appropriation is the appropriator does not have to face the same consequences that we do for practicing our culture or faith. For them it is an accessory that can be taken on or off at will, while for us it is a way of life” (Singh, 2012). The presence of a colonial power makes all the difference.
Debates abound surrounding Native and non-Native plants, their uses, their habitats and landscapes, their protection. Pascal was confident that his use of Native plants was not related to cultural appropriation. He said, “95% of what I do is related to invasive and non-Native plants,” often using Native plants only as an accent to his cuisine and usually using Native plants he has grown himself. However, he proposed,
“The big question would be, do the plants belong to themselves or do they belong to a culture. That's a different question. And I don’t have an answer for that.” Pascal has received a lot of flak for popularizing foraging, though he still has a relatively niche audience. Under various levels of attack and support from various government agencies,
Indigenous groups, and environmentalists, he asks a controversial question. Who do the plants belong to? Who has the right to use them, engage with them, protect them, make
110 decisions about them? While the plants do not currently have much of their own voice in
society, cultures that have relationship with them also struggle with having a voice.
At the heart of my research I am advocating that plants and the landscape have rights of their own. As policy, “rights of nature11” is gaining momentum worldwide.
Ecuador amended their constitution in 2008 to include rights of nature, and Bolivia
followed in 2009, while other countries, such as New Zealand, have granted legal
personhood to specific natural sites (Herold, 2017). Framed in an Indigenous worldview,
rights of nature supports protections of Indigenous sacred sites and kinship relations with
the environment (Studley, 2019). In the United States, the Community Environmental
Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) shares that in 2019 Toledo, OH adopted the Lake Erie Bill
of Rights, and Nottingham, NH established a law to protect the rights of nature in their
community (CELDF, 2020). Though not always successful, these rights set a legal
precedent to allow for challenging the “environmentally offensive and health-threatening
practices” of big business, fossil fuel extraction, and corporate entities (Gilio-Whitaker,
2019, p. 156). However, deep relationships between plants and people existed before
Europeans arrived in the United States. Those relationships, and all the knowledge
contained therein, was ignored by colonizers, and continues to be ignored. When the
knowledge is deemed valuable by the settler state it is “discovered” and claimed as settler innovation. Meanwhile, Native peoples continue to experience inequity and injustice in
Western society. Appropriation serves as a form of stealing, a dispossession of
11 This is a global movement towards governance which supports the rights of nature, taking effect from local to national levels in many countries (https://therightsofnature.org/).
111 relationships with landscape, and a dispossession of history and identity (TallBear,
2019).
Jo mentioned this imbalance of power towards Native peoples when he said,
“these are people who’ve been historically targeted and suppressed. We couldn’t practice
our cultural traditions, we were murdered, we were killed, couldn’t practice our
ceremonies, both with the plants and spiritual ceremonies. Now, everyone wants to
embrace that.” Jo is referring to the genocide experienced by Native peoples in the U.S.,
as well as the boarding schools. Now, following a trend, anyone can participate in these
cultural practices when the people who actually belong to the culture experience
restrictions or negative consequences to participation. As mentioned earlier it was
illegal for American Indians to practice their ceremonies in the U.S. until 1978. Ironic,
considering many white settlers arrived to what is now the United States in order to
escape religious persecution! Amanda pointed out with some frustration, “there’s this
way that, in which the same kind of activity is elevated in a hipster context when it’s not
Native people, but when it’s Native people there’s all kinds of barriers thrown into
access.” These barriers have repercussions, affecting cultural transmission, identity,
sovereignty, and they determine who reaps the benefits of those activities. Under
capitalism, that is no small thing.
With capitalism comes commodification. Marx (1867) explores capitalism
through dialectical relationships, where the system functions as process, always in
motion12. A rather fitting method in discussing environmental and ecosystem
12 Check out lectures by author/educator Dr. David Harvey, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology & Geography at CUNY, Director of Research at the Center for Place, Culture and Politics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBazR59SZXk
112 relationships as well. He defines a commodity as something that has use-value, satisfying a human need or want, and exchange-value, a representation of labor and process (Marx,
1867). Under a capitalist mode of production literally anything can be commodified as long as it has some kind of use-value. Straightforward items such as products, but also ideas, nature, water. Commodification, particularly the money commodity, conceals the social relations that are represented in it. According to Marx (1867) the fetishism of commodities refers to the objectification of human beings and human relations, as under capitalism people relate through the products they encounter in the market, and the social relations behind them are masked. Regarding the environment, commodification can facilitate the externalization of nature from humans (Polanyi, 1944; Smith, 2008). Some
governments are now approaching the environment through the lens of ecosystem
services. Attempts are being made to quantify every piece of the interconnected web and determine its worth, then sell it off in shares, or trade it (Moore, 2015). Kosoy and
Corbera (2010) address some of the problems with ecosystem services as they cannot
quantify the complexity of ecosystems and they assert that commodification of ecosystem
service may reproduce social inequalities.
Enrique shared his feelings about capitalist relationships related to appropriation
of Native culture and commodification of both Native practices and the environment. He
said:
I don’t get bothered by a whole lot of things, but some things really bother me,
when, with people who appropriate spiritual practices from Indigenous
communities without really fully understanding the levels of knowledge
surrounding the relationship to a plant like white sage. I think it’s going back to
113 this idea of how modern Americans, modern humans, because they don’t have
this direct, deep relationship with the natural world it’s become a commodity to
people.
Who benefits from this commodification and subsequent commercialization is determined by the power structures in place. Capitalism most benefits large corporations particularly once they were granted personhood with application of the 14th amendment.
Though the 14th amendment was implemented post-Civil War as equal protection for the civil rights of freed slaves, the amendment was extended to corporations, beginning with the Southern Railroad Company in 1886 (Winkler, 2018). As social relationships under capitalism become commercialized, social media can make a plant go viral. Deborah said, “It's created all this desire, and plant lust.” Julia pointed out that large corporations such as Walmart are profiting from aspects of Native culture, when it is not theirs to market. At the heart of the matter, Enrique said, “our choices are a reflection of our
relationship to the natural world. Because modern people don’t have that relationship, the
choices don’t go any deeper than how much it costs.”
Reiterating the issue of who has access, Amanda again mentioned this aspect of
appropriation which she called fetishization, saying, “there’s this way in which even folks
who are really well meaning I think fetishize Indigenous people and traditional
knowledge.” She was referring to an incident in which a non-Indigenous person created
performance art about Indigenous cultural knowledge that even the tribal members were
not given access to. She said, “I don’t think it’s appropriate to take our religious
teachings and cultural stories and turn them into performance.” The history of settler
colonialism informs these power relationships regarding appropriation of Native
114 knowledge and peoples and conceals that very history in the commodification of them.
Experiences like that made Amanda reluctant to share information that she considered more personal with me about her connections with plants. We skipped those questions during the interview and the whole interview focused more on policy related issues, which addressed relevant issues without getting too personal.
Tracy felt very strongly about issues related to appropriation of her culture and her knowledge. During our interview she grew increasingly upset saying, “You prostitute our culture. You prostitute our land. You prostitute our medicines, our plants, our food, our ecology. You prostituted the water...And I'm not supposed to be mad? I'm not supposed to feel injustice?” She emphasized that her people, the Gabrielino-Tongva, do not benefit from interactions with colonial society. She said, “You can talk about our land, you can talk about our plants, you can you know get your books published, you can get your papers published...nothing ever really goes back to the people.” Settler colonial powers and the individuals participating (including myself), often create this feeling of being used, being fetishized, because the desired culture is freely accessible to everyone, except for the peoples and culture that are being taken from.
There has been so much appropriation of Native cultures, it makes sense that
Indigenous communities may be reluctant to share information. And this was a concern with my own research. While I made clear that I was sharing my research back with the participants, the very nature of interviewing with me, a white participant of settler colonialism, was clearly off putting. Despite the fact that participation in my research was voluntary, the positioning clearly felt extractive to some participants. Abe noted that past experiences have already influenced that interaction. He said, “There's been lots of people
115 that have gone in there. Or really tried to take, take, take, that’s why they don’t want to
give you, because it’s take, take, take, take.” Indigenous communities are regularly not
given recognition or not given a seat at the table. Land is “discovered” and claimed,
knowledge is “discovered” and applied without cultural context, Western society
continues to pick and choose what is considered useful from Indigenous communities,
while maintaining rigid power structures (Moreton-Robinson, 2015; Smith, 2012). The same power structures that allow for cultural appropriation determine the value of that culture or that Indigenous knowledge.
Value
Amanda spoke about ways in which Indigenous knowledge is repeatedly
devalued. She said that entities creating climate adaptation plans often leave out tribal
and cultural practitioners to inform and advise on research and implementation, or if they
are included, they are not valued as equals. She said:
There’s a tremendous amount of money in planning, and these big firms get paid
millions of dollars to do community engagement...lots of people are getting paid,
lots of money. And you know people want to dangle like you know a gas card in
front of a tribal member but not like be compensating them as equals.
Not only is the information provided invaluable to the projects, it may even be required
by community engagement procedures. However, without appropriate compensation, in
our capitalist economy that information is devalued, and in turn the people are devalued.
Amanda has made interventions in this respect and gained a rate for Elders comparable
to the rate for others in the planning industry. She said, “people are just always assuming
that like tribal knowledge should come for free,” which Amanda attributes again to a
116 fetishization of traditional ecological knowledge and tribal beliefs. She said, “the idea is
that if you’re authentically traditional you wouldn’t be wanting financial compensation
for this.” That mentality restricts Native peoples from benefiting economically from their own skills, an important reality under a capitalist mode of production. That mentality also contributes to this settler colonial creation of Indigenous identity. An insidious piece of cultural appropriation is that the dominant society decides what is or is not Native, when in reality that is no one’s business but the Native people. Amanda also recognized that Indigenous people need to assert themselves in relation to financial compensation.
She mentioned that many tribal members do not have the understanding that these opportunities are out there and can be reached for.
The concept of value connects to permission and consent (also mentioned in chapter five). In 2007 the United Nations adopted the Declaration on the Rights for
Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). Though initially against the declaration, the United States later reversed their vote in favor of UNDRIP. While the declaration is inspiring, application of its principles is not regulated. Highlighted in Article 10 is Free, Prior, and
Informed Consent13, relevant in many ways in connection to the concept of value: value
of Indigenous sovereignty, identity, and self-determination through consultation,
permission, and consensual agreements regarding land. The settler colonial history and
present of the United States complicates application of UNDRIP related to Indigenous
sovereignty and rights, exemplified in industrial development on Indigenous lands such
as the Dakota Access Pipeline (Gilio-Whitaker, 2019). Federal recognition of tribes also
13 See https://www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/declaration-on-the-rights-of-indigenous- peoples.html for a PDF of the declaration.
117 plays a role in application of the UNDRIP principles. Further discussion linking value and erasure occurs in the following section.
Regarding student research Abe mentioned the importance of giving something in return. He said Indigenous communities and individuals get a lot of requests for interviews or help with final projects. Abe said, “you can’t go in and think you’re going to develop a relationship with these people in three months, and thinking you’re going to go in there and get all your check, everything off your check list.” Because of this historically extractive methodology, which often continues today, many Indigenous peoples have a contentious relationship with research (Reo, 2019; Smith, 2012).
Erasure
An extremely detrimental repercussion of cultural appropriation and the devaluing of traditional ecological knowledge is erasure. Erasure of the existence of Native peoples.
Amanda related an experience that highlights the importance of having Native voices involved in decision and policy making. She said:
There was a bill introduced to amend CEQA to elevate the role of tribal nations in
assessing impacts to our cultural sites. So that was great, but the author of the bill
had no experience working with tribes, and so he had attempted to redefine the
term Native American tribe in California in a manner that would have excluded a
third of all California Native Nations from being considered tribes.
CEQA is the California Environmental Quality Act. A broad environmental protection law passed in 1970, it now requires consultation with Native American tribes and a consideration of tribal cultural resources. But who is a tribe? Does the U.S. government still get to decide that? Many tribes in California are not federally recognized. Gaining
118 federal recognition is a long and arduous process, one made more difficult by the repercussions of settler colonialism. Amanda repeatedly noted that well-meaning people still end up having negative impacts on Tribal Nations when tribal members are not consulted. In the case of CEQA, Amanda was able to facilitate a coalition to maintain an inclusive definition of California tribes.
Amanda also mentioned how the conversation changes when tribes are at the table. Many organizations, governments, and agencies do not appreciate a conversation that recognizes tribal concerns. Amanda said, “when you have those conversations with tribes, it’s about like un-channelizing the river, it’s about you know the access to places along the river, to practice ceremony.” Ceremony and cultural transmission are not the primary concerns for public and private industry in California. Especially in Southern
California, Amanda said, “it’s very difficult for people to conceive of places like Los
Angeles and Orange County as somebody’s tribal homeland. And that really gets in the way of fulfilling a lot of opportunities for tribal land management and land return.” When contemplating restoration and addressing climate change, Indigenous voices are critical because the land cannot be restored without restoring the relationships. Additionally, there is creativity and innovation available in considering ideas such as unchannelizing the rivers (Reo et al., 2017). What society is currently doing to stop global warming is not working, why not consider ideas that challenge the status quo?
Another aspect of erasure comes with just transition. Created to protect workers forced into unemployment by environmental protection policies, just transition strives to minimize negative impacts on the workforce while encouraging climate resilience and
119 sustainable systems. Geared towards the fossil fuel industry and other extractive,
unsustainable industries, Amanda pointed out:
Just transition for who, because you guys are talking about what happens to lands
after we end fossil fuel extraction and you rehabilitate the land, but if you’re
starting that conversation in the 1900s, or even the 1800s, you know you’re
missing the piece that it’s our land.
To acknowledge that piece, that the U.S. is built on Indigenous land, the U.S. government
would have to take responsibility for the genocide of Native Americans. To many
Americans, Native peoples do not exist anymore. Even in environmental justice success
stories, Native presence gets erased. Gilio-Whitaker (2019) points out a win for Southern
California Indians in protecting Panhe, a sacred site for the Acjachemen people.
Threatened from construction of a toll road, in what is now San Clemente, the site lies within a state park and is under a lease from the U.S. Navy, and right next to a nuclear power plant. As an un-federally recognized tribe, the Acjachemen do not have the benefit of certain federal laws protecting Native American sites. While Indigenous activism played a vital role in protecting the land and watershed area, publicity after the success left out the Native participation and recognition of the sacredness of the landscape.
Amanda gave another example of erasure when she spoke about when a local university, UC Irvine (UCI), hosted the Dalai Lama. She described it as a trauma, because that is what all these events create: added trauma. While the U.S. is not necessarily slaughtering Native peoples as it did in the 1800s, traumatic events are continually recreated in different forms. She said while Tongva and Acjachemen tribes opened the event:
120 UCI had employed this man, this white man who was a brilliant you know forager
and culinary person, but he had like a whole year there with the students, and he
was compensated, and he was teaching them like how to forage like in our
landscape. And then he presented this beautiful dinner and it was beautiful but I
just kept thinking like, why the hell isn’t this Chia Café Collective, I mean why
did this random white dude who has no relationship with this place, get
compensated and then really uplifted?
She referred to the event as “another huge missed opportunity” in recognition of Native peoples. Amanda also referred to land acknowledgement, which is often done nowadays before beginning public events to create awareness at the very least, if not some level of accountability. But many Native peoples feel strongly against this practice because more often than not they are just words, with zero real impact for tribal communities. As in the example related by Amanda, the real opportunity and benefit went to the white chef, while the Chia Café Collective, an organization of local Elders and allies who work towards cultural revitalization through Native foods, was not given the opportunity to host the Dalai Lama. Southern California is filled with plaques and parks named after
California Indians, but they often have the effect of relegating Tribal Nations to the historic past. Rarely are the tribal communities benefiting from that type of recognition.
The acknowledgement can end up serving to continue the erasure rather than eliminate it because it does not serve the living descendants of the tribe, the current tribal members.
From a non-Indigenous perspective about learning harvesting and gathering practices, Judith said, “it’s too hard to get the right knowledge, there’s no Elders to tell us
121 how often to harvest a particular stand of something... it takes knowledge and information that is not easily acquired these days.” And though that information is available, as
Amanda noted through traditional ecological knowledge keepers, it is not common knowledge that Elders are out there holding that information. That is a consequence of this general erasure within U.S. society. Under current circumstances, since those Elders are not typically well-resourced, or there is negative associations with sharing Indigenous knowledge, that knowledge remains safeguarded, or simply not widely available.
One way to start addressing the rampant appropriation of Native culture, erasure of Native peoples, and value of traditional ecological knowledge can be as simple as asking the right question. Before beginning a project Amanda said to ask “whose land are you on and how do they benefit?” While this will not solve all sovereignty issues, repair historical trauma, or address all current trauma, it is a mindset that leads to actions towards Indigenous leadership and rights.
Conclusion
These three aspects of capitalist settler colonial society, appropriation, value and erasure of Native peoples, support the ongoing dispossession of Indigenous peoples and their lands (Bacon, 2018; TallBear, 2019). You might feel confused that a person and a culture can simultaneously be taken, undervalued, and erased. After all, how can they be erased if they are present enough to be taken from. But these elements of deeply ingrained racism, heteropatriarchy, and settler colonialism happen congruently. They feed on each other, keeping the imbalance of power always skewed toward whiteness, and the ever malleable and insidious tools and individuals furthering whiteness always have an argument or a debate to defend Indigenous absence. Just ask a sports fan about changing
122 a racist mascot14 and feel the rage ooze from their pores and the fragility vehemently spit from their mouths.
Returning to Kasili, where this chapter opened: what are the options facing people regarding white sage? Many Tongva Elders maintain that Kasili should not ever be sold.
Selling a sacred medicinal plant can be considered a major transgression. Barbara Drake acknowledges the four approaches people currently have with white sage: 1) buy off the internet, or a store 2) Steal or illegally harvest 3) purchase from a sage farm or 4) grow your own sage. She considers growing your own to be the only viable option.
Native ecosystems continue to experience a plethora of negative impacts stemming from colonization. This is an example of the distinction in settler colonialism; the whole ecosystem is impacted. Affected by non-Native plants, animals, and people.
That doesn’t mean that non-Indigenous people cannot be allies to the Native peoples already here, this landscape, these ecosystems, and these individual plants, like Kasili.
Kasili deftly illustrates the subjects of this chapter: appropriation, value, and erasure of
Native cultures and people, all aspects of socio-cultural relationship under settler colonialism. Switching gears, in the next, and final findings chapter, grows a discussion about personal connection to plants. Having established that U.S. society in general experiences a disconnection from nature and ecosystems, I explored the ways that people do find intimacy and kinship with plants.
14 In July 2020, while finishing this thesis, the Washington NFL team finally agreed to drop the use of the racial slur “r*dskins” after a decades-long battle by primarily Native activists. The term has an incredibly violent and gruesome association. Hopefully, other teams and institutions will follow suit and eliminate use of racial slurs, epithets, and stereotypes which serve to erase, fetishize, and appropriate Native peoples (Giago, 1995; King, 2002; Munson, 1998).
123 CHAPTER 7: KINCENTRIC ECOLOGICAL RELATIONSHIPS
Plant profile: Reader’s choice and Plant profile: Sunflower (Paaxar)
To open this chapter I invite you, the reader, to think about a plant to whom you feel connected. I believe that everyone knows at least one. Maybe this plant lives indoors with you, cleaning your air, improving your indoor atmosphere and home environment, while you practice caretaking and mindful attention. Maybe you even talk to this plant and have given them a name. Maybe this plant is one you met outside, on a hike, at a park, in a forest, or on the sidewalk. Maybe you have a garden and you care for this plant as part of a mini ecosystem of your own design. Maybe you’ve never met this plant face to leaf, but you learned about them and think they are cool. Maybe this plant is a tree, a flower, a shrub, an herb, a drug, maybe this plant is one you only associate as food, but you love them, and they are a plant, nonetheless. Perhaps you only appreciate this plant for their beauty, or taste, or that they attract (or repel) certain insects. Maybe you only know this plant as the product which it becomes. Most drugs and medicines that humans rely on are plant-based; we can thank plants for helping us through some of our most difficult times.
Personally, I really love sunflowers. There are so many varieties of sunflowers.
Helianthus spp. In the Tongva language, paaxar. Ranging from bright yellow, pale yellow, deep red, golden orange, combinations of those; there is a lot of diversity in sunflowers. They can grow incredibly tall or can be low and bushy. Sunflowers are
Native to North America and were cultivated by Indigenous peoples. They grow rather quickly and are resilient. Some sunflowers produce one flower at the top of the stalk, while others produce many flowers, continuing to bloom over the course of their
124 life. Planting sunflower seeds with my children brings the satisfaction of a reliable and
short germination period. Little sprouts usually appear within two weeks. Pushing their
way out of the ground so forcefully and quickly they often still have the outer seed layer
stuck to their new leaves. When the sunflowers bloom the flowers are large, presenting a
wide, open face that feels inviting and friendly. The dark center of the flowers is where
the seeds develop. Though they look like one giant flower head, the center is made up of
tiny florets, or mini flowers, easily over 1,000, which all have the potential to become
seeds. The outer petals carry the colored array which make the sunflower look like one giant flower, the signature look that we recognize as sunflower.
I can imagine a world in which we all treat plants as members of our family, living, breathing, alive members of our communities. The heart of my research is relationship. Relationship to the other beings, the more-than-human members of our environment. Therefore, an important aspect of the research was to delve into those feelings and emotional components of how people interact with landscape, specifically the plants in their lives.
Re -kin-izing
A key factor in kincentric ecology involves the recognition that all parts of an
ecosystem, all plants, all non-human animals, all elements of nature, are alive. The
rationality that is perceived as so integral to Western science has created the illusion of
the natural world as a machine, incapable of thought, existing solely to be dominated by
mankind (Buhner, 2002; Herman, 2016; White, 1967). This illusion allows society and
individuals to maintain an emotional distance between humans and nature, objectifying
nature, and defining aliveness through a particularly disassociated human lens. The state
125 of being alive, in comparison to being dead15, implies life, growth, change, even breath.
In kincentric ecology, the natural world is fully alive, afforded animacy, spirit, thought,
and knowledge. The Rarámuri people, of what is now Northern Mexico, identify a soul
and life force in all members of their ecosystem, honoring that they all share the same
breath, from the plants and animals to the rocks, mountains, and wind (Salm n, 2000)16.
It is shortsighted and anthropocentric to claim that humans hold a monopoly on life on
this planet.
To recognize aliveness in the natural world requires dismantling the speciesism
which infiltrates most industrial capitalist Western human-nature interactions. It requires
shifting how humans treat the landscape around them, the plants and animals, the water
and the mountains. This shift is a social, ethical, and moral one, a shift of core values
towards the environment, which is at the heart of kincentric ecology. Recognizing
aliveness in our environments then provides the opportunity to build relationship.
All participants in my research expressed relationality with plants and landscape.
Since these participants were chosen because of their known engagement with plants that
is not surprising, but they related the important role that plants play in their lives, their
reliance on plants, and their appreciation of that relationship. Sometimes they spoke
directly of this relationship while at other times it was more nuanced, apparent through
their choice of wording or language. However, the use of language is only one way that
people express feelings, attitudes, and beliefs. Their behaviors, actions, and life choices
also demonstrate their worldviews.
15 Death and decomposition remain vital processes in life cycles and regeneration (Lyons, 2020). 16 The Rarámuri concept of iwígara represents this complex relationship of interconnections and integrated life in their homelands of the eastern Sierra Madres of Chihuahua, Mexico (Salm n, 2000).
126 Aliveness
Certain participants clearly attributed aliveness to plants, and it was apparent in the ways they spoke about them, referring to plants in ways that acknowledge personhood. Deborah mentioned meeting a plant for the first time in Baja, meeting being an activity usually reserved for introductions between humans. When asked if she has a favorite plant, Judith responded, “I couldn’t, that would hurt their, the other one’s feelings.” Not only did Judith acknowledge the plants having feelings, she actively did not want to do anything that would harm them. Not just physically, but emotionally.
Referring to plants, Tracy mentioned that “they all have their different personalities,” also pointing out that “you have different relationships with them for different things.” There is not one singular relationship experience between humans and plants, a variety of relationships exist based on what the plants need and what the humans need. As mentioned at the outset of this thesis, I have avoided using “it” when talking about plants and instead use they/them pronouns and while the interviewees did not use them/they pronouns every time they spoke of plants some seemed to avoid that. I’m not sure if that was intentional or simply pluralizing, but when it is something you are looking for, it stands out.
Talking to plants is a common way that people build relationship with them. As mentioned in chapter five, Pascal admits that he talks to the plants he harvests, telling them he loves them, what he is about to do to them, and saying an apology. Expressing love for the plants being foraged, apologizing to them, thanking them; these are all emotional connections and actively create and maintain relationship. Recognizing when the plants are happy or have certain preferences, Deborah said, “When the plants are
127 doing well, I let them run with it...Some of the buckwheat has done that, where it just spreads, so I try to really allow things that want to be here, to be here.” Deborah’s large property provides ample space for plants to flourish and discover where they are best suited for growing. And she recognizes their success as the plants choosing and enjoying being there, recognizing their agency (Bhattacharyya et al., 2017: Miller, 2019). Also noting the plants’ perspective, Enrique said, “the plants need us to interact with them.
They like it when we interact with them.” Since Indigenous peoples interacted with their landscapes intimately, dependent relationships developed between the people and their plants (Kimmerer, 2013). Whether it was sweetgrass or corn, or more locally, gathering and burning practices for the oaks, pruning and coppicing of mesquite and willow, the plant-human relationship was well established and critical to the success of the landscape and the people as part of that landscape (Anderson, 2005). Enrique also shared that in Rarámuri culture new or non-Native plants can essentially be adopted:
Non-Native plants like any other community can be adapted to and introduced
like a new family member. My people didn’t always grow oats. And then the
Europeans, the Spanish missionaries brought oats and now it’s one of our favorite
foods that we grow. I love oats, I grew up eating oats...And so, and we’ve given it
a name you know. It's a relative now. It’s a Rarámuri...So yeah, it’s really an
interesting place to be where you can adapt to and bring into your family these
non-Native plants, as long as they’re not causing a problem.
Getting to know new family members and naming them attributes aliveness to the plants in the environment. Building relationship between humans and plants with genuine familial affections supports mutual survival and ongoing environmental resilience
128 (Miller, 2019). Incorporating new plants into the family speaks to both plant and human
knowledge that supports adaptation to environmental change, climate resilience, and the
ability to create a new future which favors sustainable relationships (Reo et al., 2017).
Demonstrating aliveness in her surrounding environment, Teresa shared “my mom and my grandma did share with me in my own culture the importance of taking care of the plants, and that they have spirits. And everything has a spirit, the rocks, and everything.” This multispecies, more-than-human, recognition of spirit is common in
Indigenous cultures, and exists in contrast with industrial capitalist relationships with nature which objectify the natural world (Smith, 2008). Enrique related:
I was raised knowing that plants and animals, everything, the land, the rocks and
stuff, the sky, are all directly related to us. They're our relatives, and part of our
reason for being here is to treat them kindly, treat them well. Like actual human
relatives. I was raised knowing that we actually emerged from ears of corn, so
we’re directly related to our mother, corn. We are part plant, because of that.
Treating plants with respect, as they would a family member, Julia, Teresa, and Jo spoke about leaving an offering of tobacco, or a freshly plucked strand of one’s hair, when gathering plants to honor the sacrifice that the plant is making in order to help the human. Even telling the plant what it will be used for, and asking permission as mentioned in the foraging chapter.
I would argue that considering aliveness in the elements of our environment is not anthropomorphizing. Humans do not have sole ownership of the making of relationships.
Relationships are key to ecosystem processes; they exist and are developed between other species all the time. Creating relationship is not a uniquely human endeavor.
129 Relationality
Relationality speaks to the various natures of people’s relationships with plants and landscape. Kincentric ecology represents a human-nature connection based deeply in relationship. A process of cultivating emotional relationships and connections, in contrast to the distance and separation fostered in a Western human-nature dynamic. Developed from birth, human-nature relationships include the Hupa’s entwining of a sapling and a newborn’s umbilical cord, and many California tribes (Yuki, Wappo, and Sierra Miwok) which incorporated plant and animal names into human names, creating alliance, not dominance (Anderson, 2005). Instead of being the dominant species in the ecosystem, within Indigenous cultures humans are more often than not the students. First Nations groups in Canada have a social relationship with grizzly bears in which the bears are the elders who teach the humans (Bhattacharyya & Slocombe, 2017). Many other Indigenous cultures learn from the local animals and plants in their landscape, taking lessons from their habits and ways of living. The Indigenous Canela in Brazil practice an “education of affection” caring for their literal plant children (Miller, 2019). Indigenous cultural origin stories are also consistently tied to animals and plants, with human life dependent on the gifts and generosity of the natural world. The Skywoman story of the Great Lakes region, the Mayans and Rarámuri and Corn, the Abenaki and the ash tree, the Hopi and a spider along with various plants; all these stories illustrate the connection and interdependence between humans and nature (Kimmerer, 2013; Salm n, 2000). The kincentric worldview is also embedded in Indigenous languages, making kinship with nature integrated with thought processes and daily interactions.
130 For Enrique, corn is not only a member of the family, corn is an Elder. Teresa
also noted this type of relationship when she spoke about the willow tree being the “tree
of tolerance,” and that “it teaches us so much.” Allowing to be taught by a tree
demonstrates a two-way relationship. Teacher and student. Her relationship with the
plants is created through mutual participation. In this case, the willow being a willow,
and Teresa being open to lessons from how the willow lives their life. Expanding on her
mutualistic relationship to land she also mentioned that “the land gives me everything.
And my hope for the land is to care for it as much as I can, and a huge part of that is
planting Native plants, restoring habitat, and helping the community learn about that.”
Julia, a Tongva Elder, spoke about how plants empower us saying, “they provide strength. You can get really energized,” and that “we really need to understand and realize our connection to the plants,” even noting people’s reactions, “why is she giving that much honor to that plant, well, it’s keeping me alive right?” Julia also mentioned continuing personal relationship development between people and plants through names.
She named her great granddaughter Cactus Flower because “she’s cute but she’s prickly, she has to have the last word,” illustrating an ongoing connection to plants, even matching up behaviors between humans and plants. Julia also alluded to a correlation between continuous interactions with plants and human health. She said, “I work with willow so much,” and she noticed a decrease in use of certain medications such as for sinus problems, and antibiotics, saying, “putting your hands back to the plants that are in
your DNA really connects you.” She seemed to really feel that continuous exposure to
the medicinal qualities in the plants benefited her overall health.
131 Expressing the connection the Rarámuri have with their landscape Enrique shared:
The land and all the stuff on it are the source of our morals. What we believe is
right and wrong, and what is proper behavior. And when we speak of the land,
when we sing about the land, when we pray and hold ceremony, it’s always about
giving story to our connection to the land. And just this, it’s this reciprocal kind of
relationship, you know, we need each other. Every word in our language has
something to do, some way, about that relationship. So, our language is an energy
itself.
Enrique also noted that each region and each tribe has unique relationships to their landscapes. Since the landscapes are so varied, the languages and the ceremonies reflect those different relationships. Environmental knowledge is very regional and place specific to the members of those ecosystems.
As an educator, and author of foraging and fire safety books, as well as a weed eating enthusiast, Doug remarked, “Well, plants have provided me with my livelihood. I mean, they actually pay rent...Plants have been wonderful, they’re my worst-case scenario, they’re my best-case scenario.” For Doug, plants fuel his writing profession, but also as a backup plan, his ability to easily find work in a nursery, which he contrasts with a job at a restaurant or McDonald’s. He spoke of hoping to nurture more kinship with plants and people through his writing, dismantling “that barrier between people and nature.” He repeatedly emphasized that “all plants have a superpower,” and said,
“my emphasis on eating weeds is all part of that. To embrace the very nature we create.” Doug refers to many non-Native plants as people followers, or car followers, and
132 advocates for making use of those plants that are a byproduct of human activity in the
urban landscape. Part of Doug’s efforts to have a positive impact on the environment
include riding his bike. Recognizing the connection between tail pipe emissions and our
polluted environments, Doug stopped commuting by car about nine years ago and almost
exclusively uses his bicycle and public transportation (quite a feat in Los Angeles and
Orange counties, today’s Tovaangar). He pointed out that this brings him in direct
relationship with the plants in the urban environment:
If the landscape is antagonistic towards you, or meanspirited or not nourishing...I
can no longer see the landscape objectively if I am actually getting poked by it,
I'm getting poisoned by it, or I'm getting nurtured by it, I'm getting shaded by it,
I'm getting nourished by it.
This direct physical connection, a living and active interaction, with plants and the environment builds relationship, whether positive or negative, the result is a physical and emotional connection. Doug mentioned that environmental policy makers tend to make decisions from locations disconnected from the actual landscape involved. He asserted that policy should be made from those in touch with the landscape.
With a focus on food sovereignty and addressing homelessness, Jo related, “my relationship with nature is learning it systemically. Because the natural world is a system, and how that fits with addressing social issues today. So, it’s very multilayered, dynamic, complex, but it’s simple too because it’s growing a plant.” Recognizing the network of relationships that are involved in any interaction, Jo spoke about creating regenerative relationships with plants, land, and people saying:
133 I'm trying to break out of that extractive kind of economy, where it’s not just a
one-sided kind of thing. I'm not necessarily growing food to eat, I'm growing food
to replenish the soil, to re-nutrify the soil, sequester carbon from so much carbon
in our atmosphere, back into the earth.
He mentioned that for him, plants “provide a sense of relief, a sense of hope” and though he acknowledged this feeling is not necessarily quantifiable, it is a step towards
imagining a future; a future that includes healing of both the land and the people.
In general, participants often used the word love when sharing how they felt about
plants. Throughout our conversations they expressed genuine affection, concern, and
care. Abe said, “I feel connected to all plants,” And at the conclusion of our conversation
he exclaimed, “I love plants, I love growing plants, I understand plants!” Judith often
brought up the beauty of the plants and environment around her, saying “that’s driven me
through my life, finding beauty.” That is what drives her work to restore wild
landscapes as well as consult on personal gardens, encouraging “a landscape that is
harmonious” with the beauty of California Native plants. Speaking about the many types of sage and other plants around her property, Deborah shared, “I love bringing them in and smelling them...This is aromatherapy heaven out here.” She also said, “I love the prickly pear, that’s because I'm able to grow it here, pretty easily. And it seems to be very kind and gives us a lot of nutrition...well I love the yerba mansa too, and that’s really
important. And I keep that patch going because that’s a very important plant for health
and well-being.” Most of the people I spoke with felt very strongly about their plant
companions and they all recognized the diverse ways that plants affected their lives.
134 Pascal spoke of his relationship with the environment beginning in his childhood in
Belgium. He said:
Nature is not just Belgium, nature is not just Europe, nature is nature, nature is
planet Earth. I mean, my home is planet Earth, that’s the way I look at it. With
respect to the local inhabitants or Native people. The connection with nature is a
basic human need, I would say.
Being able to grow up around in an area with nature helps develop that connection and awareness of plants and landscape. But many people develop that relationship later in life, or not at all.
Being in regenerative relationship implies some level of understanding between those involved and this was apparent in several interviews. Abe noted the need to
understand plants saying, “you have to understand, you have to learn how to read these
plants,” demonstrating a willingness to really learn about what is best for the plants.
Teresa related how being in relationship with plants means understanding they have a different timeline to our own, saying, “you need to know the plant, on a deep level, it doesn’t go by your time.” Similarly, Abe pointed out, “you have to learn the relationship.
And it has to be continuous. It’s seasonal.” He pointed out that plants in the environment are not like a grocery store, since they have specific times and seasons for growing, reproducing, and appropriate gathering.
Doug and Pascal both related the detrimental results of using negative language on some plants. Words such as “invasive, noxious, bad, evil,” essentially villainizing many non-Native plants. Doug attributed this to the lawn and garden industry saying, “I don’t know how you can make a weed sound fearful but they do, and they did a great
135 job.” Pascal agreed, “if you start having that narrative then you never going to look at it as food. Or you’re not looking at a positive solution, so it becomes this weird hate relationship with an environment that is really changing.” As a result of the negative narrative and narrow definitions of conservation, Doug asserted, “Now we treat our land as someplace only to save water or save resources. It's not a place of nourishment, it’s not a place of health.” A relationship based solely on resource conservation presents a less well-rounded relationship than one that includes more interaction, and reciprocity. It also contributes to the narrative within The Wilderness Act, that nature should remain untouched by humans, that humans cannot exist in regenerative relationship with their landscapes. As Pascal noted, our environment is changing, and addressing those hurdles through kincentric perspectives, acknowledging the importance of our plant relationships carries a lot of potential for less destructive environmental practices.
Conclusion
Towards the end of our conversation Judith shared, “plants help you find your home, and feel at home.” This is a concept which every culture can relate to. Indigenous peoples throughout the world have deep connection to the plants in their environments, using them for food, medicine, ceremony, tools, structures, and play. Though accompanied by deleterious effects, European colonists brought their plants to
Indigenous America in order to eat what was familiar to them. Immigrants often grow plants from their homelands to stay connected to the feeling and flavors of home.
Whether acknowledged or not, plants are deeply embedded in our human experience.
This chapter began with the sunflower. I talk with the sunflowers in my garden, and they exude a certain joy and warmth unique to them. The rare purple hibiscus in my
136 garden, who I also speak with, exudes a different feeling altogether: more enchanting I
would say. As my participants related, plants have different personalities, and they all
influence unique relationships with humans. I assert there is a plant friend for every person: matching the full range of human personalities. This chapter also opened with an invitation to the reader to recognize which plant or plants in their life carry meaning, history, attachment, perhaps happiness or perhaps pain. This serves as an opportunity to open relationship building in your own life to the plants around you: at home, at the store, in your community. Multispecies environmental collaboration offers many opportunities to address climate change, environmental crises, and the range of issues that accompany what is not working out equitably for humankind and all the species on earth.
137 CHAPTER 8: CONCLUSION
My research engaged in the contradiction of discussing kinship with nature while at the same time continuing the usage of terms which set up separateness and distinguish humans from nature and multispecies kinship. My research revealed that a kincentric relationship with plants and our environments is available to everyone, and traces of this type of relationship are often expressed in small individual ways by the plant lovers and advocates whom I spoke with. However, an individual’s kin relationship with the environment is taken out of the broader cultural context that informs Indigenous practices. These relationships are complex interconnected systems. One cannot simply extract a practice independent of its connectivity in a region, an ecosystem, a landscape. In conversation with Indigenous peoples about kincentric ecology, this relationship is not theoretical, and not only practiced individually but influences individuals, communities, and ecosystems.
While my research began in conversation about relationship to plants and landscape, it quickly grew to being a conversation about Indigenous land rights. Because there is a critical connection between these landscapes and the human relationships that have occurred on them. Examining kincentric ecology within the framework of critical ecology addresses environmental crises and human rights crises. Critical ecology is an emerging field which draws from both the biological and social sciences, “seeking to quantitatively relate historical and contemporary extractive and oppressive social systems and processes to their ecological and biogeochemical corollaries” (Critical Ecology Lab,
2020). While my research was not quantitative, it also seeks to undermine structures of oppression through recognizing the foundations of the current landscape relationships.
138 They cannot be taken out of context. The global environmental crisis we are facing is both regional and global. Environmental solutions cannot be successful without addressing the degenerative and oppressive systems of white supremacy, settler colonialism, and extractive environmental ethics. We face a social problem as much as we face an environmental problem.
Treatment of our environments mirrors our treatment of people. Some environments are determined to be expendable, disposable, in the same way that some people are considered expendable and exploitable (Hopkins, 2020). When the global framework runs on industrial capitalism, white supremacy, racism, classism, sexism, everyone suffers, the environment suffers. Climate change and environmental crises are not an individual problem. The onus of environmental issues is often placed on the individual, but it's not about whether I use a plastic straw, it is a structural problem. That being said, I still advocate for making kind environmental choices (many can recall the viral video of the turtle with the straw up their nose)17.
As we face growing environmental dilemmas having a critical ecology perspective becomes increasingly important. This perspective is critical of all the dominating forces and structures which have determined our course so far. This perspective places relationship at the forefront of all species interaction and allows for regenerative engagement between humans and nature. Critical ecology allows for examining the social and moral aspects of human relationship to environment, under
17 https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=324&v=4wH878t78bw&feature=emb_logo This video is heart wrenching and inspired major companies, such as Starbucks, to work towards a ban on plastic straws. However, it should be noted that the ban on plastic straws also sparked an argument against ableism, because there is always complexity within any issue, and society is not constructed around people with disabilities.
139 white settler heteropatriarchal, colonial, racist constructs. It is fitting that at this time of climate crisis, environmental and landscape degradation, humans are seeing the results of land treatment that does not center reciprocal relationships or intimate connection.
The first theme presented in my research of human-environment relationship, chapter four, is Socio-Ecological Relationship: Environmental Policy and Landscape Stewardship. The oak (wet), as a cultural keystone species to California
Indians, represents stewardship based in Indigenous relationships to landscape and regenerative practices, which could be incorporated into environmental policy. These relationships provided for successful ecosystem management in the Los Angeles area, or Tovaangar, for thousands of years. However, an analysis of environmental management always returns to a conversation about how the land has changed hands and
Indigenous sovereignty. Settler colonialism continues to impact environmentalism, ecosystems, and ecology (Bacon, 2018; Moreton-Robinson, 2015). The Western concept of wilderness and structures of environmental management are founded in anti-
Indigenous rhetoric and practices.
The next theme, chapter five, is Ecological Relationship in Action: People on the Landscape. Mustard opens this chapter to illustrate foraging, an intimate human- landscape interaction. This chapter shows that humans can be a beneficial member of an ecosystem, enhancing the landscape. Negative impacts are far more a result of the direct or ongoing repercussions of industrial capitalism rather than individual actions.
There are many different associations with the word foraging, but relationship building with the environment, as an active process of regenerating the landscape is highlighted.
140 Access to landscapes is also a relevant issue, and again, Indigenous sovereignty is
relevant in this theme.
Chapter six addresses relationships especially felt by Indigenous participants.
Entitled Socio-Cultural Relationships Under Settler Colonialism, the chapter opens with
white sage (kasili) to illustrate cultural appropriation. The topics in this chapter are appropriation, value, and erasure of Native knowledge and peoples. This chapter reveals
how the constructs of white settler colonialism and industrial capitalism work together to
dispossess Indigenous peoples of land and identity, historically and currently. These
forces, perpetuated individually and systemically, simultaneously fetishize and eliminate
Indigenous peoples.
Chapter seven, the final theme, is Kincentric Ecological Relationships, introduced
by my own relationship with sunflowers, and an opportunity for the reader to ponder their
own connection with plants. This chapter focuses on attributing aliveness to landscapes
and plants, inclusive of all the more-than-human members of ecosystems. Recognizing
aliveness, re-kin-izing, creates an opening for relationship building, and both aliveness
and various ways of being in relationship appear in my conversations with participants.
While Indigenous relationships with landscape and plants were historically
developed through relationships which depended directly on the landscapes, those
relationships exist beyond that framework. Though somewhat limited due to current
environmental policies, Western definitions of nature, and Indigenous land and
sovereignty issues, those relationships were clearly present in the people I interviewed. In
one sense those relationships can go from daily relevance to a more theoretical concept,
like in my search for kincentric ecology. In another sense, those relationships can also go
141 in the reverse, approaching environmental stewardship through kincentric ecology and recreating deeply emotional and familial relationships with our landscapes. We do not have to return to a time before modern conveniences in order to foster relationship between plants and people, people and more-than-humans, and ecosystem communities. But we do have to be able to imagine an alternate relationship than the predominantly exploitative one in use by industry and corporations: a relationship based in relational values not extractive values. We must imagine a future different than the one industrial capitalism, and environmental degradation have led us into, and the even riskier repercussions of climate change we increasingly face.
The specifics unique to any given region cannot be generalized, but relationship to the landscape as a requirement is the common factor to successful human-environment interaction. As my participants noted, the relationship is a participation in constant cycles of regeneration: regeneration of the landscape, and of the people, and of the relationship itself. This could require a new pledge of allegiance, to the land you are on, and to the people; a pledge to your ecosystem and all the multispecies inhabitants.
The faux foundation of the United States advertised as equality and the pursuit of an endless frontier leads citizens further into an imperial downward spiral of ongoing settler colonialism and white supremacy (Grandin, 2019). The United States was never a democracy. It is not currently a democracy, and it will not be a democracy without addressing systemic and structural racism, and the violent, brutal history of genocide and slavery. Additionally, this rhetoric of fierce individualism as the founding of the United
States places the onus of addressing environmental degradation on the individual. While individuals certainly play a role in environmental destruction by their decisions, their
142 decisions are a product of this collaborative ecology in which we all exist. An ecology led by industrial capitalism, corporate greed, and white supremacy.
In contrast, plants illustrate a narrative of inter-reliance, of collaboration, of abundance and generosity which counters the rugged individualism showcased in the
American narrative and tenets of whiteness and Western culture (Katz, 1990). Plants can be anti-capitalist; plants address land rights and Indigenous sovereignty, food sovereignty, and food security (Finley, 2013). Let's follow the example of the plants in this case, as well as value knowledge and education from non-traditional sources. These are sources that do not conform to traditional Western academia, such as traditional ecological knowledge, Indigenous science, and innovation; ideas that challenge the business as usual degeneration of landscape and provide regenerative solutions.
Indigenous nations can “draw on their history and culture to develop strategies, innovative and ancient for addressing self-determination in the face of risky changes” (Reo et al., 2017, p. 203). However, at the same time being mindful of not extracting and exploiting the keepers and creators of that knowledge. Just compensation remains necessary now, and in a paradigm shift to a regenerative future. Indigenous-led, culturally relevant, and re-structured relationships to land that counter industrial capitalism will create a re-imagined human-environment relationship that lives with landscapes, not over them.
Western settler colonial relationships with landscape and with more-than-humans are expressed as property relations (TallBear, 2019). These relationships are embedded in the structure of our current environmental policy and dismantling these structures that have been privileging white settler colonialism scares much of the population. Kim
143 TallBear (2019) says, “how lacking in imagination and radical hope is the settler state”
(p. 39). Deeply ingrained fears permeate the dominant U.S. culture: fear of change, fear of equality and equity, fear of retribution (for atrocious acts of genocide and slavery).
Overcoming environmental issues requires creative and alternative solutions, renewable energies, and regenerative practices. This also requires engaging with the social issues and injustices that are part of the destruction of human-environment relationships.
Regenerative processes of the earth involve the flow of energy and the recycling of matter. This includes critical ecosystem processes such as decomposition (Lyons, 2020).
Those processes can become more familiar as we use them to dismantle degenerative structures. At the same time “turning toward” dialogue that confronts, takes responsibility, and creates motion toward mending relations and a regenerative future for all (Fackenheim, 1982/1994; Rose, 2011, p. 5). Charles Sepulveda (2018) presents an innovative option by proposing the “concept of Kuuyam, the Tongva word for guests. He calls Kuuyam a “decolonial possibility” in which all people are guests of the land and behavior is set accordingly (Sepulveda, 2018). Humans can be symbiotic as opposed to parasitic in their landscape and ecosystem relationships. Re-centering Indigenous land relationships, upsetting hierarchy, and dismantling destructive environmental behaviors while recreating regenerative behaviors can move society off this historic swing of exploitations and towards ecosystem balance. Kincentric ecological relationships are part of establishing a framework of Kuuyam, but only along with the reestablishment of
Indigenous sovereignty and self-determination.
These structures like white supremacy and settler colonialism are actually quite fragile. Yes, they have been sustained over centuries, generated very successfully in fact.
144 Yet, upholding them requires massive amounts of force and violence. The violent enforcement of these systems can be attested to by most anyone who experiences the oppression of structural racism and settler colonialism. A spectrum of privilege and oppression lies within Western society, and unfortunately, the further one gets towards privilege the more oppression is masked by the benefits received. However, structures or processes that require so much force and violence, executed by people, are not sustainable in the long run. And they are certainly not regenerative. Regenerative processes provide for the environment, they deliver back to the ecosystem; the carbon cycle, the water cycle, these are cycles which regenerate life, for everyone. To emphasize, regenerative cycles and processes on the earth provide necessary elements of survival (and elements to thrive) for everyone, all people, all plants, all animals, all more- than-humans. They do not pick and choose on a spectrum of privilege.
A system that benefits all participants is far more sustainable than one that only benefits a few. Despite its maintenance by humans, upheld by industrial violence and human violence, the detrimental systems of white supremacy and settler colonialism teeter on the brink of their own destruction. And I argue that they can be toppled. If a system can only be sustained through violence, is it really a workable system?
Regeneration of the earth occurs constantly, while we are watching, while we are destroying the environment through fossil fuel extraction, and while we are not watching at all. Imagine the society that could exist by working with regenerative processes rather than against them. And imagine the society we could have making kin with our landscapes and the humans and more-than-humans living upon them. There is no place for non-consensual violation here, but instead a fostering of permission and consent.
145 As we look to create more regenerative behaviors, it is critical that we analyze whether the behavior or action upholds social injustice and inequity: in development and in application. As I have mentioned before, the field of sustainability and Regenerative
Studies is by no means free and clear of white supremacy and settler colonialism. Often
Indigenous principles are only given a cursory nod. Being truly regenerative must include the people, particularly the people who have been left out of the conversation.
146 REFERENCES
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