Center for Native American Research & Collaboration (CNRC) Indigenous Research & Projects Conference
March 21-22, 2024
Washington State University Pullman
The WSU Center for Native American Research & Collaboration (CNRC) invites you to the second annual Indigenous Research & Projects Conference, focusing upon the intersections between Indigenous knowledge, scholarship, and nation building.
Welcome Reception: March 21, Elson S. Floyd Cultural Center: 5:00 PM-7:00 PM
Keynote Address: March 22, CUB Senior Ballroom: 9:00 AM-10:30 AM
KEYNOTE: Dr. Cutcha Risling Baldy, Collaboration for Self-Determination: Research and Scholarship for Indigenous Empowerment & Decolonization.
The Keynote address is free and will be streamed here at 9:00 AM Pacific Time. Please register below.
Description: Engaging with Indigenous knowledges, Indigenous Science, Traditional Ecological Knowledges, place-based learning and tribal communities requires a refocusing from “consultation” or even “collaboration” toward an empowerment model for upholding sovereignty and self-determination. This includes working to empower Indigenous students, communities, and ongoing projects of land return, environmental justice, and education. This keynote presentation will discuss key projects focused on land justice, food sovereignty, and decolonial frameworks for engaging with Tribal nations and organizations. The talk explores the history of cultural knowledge exploitation, new programs and initiatives including Place-Based Learning and the Rou Dalagurr: Food Sovereignty Lab and Traditional Ecological Knowledges Institute at Cal Poly Humboldt; and the resurgence of Indigenous science and knowledges as moving beyond “interdisciplinary” work toward “undisciplined” research and scholarship that innovates new approaches to building decolonial tribal partnerships and tribal leadership.
Dr. Cutcha Risling Baldy is an Associate Professor of Native American Studies at Cal Poly Humboldt. She researches Indigenous feminisms, California Indians, Environmental Justice, Indigenous Natural Resource Management, mental health and cultural interventions, and decolonization. She is the Co-Director of the NAS Food Sovereignty Lab & Traditional Ecological Knowledges Institute and Co-Investigator on an NSF INCLUDES Planning Grant for inclusive STEM pedagogy for Native American Students at Cal Poly Humboldt. Her book: We Are Dancing For You: Native feminisms and the revitalization of women’s coming-of-age ceremonies received “Best First Book in Native American and Indigenous Studies” at the 2019 Native American Indigenous Studies Association Conference. She is Hupa, Karuk, and Yurok and enrolled in the Hoopa Valley Tribe.
REGISTRATION:
KEYNOTE: No fee.
CLICK HERE FOR KEYNOTE REGISTRATION ONLY
CONFERENCE: $30.00 for faculty, researchers, practitioners, and community members.
CONFERENCE: $5.00 for Upper-Level Undergraduates or Graduate Students.
CLICK HERE FOR CONFERENCE REGISTRATION Refreshments and Friday Lunch are included with registration.
Registration can be accepted at the door, but food may be limited.
ELSON S. FLOYD CULTURAL CENTER DIRECTIONS AND PARKING
CONFERENCE AGENDA
| March 21 | Elson S. Floyd Cultural Center |
| 5:00-7:00 PM | Welcome Reception |
| March 22 | CUB Senior Ballroom |
| 8:30-9:00 | Light Breakfast/Conference Registration |
| 9:00-10:30 AM | Keynote Address by Dr. Cutcha Risling Baldy |
| Welcome from Leroy Seth, Nez Perce Circle of Elders
“Collaboration for Self-Determination: Research and Scholarship for Indigenous Empowerment & Decolonization,” by Dr. Cutcha Risling Baldy. Keynote Address will be followed by Funding Announcement by Dr. Kim Christen, Vice-Chancellor, Office of Research Advancement and Partnerships. |
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| March 22 | Elson S. Floyd Cultural Center |
| 11:00-5:00 | Conference Presentations & Discussions |
| Living Room
12:00-1:00 Lunch |
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| 1:00-1:45
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Dr. Rodney Cawston, Director of Environmental Trust, Colville Confederated Tribes; Councilwoman Jeannie Louie, Director of Cultural Program, Coeur d’Alene Tribe; Leroy Seth, Circle of Elders, Nez Perce Tribe: “Tribal Elders Guidance on True Tribally Engaged Research” |
| Eagle & Serpent/Coyote Rooms | |
| 11:00-11:45 | Dr. Cheryl Ellenwood (Nez Perce), WSU; Cheyanne Weikle (CSKT), WSU Student; Alesia Nez (Navajo), WSU Student: “TNBL Scholars Present Indigenous Data for Native Nation Building” |
| 2:00-2:45 | Dr. Risling Baldy & Dr. Higheagle Strong: “Discussion on Revisioning American Indian Studies Program at WSU” |
| 3:00-3:45 | Dr. Tyron Love (Māori), University of Canterbury: “The Dark Side of Native Academia in Aotearoa New Zealand”Four years ago we began a New Zealand royal society funded study examining the political power relations between the Native Māori academic and the New Zealand university sector to contribute to national and international postcolonial debates about the causes of, and solutions to, Indigenous faculty exclusion and exploitation in universities. Findings are based on qualitative interview data with more than 20 Māori academics. In this presentation, Tyron Love (a visiting Fulbright Fellow at WSU in 2023) will discuss a central finding from the project: the issue with university biopower. We help to bring university biopower to the fore in the empirical setting of Aotearoa New Zealand universities to reveal the invisible side of power. Central to biopower is the idea that control is exercised through the autonomy of Indigenous academic labour. Creating positive working futures requires serious scrutiny of biopower and consideration of alternatives. We highlight some of the specific challenges faced by Native Māori academics despite the recent introduction of institutional arrangements by New Zealand universities that ostensibly seek to give recognition to Native Māori ways of working and living, including its founding documents; the Treaty of Waitangi. Of course, there is room for a positive perspective that a lighter side of a dark institution is possible through connectedness, positive change and some forms of resistance and these will be discussed. |
| 4:00-4:45 | Dr. Bill Schlosser, Spokane Falls Community College: “The Wolf-Based Trophic Cascade in the Olympic Peninsula: Ecological Impacts on Salmon, Mollusks, and Beyond”Our study delves into the trophic cascades triggered by the removal of gray wolves in Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, focusing on the Roosevelt elk population and riparian zone functions. This anthropogenic influence has led to overgrazing, reduced vegetation, and habitat loss, impacting salmon spawning and beaver dam pools. The resulting ecosystem shifts extend to the decline of mollusks, limpets, and phytoplankton in the Pacific Ocean. Amidst these challenges, the Quinault Indian Nation’s conservation efforts, including blueback salmon harvests and habitat restoration, offer crucial insights. This research emphasizes the vital role of wolves in ecological balance and underscores the need for comprehensive conservation strategies. || The Olympic Peninsula of Washington State, USA, is an ecologically diverse region that has undergone significant changes due to anthropogenic influences such as the removal of gray wolves (Canis lupus occidentalis). This trophic cascade has led to a decline in biodiversity, the loss of important habitat for aquatic species, and significant cultural impacts on indigenous tribes such as the Quinault Indian Nation (QIN). Our study explores the impact of trophic cascades on the ecosystem of the Olympic Peninsula, focusing on the effects of the removal of wolves on the Roosevelt elk (Cervus canadensis roosevelti) population and functions of riparian zones. Our findings suggest that the removal of wolves has led to an increase in elk populations, resulting in overgrazing of riparian zones, a reduction in vegetation, and loss of salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.) spawning habitat and beaver (Castor canadensis) dam pools. This, in turn, has had a cascading effect on the entire ecosystem, leading to a decline in mollusks (Class Mollusca), limpets (Order Patellogastropoda), and phytoplankton (Division Chlorophyta) populations in the Pacific Ocean. Our study highlights the critical role that wolves play in maintaining the ecological balance and the need to protect their populations. Additionally, the QIN’s efforts to mitigate the impacts of the trophic cascade through blueback salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) harvests and habitat restoration offer valuable insights into effective conservation strategies. Our study underscores the importance of considering the broader ecological and cultural implications of human activities in managing and protecting natural ecosystems. |
| Turtle/Sankofa Rooms | |
| 11:00-11:45 | Stephanie Blair, (Ojibwe) PhDC, WSU: “Assessing the Tribal Eco-cultural Risks of 6PPD-quinone”Tribes are burdened with the highest negative health impacts relating to environmental contaminants and climate change of any group in the United States. Considering effects of water quality degradation on Tribal health, one important reason for these health disparities is the lack of incorporation of federal trust responsibilities into the regulatory framework of the Clean Water Act (CWA) to protect treaty reserved rights for water-dependent resources, such as salmon and wild rice. Tribes have long called for action on federal trust responsibilities to reduce toxics risks and address the inadequacies of conventional risk assessments to characterize the numerous health hazards Tribes face due to contaminant exposures. On November 2022, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced proposed revisions to the CWA to clarify how the EPA will review state-set water quality standards to be consistent with Tribal reserved rights to water resources. If accepted, these regulatory revisions would be a step in the right direction to begin to apply over two decades of indigenous research on improving risk assessment methods to be inclusive of Tribal definitions of health and treaty protected uses of water and natural resources. The EPA proposes to initiate a review of water quality criteria regulations on a case-by-case basis. On November 2023, three Tribes successfully petitioned the EPA to review the newly discovered tire-related contaminant 6PPD-quinone under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) of 1976. 6PPD-quinone leaching from car tires and tire wear particles is known to cause recurrent die-offs of coho salmon in urban streams. NW Tribes bear significant cultural risks due continued losses of coho salmon in urban watersheds due to exposure to 6PPD-quinone. To better inform a comprehensive risk assessment under TSCA for 6PPD-quinone, Tribal assessment of impacts to cultural and community health should be included in the risk characterization. While each Tribe has unique definitions of community health and culturally appropriate methods of assessing risk and decision making, this current review serves as a broad example of potential health impacts based on frameworks developed to assess Tribal risk. Additionally, this review of 6PPD-quinone offers yet another example of the challenges Tribes face to prevent and reduce the significant impacts of toxics on their communities in a timely fashion. There continues to be a need for a framework that integrates cultural risk into environmental decision making. The proposed revisions to the CWA may well fall short of accomplishing such a goal, but it indicates a real and important path forward on an issue that has made little progress since the beginning of the environmental justice movement. |
| 2:00-2:45 | Roger Amerman (Choctaw); Nakia Williamson-Cloud (Nez Perce), WSU Student; Dr. Phil Cash Cash (Cayuse/Nez Perce); Dr. Ellen Morris Bishop: “Seeing with two eyes: The Scientific Value of Nimiipuu Ethnogeology”Two-Eyed Seeing (Etuaptmumk, a Mi’kmaw word) is an approach toinquiry and solutions in which investigators come together to view the world through an Indigenous lens with one eye (perspective), while the other eye sees through a Western lens. It has been used in a variety of Indigenous-partnered research projects. Working collaboratively and gathering Indigenous understanding of the geologic landscape may lead to improved understanding of Pleistocene and other processes and landscape evolution. Indigenous stories of landscapes and climate change are often considered “myths” by Euro-Americans and many geologists. But repeated correlation of Indigenous “myths” with scientifically documented events related to climate change, natural disaster, and geologic processes indicates that these stories accurately record real events and an acute understanding of landscape history that modern science should embrace. (Baraniuk, 2022; Bishop, 2014, Bishop and Amerman, 2023, Bobbette, 2022; Krajick, 2005; Nunn and Cook, 2021) For example, the Yakama name for Rattlesnake Mountain—the highest point adjacent to the Yakama and Tri-Cities, Washington basins—is Laliik which means “land above the water.” In 1923 J Harlen Bretz proposed that catastrophic Ice Age floods inundated both the Yakama and Tri-Cities basins. However, Yakama, Nez Perce, Cayuse, and other tribal stories recorded the occurrence of these floods and high standing refuges across the Columbia basin, including at Steptoe Butte, millennia before J Harlen Bretz’s insight. Other stories that spring from first-hand observation and experience include human encounters with mammoths in the western-most Columbia Basin, destructive jökulhlaups on the Salmon River 16,500 years ago, and Late Pleistocene landslides on the Clearwater River. Nimiipuu stories also confirm the volcanic nature of Columbia River basalts and the present slow eastward motion of the Seven Devils. In North American indigenous cultures, valuable information about landscape and cultures are woven into memorable stories told accurately for hundreds of generations. Stories about events and landscapes may include memorable characters (the trickster Coyote and his friend Fox, for example) that enhance their replicability. The information contained there-in should be recognized and considered in geologic research. |
| 3:00-3:45 | Kyle Serrott, PhDC, North Idaho College; Amy Bardwell, NIC; Mario Arechiga, Student, NIC: “Mutual Governance: “How the 9-point Agreement Constitutes Tribal Sovereignty for the Coeur d’Alene Tribe”In 1997, the Coeur d’Alene Tribe and North Idaho College signed and instituted a historic agreement, aptly called the 9-Point Agreement, that spells out the obligations and process for reciprocal collaboration between the college and the tribe. Significantly, the agreement demonstrates tribal sovereignty: a government-to-government relation between the Coeur d’Alene tribe, a sovereign nation, and North Idaho College, a public institution of the state of Idaho. This presentation details the agreement and demonstrates what tribal sovereignty can look like on the ground in local and tribal governance. |
| 4:00-4:50 | Dr. Joe Gladstone (Blackfeet/Nez Perce), WSU; Dr. Tyron Love (Māori), University of Canterbury;“Examining Culturally Strategic Scholarship”Work by Gladstone and Tyron Love explores significant challenges by Native faculty in higher education. In general, navigating through academic careers. Many come into academia with pragmatic intent to use their education to serve their community and lack full awareness of academia as a “trade”. This project explores the early career processes for these faculty from intent to enter profession, doctoral education, and establishing an academic career. Dr. Joe Gladstone (Blackfeet/Nez Perce), WSU; Research exploring challenges faced by some American Indian entrepreneurs describe apprehensions that practicing business as private individuals or families risk stepping outside American Indian cultural norms for collectivism. These apprehensions are perceptions described by the business owners, however there is no known empirical study confirming if tribal community members actually do discourage private business practice because of collective values. This study will survey non-business owners about their perceptions and attitudes toward private business activity by tribal members. |
Organized by WSU Office of Tribal Relations and Native American Programs.
With support from the WSU Office of Research, the College of Education, the Office of the Provost, the Office of the President, the David G. Pollart Center for Arts and Humanities, and the Center for Environmental Research, Education, and Outreach.
For further information, contact Ken Lokensgard, PhD, Co-Director, Center for Native American Research and Collaboration.
WSU Pullman is located on the homelands of the Nimíipuu (Nez Perce Tribe and the Palus people.