Engagement Project Description:
ENVR 335 Indigenous Ecologies is motivated by four primary objectives: 1) to
understand and recognize both historical and ongoing colonial harms; 2) to cultivate
awareness and appreciation of Indigenous lifewords (locally and globally); 3) to learn
anticolonial research and scholarship practices for working with Indigenous Peoples and
within Indigenous ecologies, and 4) to restore and rebuild good relations with Wabanaki
Nations, whose unceded homelands Bates College is located within today.
These objectives are sought through a community engaged learning approach that centers
deep listening to, working alongside, and nurturing relationships with Wabanaki and
other Native Peoples and organizations. In light of Bates College’s historically thin, and
even antagonistic, relationship with the Wabanaki Tribes, it is the current desire of the
institution, as well as an ask put forward by the Tribal members, that our relationship berestored and strengthened. This requires “doing our homework” and “showing-up” in
environmental and social issues of relevance to Wabanaki Nations. This class is
positioned to do this work, and to prepare Bates students for the next step of doing
anticolonial community engaged research within Wabanaki homelands and with and for
Wabanaki community needs. In this way, the class specifically feeds into the
Environmental Studies’s capstone course ENVR 417 Practicum in Community-Engaged
Research, where students work collaboratively with community partners in service of
community research needs; as well as prepares students for other opportunities as
research fellows in the faculty’s CER grants with Tribal partners.
Since beginning the Indigenous Ecologies course in Winter 2023, the course has
facilitated relationships with the Wabanaki Land Commission, a Penobscot,
Passamoquoddy, Mi’kmaq and Maliseet alliance dedicated to land rematriation in the
Dawn Land (Wabanaki homelands). In 2024, representative of the Wabanki Land
Commission, Penobscot member Dr. Darren Ranco, was hosted for an on campus day
visit, where he engaged with the class on issues of Land rematriation, met with the
administration regarding potential Tribal-College collaborations, and offered a
campus-wide talk on the return of Wáhsehtəkʷ (unceded waters and lands) to Penobscot
Nation. Beyond deep listening, our class also aspires to “show up” for and with Wabanaki
partners in active and meaningful ways. Our class attendance to the “State of the Tribes”
address on March 16, 2023, a historic moment where all five Wabanaki Nations were
represented in a joint session at the Maine Legislature, is one example of this effort.
The proposed Fall 2025 class (and future iterations) builds upon this early course
momentum, aiming to expand and deepen relationships, collaborate, and reciprocally
engage with Wabanaki partners to address intertwined class objectives and community
needs. Partnership with the Wabanaki Land Commission is ongoing, as are emerging
relationships with Penobscot and Passamoquoddy member, Minquansis Sapiel, Wabanaki
waterways guide and storyteller; and Bomazeen Land Trust, a Wabanaki organization for
renewal of Indigenous land caretaking and stewardship of lands and waters.
Relationship building through engaged deep listening, showing up, and mutually
beneficial collaboration require resources beyond that of a routine on-campus class. With
the support from the Bonner Foundation, ENVR335 Indigenous Ecologies will be able to
fund and support land-based learning engagements with Wabanaki partners on Wabanaki
waterways with Minquansis Sapiel and students will produce storytelling materials with
her, such as powerpoint slides and a digital story archive that will assist her in her
educational outreach. In this way, learning and deep listening is moved out of the
classroom and is aligned more closely with Indigenous pedagogies––teaching and
learning with/in Lands and Waters. The support of the Bonner Foundation specifically
provides resources for redesigning the course with community engaged research
opportunities that are now crystalizing and emergent after years of prior relationship
building.
Importantly, goals of relationship building and restoration with Wabanaki Nations and
Wabanaki partner organizations is an iterative, long-term process of institutional andsocietal change. This is not done in isolation but rather pursued in collaboration with the
support of the Harward Center and other academic departments, faculty and staff. This
collaborative institutional effort ensures relational durability and sustainable
infrastructure which extends beyond one course, or a single faculty.
CEL Budget Request for this course: