Voices of Indigenuity (Intersections in Environmental Justice)

Voices of Indigenuity collects the voices of the Indigenous Speaker Series and multigenerational Indigenous peoples to introduce best practices for traditional ecological knowledge (TEK). In this edited collection, presenters from the series, both within and outside of the academy, examine the ways they have utilized TEK for inclusive teaching practices and in environmental justice efforts.

Advocating for and providing an expansion of place-based Indigenized education that infuses Indigenous epistemologies for student success in both K–12 and higher education curricula, these essays explore topics such as land fragmentation, remote sensing, and outreach through the lens of TEK, demonstrating methods of fusing learning with Indigenous knowledge (IK). Contributors emphasize the need to increase the perspectives of IK within institutionalized knowledge beyond being co-opted into non-Indigenous frameworks that may be fundamentally different from Indigenous ways of thinking.

Decolonizing current harmful pedagogical curricula and research training about the natural world through an Indigenous- guided approach is an essential first step to rebuilding a healthy relationship with our environment while acknowledging that all relationships come with an ethical responsibility. Voices of Indigenuity captures the complexities of exploring the contextu- alized meanings for why TEK should be integrated into Western environmental science processes and frameworks while rooted in Indigenous studies programs.

Michelle R. Montgomery (enrolled Haliwa Saponi/descendant Eastern Band Cherokee) is associate professor and chair in the Division of Social and Historical Studies in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, the assistant director for the Office of Undergraduate Education, and the Indigenous curriculum and community advisor for the School of Education at the University of Washington Tacoma. Montgomery’s successes include transparent and trustworthy collaborations with transboundary Indigenous scholars and communities, Tribal Colleges and Universities, and the broader discipline; practice of Indigenous knowledges’ connection to climate justice; and Indigenous pedagogy through a lens of ecocritical race theory.