This is almost a year old. But still good to read to get a better understanding of what the “ land back movement” is. Many confuse , and fear, that land back means something like descendants of settlers losing their property and being forced out of America. But it’s nothing like that. It’s about things like handing public land back over to the indigenous tribes that historically lived there. This public land is not then shut off and they forbid outsiders on to it. Instead it means the tribe manages its preservation and activities instead of a government branch. So things like fishing or seed collection permits go through the tribe as opposed to US Fish and Wildlife.
All of that is a primer for what the post is about. The majority probably are aware of the argument that many things, like theology, carries a adjective. Such as if all of your theology books are by American men then your theology is American male theology , regardless of woke they are. I often see “ what can we do by guilt stricken people” online to help cultivate market for others outside of their “peas of a pod” mindset.
When it comes to theology one of the things is to look for books and podcasts published by people that don’t share their experience. Such as since I’m a white American guy it’s beneficial to get books by women, people from other countries including non western nations and people who are not white.
Another way is to include this with your passions. If you really like hiking then maybe look up some trails with significant indigenous importance. If you like natural history and anthropology then look up information from these people as well. Look up local reservations and find a guide there and enjoy a few trips and learn from them.
This same passion and diversity can also be applied to anything. I’m a horror fan. I make sure to include non white horror into my listening, reading and watching. Nightlight for example is a horror podcast by black men and women. You can also simply google keyword searches like “ horror by indigenous authors “ or getting as specific as you want.
You can even look up various publishing companies and see what all they offer.
So I’m curious how do y’all incorporate diversity and not your studies , hobbies and entertainment?
We (myself and my father) did a presentation at the Waccamaw Souian STEM Day last August, about the local fossils that we had been collecting (both studies and hobby). I wish there were something known of the local languages, beyond a few short word lists, so that species could be named based on them, but all of those languages, and almost all of those tribes, disappeared at least a century ago. Catawba is the closest semi-extant one (last native speaker died c. 1965, some second-language speakers currently)
(I’m holding the camera)
If you are curious about the large shell at the front left, that is a 23 cm Busycon contrarium, closely related to the modern Lightning Whelk, Busycon perversum. The same specimen is shown below.
Nice. So y’all go to reservations, or conventions, and teach the members about your field of research. It does suck that many of the languages and cultures are disappearing. How are they influencing what y’all are doing? Getting some of them to join and search reservations?
There aren’t any reservations in the area, and there are only about 500-1000 NC Waccamaw around (which was about their pre-European number), and none of any of the other local tribes. We were at the area of tribal land (~4 acres). We did solicit ideas for names for new species from them, but sticking a quarry on the tribal lands seems unlikely, given their size. The closest reservation is that of the Catawba, about 150 miles away.
Yes, that works nicely, but fossils from this area have far more of a challenge to do something similar, because almost all of the languages from within 200 miles of there went extinct too long ago to know anything beyond a few words. Catawba and Cherokee are the only survivors within that distance. Catawba is fairly closely related (maybe something like English and Icelandic, but I really don’t know).
