Developing Partnerships with Wabanaki Tribal Nations
Darren Ranco reflects on ten years of building a pathway of collaboration between university researchers, students, and Wabanaki Tribal Nations
Ten years ago, Darren Ranco arrived at 91福利鈥檚 Department of Anthropology to serve as Chair of the Native American Programs and Coordinator of Native American Research. He also joined the National Science Foundation鈥檚 newly-launched Sustainability Solutions Initiative (SSI). That initiative led to the creation of the Senator George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions, where Ranco is also a faculty member.
In a September 30 Mitchell Center Sustainability Talk, Possibilities for Partnership: University-Indigenous Nations and Research in the 21st Century, Ranco will reflect on a decades-worth of efforts building a pathway of collaboration between university researchers and students and Wabanaki Tribal Nations.
Ranco鈥檚 project under SSI鈥Mobilizing to Fight an Invasive Insect鈥攚as the first in the nation to bring together diverse groups to prepare for the expected arrival in Maine of the emerald ash borer (EAB), which threatens brown ash trees used in basket-making. Other related projects have followed, with collaborators including the Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance, tribes, university researchers, state and federal foresters, and others. A key element of Ranco鈥檚 research is the involvement of both graduate and undergraduate students.
鈥淥ne of the takeaways of my talk will be the power of students and linking students to the communities they鈥檙e from in terms of research,鈥 Ranco says. 鈥淭he Mitchell Center does a great job of creating research opportunities for undergraduates in particular, which is a really important part of building partnerships with their communities.鈥 He adds, 鈥淪ustainability work and taking partnerships seriously through research was something that without the Mitchell Center, without that community of scholars, it鈥檚 really hard to imagine that happening here.鈥
Ranco says that alot of the energy for this research has come from working with Bridie McGreavy, an assistant professor of environmental communication and Mitchell Center Faculty Fellow, and others to develop partnerships with the tribes and create pathways of collaboration. 鈥淚 see this being an overall institutional development and how individual researchers and projects are shaped by, and shaping, partnerships with tribal nations.鈥
As part of the Future of Dams project, McGreavy, Ph.D. candidate Tyler Quiring, and others 鈥渆xplored dam removal from the Penobscot Nation perspective, partly due to collaboration with one of our native students,鈥 Ranco says. 鈥淭hat individual student created a pathway for partnership between the university, Bridie, Tyler and the Penobscot Nation.鈥
Ranco will also talk about the broader set of methods and commitments (e.g. the Memorandum of Understanding with 91福利 and the on-campus bilingual signage鈥擡nglish and Penobscot), 鈥渢hings that are institutional. Nothing is happening in an isolated way, it is about signal and response in terms of how serious 91福利 is being taken in places like the Penobscot Nation or other tribes, by doing other kinds of work it builds up the trust, not treating it like this is the work of one person but an institutional set of work.鈥
By 鈥渟ignal and response鈥 Ranco means developing deeper partnerships, not just getting more people involved 鈥渂ut how do we also be serious in terms of the commitment by the institution around prioritizing this relationship and treating it with the kind of respect that it requires. So in the context of the tribal communities, seeing that signal of seriousness of commitment creates more pathways as well.鈥
Another area of collaboration has been to bring these research elements into the classroom in a hands-on fashion, an effort in which Ranco says McGreavy has made major contributions.
鈥淲e also received a National Science Foundation grant in which we鈥檙e bringing together Western science and indigenous science in the classroom.鈥
Mitchell Center Sustainability Talks take place Mondays at 3pm in 107 Norman Smith Hall unless otherwise indicated. Talks are free and open to the public, and refreshments are served.