CRITICAL INDIGENOUS
“An understanding of critical indigenous theory could provide a lens to question Western land-use practices, challenge ownership models, and evaluate how anthropogenic effects on the land disproportionately influence indigenous communities. The acknowledgment and incorporation of indigenous ecological frameworks, cosmologies, and scholarship into design thinking can extend to critical engagement with decolonizing practices.”
- Wid Bibliography 2nd Ed.
Sustainable Native Communities Collaborative: NHA Planning Manual [ project ]
This master planning effort conducted between 2011 and 2013 sought to address diverse housing needs across the Navajo Nation’s 5 Agencies, 24 Regions, and 110 Chapters. The primary goals of this housing framework were to develop sustainable strategies, policy recommendations, and culturally appropriate housing typologies for the Navajo Housing Authority (NHA). Community partnerships and grassroots planning methodologies were crucial to the process in both the masterplan development and the establishment of best practices for other regional planning efforts. Some of the challenges encountered involved outreach and consideration of Dine’ diasporic members living in both highly urbanized contexts off-reservation land, and within remote, rural, low-density communities.
“In the Navajo (Dine’) way of life, the concept of “Hózhóogo naasháa doo,“ “walking in beauty,” is an ancient term describing a sustainable way of life, “ steeped in the land, water, air, sun, and seasons.” As described in the NHA Planning Manual, “the Dine’ are meant to live off the land in beauty, harmony, happiness, and in the “Hozho” way of life, in balance with the natural environment.” The planning effort sought to bring this way of thinking into a dialogue with tribal members in the development of a sustainable framework for designing new communities on Navajo land.”
This Land : Episode 1 - The Case [ podcast ]
Cherokee Nation citizen Rebecca Nagle begins her eight-episode podcast with this first segment, in which she considers the history leading up to the July 2020 Supreme Court ruling that affirmed much of Eastern Oklahoma as Native American sovereign territory. Nagle particularly discusses how the government allotment system was used to steal Oklahoma reservation land following the nineteenth century forced removal of Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee (Creek), and Cherokee peoples from their lands in the American Southeast. And in conversation with legal experts and tribal leaders, she also lays out the relationships between land ownership, mineral rights, and criminal prosecution law.
“Major Ridge and John Ridge, two generations of my family, were killed on the same day. They were assassinated for a choice they made. That decision brought our tribe to this land on the promise that it would be ours for as long as the waters run and the grass grows. But the United States didn’t keep that promise. People might think these broken promises that are more than a century old don’t matter today, but they have everything to do with the present. Like those yellow flowers poking through the soil, sometimes the past finds its way to the surface.”
In Conversation with Alfred Waugh of Formline Architecture [ interview ]
In this CBC Radio interview with Chipewyan architect and founder of Formline Architecture, Alfred Waugh discusses the materials, cultural connections, historic dialog, and larger goals of some of his recent projects. In particular, he talks about the in-progress design of Indigenous House, a community space for indigenous students at the University of Toronto. Waugh stresses the importance of equal opportunities for indigenous students including space for belonging and the maintenance of cultural ties.
“UBC is on the unceded territory of the Musqueam people. We had some engagement sessions with the Musqueam Nation. I asked them, "What's one of the most important things this building should achieve?" And they said because it's a conduit to the Truth and Reconciliation records – photos, writings, and testimonials from residential school survivors – the building may spur an emotional response for some people. So it's really important to us that no matter where you are in this building, you're able to turn and see the landscape and experience its calming effects.”