CORRINA GOULD on Settler Responsibility and Reciprocity [ENCORE] /277

“Rematriate the Land” hand-lettered sign hanging on a chain link fence featured in Free the West Berkeley Shellmound!, a Sacred Land Film Project, © 2021 Christopher MacLeod / Earth Island Institute.

This week we are rebroadcasting our interview with Corrina Gould, originally aired in November of 2020. Prior to settler development and extraction, the landscapes and lifeways of Ohlone territory were richly abundant with acorns, grass seeds, wildflowers, elk, salmon, grizzly bears, and berries. In this week’s episode of For The Wild, guest Corrina Gould reminds us that Ohlone territory still holds tremendous abundance and that the land can sustain us in a way that would provide for our wellbeing should we choose to really re-examine what it is we need to survive. But more than a conversation on the wealth of the land, we explore responsibility and reciprocity on stolen homelands by asking what it means to be in right relationship? How can we foster integrity in conservation and land restoration work amidst a world that continues to peddle scarcity, greed, and extraction? How can folks contribute to the re-storying of the land, even if through small acts?

“We need to figure out a different way of being on this Earth with less things. And I think that’s it, we don’t need the things, we need each other, we need to be back in right relationships with each other and everything else that lives on the Earth.”

— Corrina Gould / Episode 277

Photo of Corinna Gould

“Corrina Gould is the spokesperson for the Confederated Villages of Lisjan/Ohlone. She was born and raised in Oakland, CA, the territory of Huichin. She is an activist that has worked on preserving and protecting the ancient burial sites of her ancestors in the Bay Area for decades. She is the Co-founder and a Lead Organizer for Indian People Organizing for Change, a small Native run grassroots organization and co-founder of the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust, an urban Indigenous women’s community organization working to return land to Indigenous stewardship in San Francisco’s East Bay.”

This enriching conversation also explores Sogorea Te’ Land Trust as the first urban Indigenous women-led land trust in the country, what land reclamation looks like in urbanized areas, and how land taxes can both begin to foster relationships on stolen lands, while also meaningfully supporting tribes in places like California that remain unrecognized by the federal government. Our conversation closes with a vision for land restoration and reclamation that does not disrupt the healing, sanctity, and rhythm of life after so many years of colonial violence. 

♫ The music featured in this episode is "Warriors" by Shayna Gladstone and "Canta," "Rain Song," and "Meteor Martyr" by Amo Amo.

Take Action

Support the Shuumi Land Tax.
Support a local Indigenous-led project on the land you are on.
Support mutual aid for one of the most pandemic impacted tribes such as the Navajo.

Episode References

Sogorea Te’s Shummi Land Tax
Sogorea Te’ Land Trust
Planting Justice
Johnella LaRose
Indian People Organizing for Change
Junípero Serra 
Real Rent Duwamish
Manna-hatta Fund
Trust in the Land: New Directions in Tribal Conservation by Beth Rose Middleton
“Sacred Shellmounds of the Bay Area”

Reading Recommendations

Unsettling Ourselves: Reflections and Resources for Deconstructing Colonial Mentality

Accomplices Not Allies: Abolishing the Ally Industrial Complex

The Problem With Privilege by Andrea Smith

What Does it Mean to be a Weapon of War? Settler Colonialism and Black Labor by William Jamal Richardson

Un-Settling Settler Desires by Scott Morgenson

Decolonization is Not a Metaphor by Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang (especially the section called “Moves to Innocence III: Colonial Equivocation”)

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