In this new episode of For The Wild podcast, Ayana and guest Dr. Clint Carroll, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, discuss the mobility of Cherokee ethical frameworks as they are applied to environmental governance projects for Land Back. Exploring various forms of Cherokee relationality throughout time, Dr. Carroll pushes back against dominant settler histories about Cherokee migrations and relations to homeland and provides insight into what audience members ought to glean from Indigenous philosophies imparting practices of deep reciprocity, responsibility, and relationship to the land and each other.

This episode shares about Cherokee Nation’s historic plant gathering agreement with Buffalo National River Cherokee Treaty Lands and details of the Cherokee Environmental Leadership program, spearheaded by Dr. Carroll. We learn of Cherokee treaty history, Cherokee relations to more than human kin encoded in origin story, Cherokee place names, and Cherokee linguistic concepts central to the Cherokee Environmental Leadership program that de-center human beings and re-center relationships and responsibilities with a community of other-than-human kin.

Dr. Clint Carroll is an Associate Professor of Native American and Indigenous Studies in the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. A citizen of the Cherokee Nation, he works at the intersections of Indigenous studies, anthropology, and political ecology, with an emphasis on Cherokee environmental governance and land-based resurgence. Currently, he is working with Cherokee elders, students, and Cherokee Nation staff on an integrated education and research project that investigates Cherokee access to wild plants in northeastern Oklahoma amid shifting climate conditions and fractionated tribal lands. Funded by the National Science Foundation and the Indian Land Tenure Foundation, this work aims to advance methods and strategies for Indigenous land education and community-based conservation.

♫ The music featured in this episode is “The Cosmos and the Grand Canyon” by Buffalo Rose (Misra Records), “Better World” by Cold Mountain Child, “Heart Land” by Kendra Swanson, and “The Travellin’ Song” by Crispy Watkins and The Crack Willows.

Episode References

Place-based grant project– Ărramăt Project

The work Dr. Carroll is doing with Cherokee elders, students, and tribal biologists through the land education program

Indian-Pioneer Papers

Anthropologist James Mooney’s work with the Eastern Band

Cherokee Adaptation to the Landscape of the West and Overcoming the Loss of Culturally Significant Plants by R. Alfred Vick

Wildcat: It’s time to issue a Red Alert by Daniel Wildcat

“Stand As One: Spiritual Teachings of Keetoowah: Awakening to the Original Truths” by Crosslin Fields Smith

Grounded Normativity / Place-Based Solidarity by Glen Coulthard and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson

What’s Normative Got to Do with It?: Toward Indigenous Queer Relationality by Jodi A Byrd

,Cherokee Relationships to Land: Reflections on a Historic Plant Gathering Agreement between Buffalo National River and the Cherokee Nation by Clint Carroll

“Relational Activism and Indigenous Futures” by Clint Carroll

“Commentary: The Environmental Anthropology of Settler Colonialism, Part II“ by Clint Carroll

Roots of Our Renewal: Ethnobotany and Cherokee Environmental by Clint Carroll

Guest Recommendations

Stand as One: Spiritual Teachings of Keetoowah: Awakening to the Original Truths
Taos, NM: Dog Soldier Press, Crosslin Smith. 2018.

Original Teachings: Designed to Stand as One: Early Keetoowah Traditions and Teachings
Taos, NM: Dog Soldier Press. Crosslin Smith. 2021.

Ani Tsalagi Elohi Anehi: Cherokee Earth Dwellers
Christopher Teuton and Hastings Shade (forthcoming), University of Washington Press.

Sounds of Tohi: Cherokee Health and Well-Being in Southern Appalachia
Lisa J. Lefler and Thomas N. Belt (forthcoming)

As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom through Radical Resistance.
Leanne Betasamosake Simpson. 2017. University of Minnesota Press.

Roots of Our Renewal: Ethnobotany and Cherokee Environmental Governance.
Clint Carroll. 2015. University of Minnesota Press.

Take Action

Give to and support:
Indian Land Tenure Foundation

Center for Native American and Indigenous Studies

Native American Rights Fund

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