Tribally directed collaborative research on wild rice: the Kawe Gidaa-Naanaagadawendamin Manoomin project

Wild rice (Ojibwe: manoomin, Dakota: psiƞ; Zizania palustris) is central to the culture and diet of many Native people around the Laurentian Great Lakes, and in several areas, treaties between Tribes and the U.S. government protect their harvest rights. Wild rice is sensitive to environmental stressors and thus serves as a keystone species for protecting ecosystems and Indigenous resource sovereignty. Protecting wild rice calls for consideration of biophysical processes, cultural worldviews, and multi-jurisdictional environmental policies. Our study is an interdisciplinary effort centered on wild rice, with a team comprising university researchers, students, and Tribal resource managers and leaders. An overarching goal is to establish a strong collaboration that prioritizes Tribal perspectives. Both research and policy-making on wild rice have fraught histories and remain contentious; protecting Indigenous resource sovereignty demands a shift to a culturally responsible and holistic approach to environmental stewardship. Toward this goal, university researchers started by consulting with Tribal contacts during proposal-writing - and quickly learned from them that true collaboration should entail more frequent and meaningful conversations than these brief queries that appeared to take Tribal partnership for granted. To correct this, university researchers put aside their original work plan and devoted the start of the project to traveling to reservations and treaty lands to meet with Tribal representatives, and hosted a conference to elicit diverse Tribal insights. Seeing the potential for change, Tribal partners are coming to the table, hopeful that a new direction can be set with thoughtful communication. Tribal partners granted the project the Ojibwe name Kawe Gidaa-Naanaagadawendamin Manoomin (First We Should Consider Wild Rice) to remind all participants of the project's guiding principles. The first field season involved four Native undergraduate researchers who helped initiate biophysical and social science research plans developed jointly with Tribal partners. Together, we are discovering that building true partnerships takes time, listening, willingness by researchers to learn and change, and openness of Tribal partners to new collaborations despite past transgressions.