Learning Through a Tribal-University Collaboration Around Manoomin/Psi/Wild Rice

Kawe Gidaa-naanaagadawendaamin Manoomin is a tribal-university collaboration centered around manoomin (in Ojibwe) / psi (in Dakota) / wild rice, a profoundly important ecological, nutritional, cultural, medicinal, and spiritual resource for many Native peoples in the Upper Great Lakes region. Since Euro-American settlement, manoomin/psi has been declining across its range due to multiple environmental stressors. Our project brings cross-disciplinary researchers and students from University of Minnesota-Twin Cities and other institutions together with environmental stewards and Indigenous knowledge-holders from different Upper Great Lakes region tribes to understand the changing natural and human environment of manoomin/psi, with the overarching aim to support tribes and tribal sovereignty. Research questions are directed by tribal concerns and hypotheses, fieldwork is jointly coordinated, data is co-analyzed, Indigenous knowledge is interfaced (when considered appropriate by tribal partners), and results are published only with tribal approval (to uphold data sovereignty) and co-authorship. Since the projects inception in 2018, our students have played a central role in pushing the boundaries of conventional, academy-driven and disciplinary-focused science. This past year, a diverse group of six University of Minnesota-Twin Cities graduate students and five undergraduate student researchers from multiple schools have brought to the project a desire to integrate ways of knowing, address environmental justice issues, and bring their whole selves into their studies. Together with tribal partners, they have been showing us all how to conduct research in a way that is more innovative, collaborative, interdisciplinary, and ethically responsible toward Indigenous communities and the environment.