❀ Indigenizing Restoration in Urban Parks ❀
Indigenous Lands Before Urban Parks: Indigenizing Restoration in Discovery Park
This dissertation aims to bring attention to climate and food justice as a means of environmental justice in urban settings-focusing on land restoration and the cultural, spiritual, and social significance of land to Indigenous peoples. We will explore and examine the urban Native diaspora of Seattle and find ways in which Indigenous knowledge systems and contemporary diets have adapted to their new urban setting. Through the analysis of Indigenous knowledge systems and contemporary diets, we will link environmental, climate, and food justice through an Indigenous and decolonial lens. We will also unravel new kinships of urban Natives to the land and water they have strengthened through their interactions with urban natural green spaces that are available in the city.
We will focus our main case study to the only urban natural space available and accessible to urban Natives - Discovery Park. This urban park is the location of Daybreak Star Indian Cultural Center -an urban Native hub that serves a location for cultural and traditional practices and ceremonies. Daybreak serves over seventy distinct tribal nations represented by the urban Natives residing in Seattle. We will examine the eco-colonialism history of this natural space to determine the ecological timeline that will play a major role in the restoration of the land- where a native and medicinal plant garden is located. We will not attempt to restore lands to what they were once before eco-colonization, but to incorporate this eco-colonial history that is important to understand the adaptations urban Natives have experienced. By continuing to build a strong partnership with Seattle Parks and Recreation, this dissertation will research and test the hypothesis that the inclusion of urban Natives in these restoration/conservation paradigms and frameworks will allow environmental justice to be linked to food and climate justice.
We will focus our main case study to the only urban natural space available and accessible to urban Natives - Discovery Park. This urban park is the location of Daybreak Star Indian Cultural Center -an urban Native hub that serves a location for cultural and traditional practices and ceremonies. Daybreak serves over seventy distinct tribal nations represented by the urban Natives residing in Seattle. We will examine the eco-colonialism history of this natural space to determine the ecological timeline that will play a major role in the restoration of the land- where a native and medicinal plant garden is located. We will not attempt to restore lands to what they were once before eco-colonization, but to incorporate this eco-colonial history that is important to understand the adaptations urban Natives have experienced. By continuing to build a strong partnership with Seattle Parks and Recreation, this dissertation will research and test the hypothesis that the inclusion of urban Natives in these restoration/conservation paradigms and frameworks will allow environmental justice to be linked to food and climate justice.
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The semi-structured interviews that will be a component of the "Urban Native Diaspora: Contextualizing Indigenous Environmental Knowledge from an Urban Lens" will become part of the podcast entitled "Indigenizing Urban Seattle." This podcast will serve as a decolonial tool to reach a wider audience to share the narratives from Urban Natives residing in Seattle (Duwamish lands) that are essential and important to incorporate in the environmental discourse.
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