Abstract
The earth is amid a global environmental and humanitarian crisis. To meet the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, we must consider Indigenous ontologies and epistemologies that are framed by the interconnectedness and equanimity of all life on Earth and a deep attachment to place. However, given our colonial histories and their harmful effects on Indigenous communities, it is a very real challenge to center Indigenous people and their perspectives in meaningful ways that support the attainment of the SDGs. In this chapter, we share findings from our self-study on the Maryland Indigenous Higher Education Alliance (MIHEA), a grassroots alliance co-created by Maryland tribal community members and a Maryland Higher Education Institution (IHE). This study organically employed participatory action research, conversational data collection, and qualitative data analysis to feature the voices of some of Maryland’s Indigenous people who have collaborated with faculty and staff through MIHEA over the past 15 months. Our locally derived findings suggest challenges and promising practices that support Indigenous/Higher Education collaborations to achieve the SDGs more broadly.
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Notes
- 1.
We want to acknowledge the other Indigenous communities native to what is now Maryland who were displaced or extinguished by colonization. They include the: Annemessex, Assateague, Choptank, Delaware, Doeg, Massawomeck, Mattapanient, Matapeake, Mattawomen, Nacotchtank, Ozinie, Pamunkey, Patuxent, Pocomoke, Shawnee, Susquehannock, Tockwogh, Transquaking, and Yoacomaco, as well as the Accohonnack, who remain in Maryland, but are not current participants of MIHEA.
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Stoltz, A. et al. (2022). Tribal Collaborations and Indigenous Representation in Higher Education: Challenges, Successes, and Suggestions for Attaining the SDGs. In: Mbah, M.F., Leal Filho, W., Ajaps, S. (eds) Indigenous Methodologies, Research and Practices for Sustainable Development. World Sustainability Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-12326-9_7
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