Growing the Truth: Theorizing Land Back With Mitiini Numma Youth

• In Event: Reclaiming Relations to Urban Lands and Waters: Participatory Research With Black and Indigenous Youth

Abstract

Objectives
This paper is based on the research Project C, which is a multi-year mixed-methods study in collaboration with an Indigenous women-led organization based in Oakland, California. In 2019, the municipal government rematriated parcels of land to this organization. Our paper is about what has been learned through creating a youth land education program called ‘Mitiini Numma’ on returned Indigenous land. The program is for BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Colour) youth aged 14-18 based in the Bay Area, and focuses on four curriculum content areas including: land and water based learning, participatory visual research, histories of Indigenous peoples in California, and history of community organizing in the Bay Area. Through the curriculum, youth are engaging with photovoice, concept mapping, and place-mapping in the program. This paper shares preliminary findings from the first year of programming with Mitiini Numma youth.

Perspective(s) and theoretical framework
The study of land rematriation has only been theoretical until the last few decades (Trask, 1991; Smith, 2013; Wolfe, 1999; Grande, 2015; Moreton-Robinson, 2015). Land rematriation offers a unique opportunity for Indigenous youth land education programs to actualize the return of Indigenous lands to Indigenous communities.

The methodology that informs the approach to interviews in this study is Steiner Kvale’s life-world approach, in which participants are experts in their own lives, and are invited to theorize and make meaning of the phenomena they experience(Kvale, 1996; Brinkmann & Kvale, 2015).

Our methodology is informed by Indigenous feminist research practice which emphasizes the importance of stories (Archibald, 2008; Lomawaima, 2017; Kovach, 2009) and the significance of place (Goeman, 2013; Kimmerer, 2013; Tuck & McKenzie, 2015).

Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry

This is a mixed methods study that uses one-on-one interviews, focus groups, participatory
visual research, and several surveys/polls. This paper will discuss one-on-one interviews and participatory visual research with Mitiini Numma youth around the theme of direct benefits and consequences to their participation in the program.

Data sources, evidence, objects, or materials
This paper draws on photovoice interviews and focus groups with youth participants in the Mitiini Numma program about their experiences of being involved in a program taking place on rematriated land.

Results substantiated conclusions or warrants for arguments/point of view
The study of land rematriation has only been theorized conceptually. This paper discusses the nuts and bolts of land return and land back for an Indigenous community organization, and the meaning making that happens within a youth program on returned Indigenous land. The results of this study assert that land rematriation is not only theoretical, but vital for the flourishing of BIPOC youth.

Scientific or scholarly significance of the study or work
Our work in this paper aims to create and build upon theoretical advancements in youth land education, mattering and land rematriation. This paper emphasizes the importance of alternative sites of learning to be made for young people in which their relationships to land move beyond conventional educational spaces.

Authors

• Eve Tuck, New York University

• Diane Hill, New York University

• Razan Samara, University of Toronto