Pathways to healing: Indigenous revitalization through family-based land management in the Klamath Basin

Abstract

Indigenous revitalization includes community-led healing from intergenerational land-based trauma. Yet given colonial legacies that perpetuate the devaluation of Indigenous knowledge and dispossession of Indigenous lands, healing in Indigenous communities presents particular challenges. Such challenges can include responding to western models of bureaucratic governance that replicate historical trauma in governance relations. Building on existing frameworks of Indigenous political ecology, we consider the importance of resisting colonial legacies that can influence Indigenous environmental governance. We do so by discussing community-led revitalization and resurgence in the Karuk tribal community, and an exemplar case of family-based management systems for caretaking ceremonial trails in the mid-Klamath (Northern California, USA). Through this case, we consider the interdependent functions of family-based governance and tribal government institutions for collective decolonization and healing. Our analysis of family-based management provides insights into the sociopolitical and ecological dynamics of healing in diverse Indigenous communities, and explores more inclusive models for Indigenous environmental governance.