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ESA Traditional Ecological Knowledge Section:
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Greetings to all TEK section members!
We hope to see many of you at the Ecological Society meetings coming up soon in Portland. There will be many events related to TEK and the perspectives of Native people in the Pacific Northwest, from the special opening, the Sense of Place session, TEK contributed papers, business meeting and more. As the list below indicates, Monday is especially full of TEK events.
Travel safely and see you in Portland.
Sophia Beym, Secretary ESA-TEK section
TEK contributed papers session: 8 am Rm F151
TEK Section Business Meeting 11:30-1 Rm C-125
Sense of Place Session with tribal representatives, Ed Edmo ( Shoshone-Bannock storyteller), David Hatch ( Confederated Tribes of Siletz, Elakha Alliance), Louie Pitt ( Warm Springs Tribe) 1:00-2:30 B110-112
Columbia River Natives Perspectives on Louis and Clark 8-10 pm B110
An evening with Pacific Northwest writers
Roundtable discussion with Kheryn Klubnikan (US Forest Service)and Tom Crowe (EPA) on incorporating tribes into watershed research Blue Waters to hite waters 8-10 pm. A reception sponsored by the Oregon Nature Conservancy precedes the discussion at 7.
Bozho nikan! Greetings Friends Members of the TEK section. While here in the frozen north we still have deep snow drifts, the chickadees have started to sing their spring songs and the willows are turning that hopeful shade of yellow with the lengthening days. Turning the corner toward spring means we can think ahead to this summers Ecological Society Meeting in Portland (August 1-6).
This newsletter contains information on TEK section activities concerning plans for the meeting and hopefully-your participation in it! The perspectives of traditional knowledge and Native people will be well represented in the annual meeting program. We also want to encourage everyone to submit your TEK-related work as contributed papers, so that we can bring a thoughtful, lively dialogue on TEK to the scientific community. Details below.
Robin Wall Kimmerer, Chair, ESA-TEK Section
The deadline for submitting abstracts for the Annual Meeting in Portland is coming up very soon-MARCH 1!!! Please consider giving a talk to share your work on TEK. In order to have a session dedicated to TEK, you should indicate your preference for a TEK session, otherwise your paper will be scattered to another session. The notice from ESA is pasted in below.
March 1 is the deadline for submission of 2004 Annual Meeting abstracts (orals, posters, organized oral talks and symposium talks) and payment of mandatory Abstract Submission Fees. With sufficient meeting space for oral sessions and posters in the Oregon Convention Center in Portland, we will be able to accommodate a diverse scientific program. Go to http://www.esa.org/portland and click on the Call for Orals and Posters link in the left hand column. Please read ALL instructions carefully prior to submitting your abstract and your Abstract Submission Fee.
A committee ably led by Michelle Stevens put considerable time and energy into creating a symposium proposal for this years meeting, based on the topic chosen at last years TEK section meeting: Ethical Practice and Intellectual Property Rights. The competition for the few symposium slots available was intense. Our proposal made it through the first cut, but unfortunately was not selected. Plans are underway for a proposal for next years meeting in Montreal, to build upon the excellent TEK work of our Canadian colleagues. Ideas and suggestions are very welcome. Thanks to Michelle Stevens, Hoski Schaafsma, Linda Storm, Jesse Ford and Robin Kimmerer for all their hard work.
A) Opening Ceremonies with members of the Chinook community
B) Special Sense of Place Session on Monday afternoon. The Program description is pasted below.
Sense of Place Special Session A Sense of Place: Indigenous Homelands of the Pacific Northwest
The 2004 ESA meeting convenes within the ancestral homelands of Oregon’s’ first inhabitants. Most of us are strangers to this place. To indigenous people, a sense of place goes beyond natural history to encompass a bio-cultural landscape rich in story and meaning. This very special session opens our meetings with a welcome by representatives of the indigenous people of the region. Representatives of the First Nations of the Pacific Northwest have been invited to provide an introduction to a sense of place through a Native American perspective. Drawing on diverse experiences with Oregon’s rivers, forests, mountains and coast speakers will share their multi-faceted understanding of these ecosystems, and traditional land management practices. Presenters incorporate traditional ecological knowledge as a foundation for addressing traditional land management practices and current ecological pressures. This session is sponsored by the Traditional Ecological Knowledge section.
C) Evening session (Monday) "Columbia River Natives Encounter Lewis and Clark" 2 hour discussion/slide show/basketry as a medium for discussion of environment and culture with Pat Courtney Gold The description of the event is pasted in below:
Columbia River Natives encounter Lewis and Clark
This evening session will feature Pat Courtney Gold (Wasco), a lineal descendent of one of the tribes that hosted the Corps of Discovery, and a Lewis and Clark scholar. She begins from the observation that Native peoples occupied the regions traveled by Lewis and Clark for millennia, having living with and from indigenous plant and animal communities whose characteristics and interrelationships were well understood. Cultural patterns and perhaps the very structure of languages were formed in response to diverse local environments. The arrival of the Corps of Discovery with their foreign ways and unusual perspectives was of variable significance among the different cultures, and in many places was no more remarkable than contact with any other tribe.
Pat holds a B.A. in Mathematics and spent five years engaged in mathematical modeling of air and watersheds before turning her attention back to baskets, basketry, and the ecology of plants important to basketry. In the Native way, a basket weaver must understand the plants, their habits and habitats, and their relationship to rivers, including (in the Northwest) salmon as an important item of trade as well as a source of sustenance. Further, the weaver must have a clear understanding of how all of these factors intertwine with culture. In recent years, Pat has lectured widely on Wasco basketry as a material expression of Wasco heritage and culture, and how pollution problems have impacted native basketry plants and Native basket weavers. This work culminated in a 2003 publication on the subject published by Harvard's Peabody Museum.
Most recently, Pat has reflected in some depth and detail on the Lewis and Clark expedition, augmenting her understanding as a lineal descendent of one of the host tribes with a close reading of the original journals of Lewis and Clark. This year she organized a symposium series at Maryhill Museum of Art (Goldendale, WA) entitled "Reflecting on Lewis and Clark: Contemporary American Indian Viewpoints", which wd featured artists and speakers from numerous tribes .
This two hour evening event will be evenly balanced between Pat's remarks illustrated by slides and artifacts (including examples from her own basketry collection) and audience discussion.
D) “An evening with Pacific Northwest Writers”. Native writer Craig Leslie has been chosen as one of the honored participants.
E) The Fire Symposium will include a presentation by Dennis Martinez incorporating indigenous views on burning and traditional resource management.
F) Field Trips. Proposed field trips include a pre-conference trip to the Warm Springs Reserve to observe a restoration project using traditional burning to restore the red huckleberry, a culturally significant plant. Another pre-conference trip “The Columbia River Gorge then and now” will include perspectives of Wasco/Chinook peoples. A post-conference trip on fire is planned to include Dennis Martinez on traditional burning.
G) TEK section meeting and luncheon.
H) There will also be an array of student centered SEEDS activities, including students and mentors from Tribal Colleges.
I) We’re looking forward to a lively meeting, especially with your participation!
J) Special thanks to Jesse Ford for all her hard work in putting this together. We are fortunate to have Jesses’ wisdom and energy on the local planning committee.
TEK section officers were officially elected by the membership. They are:
Robin Wall Kimmerer, Chair rkimmer@esf.edu
Jesse Ford, Vice-Chair Jesse.Ford@oregonstate.edu
Sophi Beym, Secretary Sophi.beym@asu.edu (Please send Sophi any information items you’d like distributed to the TEK section membership.)
Mark Fulton, webmaster MFulton@bemidjistate.edu (Mark welcomes suggestions for links to place on the TEK section website)
An officer from each of the four directions….New York, Oregon, Arizona, Minnesota!
The TEK section applied for and was successful in receiving a grant from the Ecological Society to engage in the process of long-range strategic planning for the future of the section. This is our opportunity to envision the activities on which we collectively want to spend our energies-from education to advocacy, outreach, workshops, publications. If you’d like to be involved in the strategic planning process, or just have some creative ideas to share please send your ideas to Robin Kimmerer.
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