Rou Dalagurr Food Futures
Abstract
As California's newest polytechnic university, Cal Poly Humboldt is often lauded for its Indigenous-facing programming and commitments to Indigenous peoples. In recent years, Native American Studies faculty, staff, and students, alongside Indigenous community partners, have led conversations about Cal Poly Humboldt meaningfully supporting tribal sovereignty by returning land to Native nations. As Cutcha Risling Baldy summarized in a research interview, "Thanks for the [land] acknowledgement, now what?" (2024, personal interview). However, though Cal Poly Humboldt has made various land acknowledgements and references to Indigenous peoples in its university policies, conversations about #LandBack have been met with resistance from the university. As my graduate research project, I use the Schatz Tree Farm as a case study to examine attitudes around land return at Cal Poly Humboldt. Donated to the university in 1987, the Tree Farm, which is located on unceded Mewiyinfuk (Mad River Whilkut) land, now serves as a teaching, research, and demonstration space for the university. Mewiyinfuk descendants are currently enrolled in the Hoopa Valley Tribe and Blue Lake Rancheria, making the tree farm a candidate for land return. Through document analysis and a series of IRB-approved interviews, I explore the history of the Tree Farm, the ways in which settler colonial logics are continually reproduced and maintained by Cal Poly Humboldt, and opportunities for the university to decolonize the Tree Farm by returning the land to Native nations.
Recommended Citation
Sarkar, Sangeeta
(2025)
"''Thanks for the [land] acknowledgement, now what?'': Settler Histories and Decolonial Futures at Cal Poly Humboldt's Schatz Tree Farm,"
Rou Dalagurr Food Futures: Vol. 2, Article 3.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.humboldt.edu/foodfutures/vol2/iss1/3
Included in
Food Studies Commons, Indigenous Studies Commons, Native American Studies Commons, Social Justice Commons