Place-Based Learning Practices: Institutional Responsibilities

Authors

Karley Rojas, Cal Poly HumboldtFollow

Abstract

The 'Place-Based Learning Practices Project' (PBLP) is a graduate project under the Native American Studies Department Rau Dalagurr Food Sovereignty Lab and Traditional Ecological Knowledges Institute (FSL). Making contributions at the intersection of Western academia and Indigenous science, it imagines and realizes content, policies, and protocols surrounding two case studies and the larger cal poly humboldt (cph) institution which respect, honor, and uplift Indigenous sovereignty and resurgence in partnership with the Blue Lake Rancheria Tribe and the greater regional tribal community. Encompassing two projects internal and external to the institution, I aim to address the construction of controlled and protective environments for research with sovereign Indigenous sciences and Traditional Ecological Knowledges (TEK), while also advancing the products and projects through cábula and Indigenous community-based participatory action research paradigms (ICBPAR) to realize material and functional applications for the partnered communities. The internal case study of the institution is 'Landscape (Hi)Stories of Wiyot Plaza', which includes the 'hsu Ethnobotanical Map', and Wiyot Plaza Site (Hi)Story- an Indigenized Environmental Site Assessment, produced through the lens of trauma-informed care and archival disordering. Appropriate research and data sovereignty structures for doing work with sovereign Indigenous sciences are also explored and proposed for institutional adoption. External to the institution is a second case study with the Blue Lake Rancheria Tribe ( BLR), the 'Living Database and Indigenous Agroecosystems' Project, which includes a feasibility study for the production of a Living Database of Relational Knowledges, the production of a Tribal Research Protocol, and resulting informed projects in Indigenous agroecology. Both case studies contribute to the overarching work of establishing appropriate community collaboration protocols and best practices for the larger campus community regarding Indigenous knowledges and sciences in place-based learning and research, rooted in Indigenous worldviews of relationality and reciprocity, which forefronts the health of relationships with the regional tribal community.

Recommended Citation

Rojas, Karley (2025) "Place-Based Learning Practices: Institutional Responsibilities," Rou Dalagurr Food Futures: Vol. 2, Article 4.
Available at: https://digitalcommons.humboldt.edu/foodfutures/vol2/iss1/4