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16 (3):1207-1221. Robin Wall Kimmerer was born in 1953 in Upstate New York to Robert and Patricia Wall. It is the way she captures beauty that I love the most. It means that you know what your gift is and how to give it, on behalf of the land and of the people, just like every single species has its own gift. (n.d.). She writes about the natural world from a place of such abundant passion that one can never quite see the world in the same way after having seen it though Kimmerers eyes. We sort of say, Well, we know it now. She has served on the advisory board of the Strategies for Ecology Education, Development and Sustainability (SEEDS) program, a program to increase the number of minority ecologists. She was born on January 01, 1953 in . Kimmerer works with the Onondaga Nation and Haudenosaunee people of Central New York and with other Native American groups to support land rights actions and to restore land and water for future generations. She is the author of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, which has earned Kimmerer wide acclaim.Her first book, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses, was awarded the John Burroughs Medal for outstanding . TEK is a deeply empirical scientific approach and is based on long-term observation. Were exploring her sense of the intelligence in life we are used to seeing as inanimate. Because those are not part of the scientific method. Krista Tippett, host: Few books have been more eagerly passed from hand to hand with delight in these last years than Robin Wall Kimmerers Braiding Sweetgrass. and C.C. Young (1996) Effect of gap size and regeneration niche on species coexistence in bryophyte communities. Her second book, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, received the 2014 Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award. 55 talking about this. Robin Wall Kimmerer, botanist, SUNY distinguished teaching professor, founding director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment, and citizen of the Potawatomi Nation, appeared at the Indigenous Women's Symposium to share plant stories that spoke to the intersection of traditional and scientific knowledge. . Lets talk some more about mosses, because you did write this beautiful book about it, and you are a bryologist. Her latest book Braiding Sweetgrass: indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge and the teachings of plants was released in 2013 and was awarded the Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Award. They make homes for this myriad of all these very cool little invertebrates who live in there. About light and shadow and the drift of continents. Thats so beautiful and so amazing to think about, to just read those sentences and think about that conversation, as you say. And I was just there to listen. Mosses have, in the ecological sense, very low competitive ability, because theyre small, because they dont grab resources very efficiently. Kimmerer, R.W. My family holds strong titles within our confederacy. Dr. Kimmerer serves as a Senior Fellow for the Center for Nature and Humans. 24 (1):345-352. February is like the Wednesday of winter - too far from the weekend to get excited! Kimmerer: They were. They were really thought of as objects, whereas I thought of them as subjects. (1982) A Quantitative Analysis of the Flora of Abandoned Lead-Zinc Mines in Southwestern Wisconsin. And the last voice that you hear singing at the end of our show is Cameron Kinghorn. She is the author of the New York Times bestselling collection of essays Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants as well as Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses. And its, I think, very, very exciting to think about these ways of being, which happen on completely different scales, and so exciting to think about what we might learn from them. Kimmerer, R.W. 2104 Returning the Gift in Minding Nature:Vol.8. But at its heart, sustainability the way we think about it is embedded in this worldview that we, as human beings, have some ownership over these what we call resources, and that we want the world to be able to continue to keep that human beings can keep taking and keep consuming. And they may have these same kinds of political differences that are out there, but theres this love of place, and that creates a different world of action. African American & Africana Studies And I just saw that their knowledge was so much more whole and rich and nurturing that I wanted to do everything that I could to bring those ways of knowing back into harmony. An herb native to North America, sweetgrass is sacred to Indigenous people in the United States and Canada. I work in the field of biocultural restoration and am excited by the ideas of re-storyation. She won a second Burroughs award for an essay, "Council of the Pecans," that appeared in Orion magazine in 2013. In collaboration with tribal partners, she and her students have an active research program in the ecology and restoration of plants of cultural significance to Native people. BioScience 52:432-438. She holds a BS in Botany from SUNY ESF, an MS and PhD in Botany from the University of Wisconsin and is the author of numerous scientific papers on plant ecology, bryophyte ecology, traditional knowledge and restoration ecology. One of the leaders in this field is Robin Wall Kimmerer, a professor of environmental and forest biology at the State University of New York and the bestselling author of "Braiding Sweetgrass." She's also an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, and she draws on Native traditions and the grammar of the Potawatomi language . I created this show at American Public Media. 2012 On the Verge Plank Road Magazine. But were, in many cases, looking at the surface, and by the surface, I mean the material being alone. Language is the dwelling place of ideas that do not exist anywhere else. Im Krista Tippett, and this is On Being. Tippett: One thing you say that Id like to understand better is, Science polishes the gift of seeing; Indigenous traditions work with gifts of listening and language. So Id love an example of something where what are the gifts of seeing that science offers, and then the gifts of listening and language, and how all of that gives you this rounded understanding of something. Kimmerer: Yes, kin is the plural of ki, so that when the geese fly overhead, we can say, Kin are flying south for the winter. Kimmerer: Yes. And we reduce them tremendously, if we just think about them as physical elements of the ecosystem. She is also active in literary biology. A&S Main Menu. Im finding lots of examples that people are bringing to me, where this word also means a living being of the Earth., Kimmerer: The plural pronoun that I think is perhaps even more powerful is not one that we need to be inspired by another language, because we already have it in English, and that is the word kin.. To love a place is not enough. But reciprocity, again, takes that a step farther, right? It feels so wrong to say that. As a writer and scientist interested in both restoration of ecological communities and restoration of our relationships to land, she draws on the wisdom of both indigenous and scientific knowledge to help us reach goals of sustainability. Kimmerer, R.W. Milkweed Editions October 2013. North Country for Old Men. Delivery charges may apply Committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world, Center for Native Peoples and the Environment, State University of New York / College of Environmental Science and Forestry, 2023 John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Plant Sciences and Forestry/Forest Science, Center for Native Peoples and the Environment. Kimmerer presents the ways a pure market economy leads to resource depletion and environmental degradation. Knowing how important it is to maintain the traditional language of the Potawatomi, Kimmerer attends a class to learn how to speak the traditional language because "when a language dies, so much more than words are lost."[5][6]. Its that which I can give. We're over winter. The Power of Wonder by Monica C. Parker (TarcherPerigee: $28) A guide to using the experience of wonder to change one's life. As a writer and a scientist, her interests in restoration include not only restoration of ecological communities, but restoration of our relationships to land. Tippett: And inanimate would be, what, materials? She fell like a maple seed, pirouetting on an . The privacy of your data is important to us. And theres a beautiful word bimaadiziaki, which one of my elders kindly shared with me. She is the author of numerous scientific articles, and the books Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses (2003), and Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants (2013). The Bryologist 107:302-311, Shebitz, D.J. Questions for a Resilient Future: Robin Wall Kimmerer Center for Humans and Nature 2.16K subscribers Subscribe 719 Share 44K views 9 years ago Produced by the Center for Humans and Nature.. Robin Wall Kimmerer is an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, founding director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment, and Distinguished Teaching Professor at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, New York. Intellectual Diversity: bringing the Native perspective into Natural Resources Education. But again, all these things you live with and learn, how do they start to shift the way you think about what it means to be human? She holds a BS in Botany from SUNY ESF, an MS and PhD in Botany from the University of Wisconsin and is the author of numerous scientific papers on plant ecology, bryophyte ecology, traditional knowledge and restoration ecology. You say that theres a grammar of animacy. 2. Kimmerer is also involved in the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES), and works with the Onondaga Nation's school doing community outreach. She is a mother, plant ecologist, writer and SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, New York. A mother of two daughters, and a grandmother, Kimmerer's voice is mellifluous over the video call, animated with warmth and wonderment. Robin Wall Kimmerer: I cant think of a single scientific study in the last few decades that has demonstrated that plants or animals are dumber than we think. It's cold, windy, and often grey. She works with tribal nations on environmental problem-solving and sustainability. Kimmerer 2002. Adirondack Life. Potawatomi History. Robin Wall Kimmerer, has experienced a clash of cultures. NY, USA. What is needed to assume this responsibility, she says, is a movement for legal recognition ofRights for Nature modeled after those in countries like Bolivia and Ecuador. 2004 Listening to water LTER Forest Log. And it worries me greatly that todays children can recognize 100 corporate logos and fewer than 10 plants. [9] Her first book, it incorporated her experience as a plant ecologist and her understanding of traditional knowledge about nature. Kimmerer, R.W. For Kimmerer, however, sustainability is not the end goal; its merely the first step of returning humans to relationships with creation based in regeneration and reciprocity, Kimmerer uses her science, writing and activism to support the hunger expressed by so many people for a belonging in relationship to [the] land that will sustain us all. 2004 Population trends and habitat characteristics of sweetgrass, Hierochloe odorata: Integration of traditional and scientific ecological knowledge . Kimmerer's family lost the ability to speak Potawatomi two generations ago, when her grandfather was taken to a colonial boarding school at a young age and beaten for speaking his native tongue. Krista interviewed her in 2015, and it quickly became a much-loved show as her voice was just rising in common life. Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences 2(4):317-323. And that shift in worldview was a big hurdle for me, in entering the field of science. But that, to me, is different than really rampant exploitation. Hazel and Robin bonded over their love of plants and also a mutual sense of displacement, as Hazel had left behind her family home. According to our Database, She has no children. Robin Wall Kimmerers grandfather attended one of the now infamous boarding schools designed to civilize Indian youth, and she only learned the Anishinaabe language of her people as an adult. Robin Wall Kimmerer Net Worth Her net worth has been growing significantly in 2020-2021. American Midland Naturalist. I think the place that it became most important to me to start to bring these ways of knowing back together again is when, as a young Ph.D. botanist, I was invited to a gathering of traditional plant knowledge holders. Marcy Balunas, thesis topic: Ecological restoration of goldthread (Coptis trifolium), a culturally significant plant of the Iroquois pharmacopeia. . 2013 Where the Land is the Teacher Adirondack Life Vol. Kimmerer: Id like to start with the second part of that question. She is a vivid embodiment, too, of the new forms societal shift is taking in our world led by visionary pragmatists close to the ground, in particular places, persistently and lovingly learning and leading the way for us all. No.1. Modern America and her family's tribe were - and, to a . And so this, then, of course, acknowledges the being-ness of that tree, and we dont reduce it it to an object. As a Potawatomi woman, she learned from elders, family, and history that the Potawatomi, as well as a majority of other cultures indigenous to this. ( Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, . (30 November 2004). 1998. "Robin Wall Kimmerer is a talented writer, a leading ethnobotanist, and a beautiful activist dedicated to emphasizing that Indigenous knowledge, histories, and experience are central to the land and water issues we face todayShe urges us all of us to reestablish the deep relationships to ina that all of our ancestors once had, but that Reflective Kimmerer, "Tending Sweetgrass," pp.63-117; In the story 'Maple Sugar Moon,' I am made aware our consumer-driven . She is a member of the Potawatomi First Nation and she teaches. Son premier livre, Gathering Moss, a t rcompens par la John Burroughs Medail pour ses crits exceptionnels sur la nature. In Michigan, February is a tough month. Colette Pichon Battle is a generational native of the Gulf Coast of Louisiana. She lives in Syracuse, New York, where she is a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental . Mosses become so successful all over the world because they live in these tiny little layers, on rocks, on logs, and on trees. It is a preferred browse of Deer and Moose, a vital source . Allen (1982) The Role of Disturbance in the Pattern of Riparian Bryophyte Community. and M.J.L. That we cant have an awareness of the beauty of the world without also a tremendous awareness of the wounds; that we see the old-growth forest, and we also see the clear cut. Leadership Initiative for Minority Female Environmental Faculty (LIMFEF), May Memorial Unitarian Universalist Society Podcast featuring, This page was last edited on 15 February 2023, at 04:07. Native Knowledge for Native Ecosystems. American Midland Naturalist. Moving deftly between scientific evidence and storytelling, Kimmerer reorients our understanding of the natural world. We have to take. Dear ReadersAmerica, Colonists, Allies, and Ancestors-yet-to-be, We've seen that face before, the drape of frost-stiffened hair, the white-rimmed eyes peering out from behind the tanned hide of a humanlike mask, the flitting gaze that settles only when it finds something of true interestin a mirror . So thats a very concrete way of illustrating this. And having told you that, I never knew or learned anything about what that word meant, much less the people and the culture it described. And were at the edge of a wonderful revolution in really understanding the sentience of other beings. And I sense from your writing and especially from your Indigenous tradition that sustainability really is not big enough and that it might even be a cop-out. Theyve figured out a lot about how to live well on the Earth, and for me, I think theyre really good storytellers in the way that they live. To clarify - winter isn't over, WE are over it! Tippett: And I have to say and Im sure you know this, because Im sure you get this reaction a lot, especially in scientific circles its unfamiliar and slightly uncomfortable in Western ears, to hear someone refer to plants as persons. On a hot day in Julywhen the corn can grow six inches in a single day . For inquiries regarding speaking engagements, please contact Christie Hinrichs at Authors Unbound. Kimmerer, R.W, 2015 (in review)Mishkos Kenomagwen: Lessons of Grass, restoring reciprocity with the good green earth in "Keepers of the Green World: Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Sustainability," for Cambridge University Press. Her grandfather was a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, and received colonialist schooling at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. She has served as writer in residence at the Andrews Experimental Forest, Blue Mountain Center, the Sitka Center and the Mesa Refuge. Kimmerer, R.W. She is also founding director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment. What were revealing is the fact that they have extraordinary capacities, which are so unlike our own, but we dismiss them because, well, if they dont do it like animals do it, then they must not be doing anything, when in fact, theyre sensing their environment, responding to their environment, in incredibly sophisticated ways. It was while studying forest ecology as part of her degree program, that she first learnt about mosses, which became the scientific focus of her career.[3]. And I just think that Why is the world so beautiful? The Bryologist 94(3):255-260. Kimmerer has had a profound influence on how we conceptualize the relationship between nature and humans, and her work furthers efforts to heal a damaged planet. The ability to take these non-living elements of the world air and light and water and turn them into food that can then be shared with the whole rest of the world, to turn them into medicine that is medicine for people and for trees and for soil and we cannot even approach the kind of creativity that they have. If citizenship is a matter of shared beliefs, then I believe in the democracy of species. She is the author of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants and Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses. Mosses are superb teachers about living within your means. is a question that we all ought to be embracing. In talking with my environment students, they wholeheartedly agree that they love the Earth. 16. Other plants are excluded from those spaces, but they thrive there. I learned so many things from that book; its also that I had never thought very deeply about moss, but that moss inhabits nearly every ecosystem on earth, over 22,000 species, that mosses have the ability to clone themselves from broken-off leaves or torn fragments, that theyre integral to the functioning of a forest. In the dance of the giveaway, remember that the earth is a gift we must pass on just as it came to us. Kimmerer: Yes. In 1993, Kimmerer returned home to upstate New York and her alma mater, ESF, where she currently teaches. We dont call anything we love and want to protect and would work to protect it. That language distances us. Tippett: One way youve said it is that that science was asking different questions, and you had other questions, other language, and other protocol that came from Indigenous culture. Famously known by the Family name Robin Wall Kimmerer, is a great Naturalist. Its unfamiliar. Learn more about our programs and hear about upcoming events to get engaged. One of the things that I would especially like to highlight about that is I really think of our work as in a sense trying to indigenize science education within the academy, because as a young person, as a student entering into that world, and understanding that the Indigenous ways of knowing, these organic ways of knowing, are really absent from academia, I think that we can train better scientists, train better environmental professionals, when theres a plurality of these ways of knowing, when Indigenous knowledge is present in the discussion. And what I mean, when I talk about the personhood of all beings, plants included, is not that I am attributing human characteristics to them not at all. Restoration Ecology 13(2):256-263, McGee, G.G. A recent selection by Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teaching of Plants (published in 2014), focuses on sustainable practices that promote healthy people, healthy communities, and a healthy planet. [2], Kimmerer remained near home for college, attending State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry and receiving a bachelor's degree in botany in 1975. On the Ridge in In the Blast Zone edited by K.Moore, C. Goodrich, Oregon State University Press. 9. and T.F.H. [10] By 2021 over 500,000 copies had been sold worldwide. 2011 Witness to the Rain in The way of Natural History edited by T.P. Your donations to AWTT help us promote engaged citizenship. That would mean that the Earth had agency and that I was not an anonymous little blip on the landscape, that I was known by my home place. Kimmerer: Thank you for asking that question, because it really gets to this idea how science asks us to learn about organisms, traditional knowledge asks us to learn from them. If something is going to be sustainable, its ability to provide for us will not be compromised into the future. 14:28-31, Kimmerer, R.W. Living out of balance with the natural world can have grave ecological consequences, as evidenced by the current climate change crisis. Retrieved April 4, 2021, from, Sultzman, L. (December 18, 1998). Were able to systematize it and put a Latin binomial on it, so its ours. Pember, Mary Annette. "Just as we engage with students in a meaningful way to create a shared learning experience through the common book program . Keon. I think so many of them are rooted in the food movement. Journal of Forestry 99: 36-41. Dr. Kimmerer serves as a Senior Fellow for the Center for Nature and Humans. And that kind of deep attention that we pay as children is something that I cherish, that I think we all can cherish and reclaim, because attention is that doorway to gratitude, the doorway to wonder, the doorway to reciprocity. She lives on an old farm in upstate New York, tending gardens both cultivated and wild. So I really want to delve into that some more. ", "Robin Wall Kimmerer: Americans Who Tell The Truth", "Robin Wall Kimmerer: 'Mosses are a model of how we might live', "Robin W. Kimmerer | Environmental and Forest Biology | SUNY-ESF", "Robin Wall Kimmerer | Americans Who Tell The Truth", "UN Chromeless Video Player full features", https://www.pokagonband-nsn.gov/our-culture/history, https://www.potawatomi.org/q-a-with-robin-wall-kimmerer-ph-d/, "Mother earthling: ESF educator Robin Kimmerer links an indigenous worldview to nature". November/December 59-63. AWTT encourages community engagement programs and exhibits accompanied by public events that stimulate dialogue around citizenship, education, and activism. 2008 . She is the author of Gathering Moss which incorporates both traditional indigenous knowledge and scientific perspectives and was awarded the prestigious John Burroughs Medal for Nature Writing in 2005. Scientists are very eager to say that we oughtnt to personify elements in nature, for fear of anthropomorphizing. Tippett: In your book Braiding Sweetgrass, theres this line: It came to me while picking beans, the secret of happiness. [laughs] And you talk about gardening, which is actually something that many people do, and I think more people are doing. And by exploit, I mean in a way that really, seriously degrades the land and the waters, because in fact, we have to consume. We want to teach them. The concept of the honorable harvest, or taking only what one needs and using only what one takes, is another Indigenous practice informed by reciprocity.