The story of Native peoples' resistance to environmental injustice and land incursions, and a call for environmentalists to learn from the Indigenous community's rich history of activism.
Author’s Note
INTRODUCTION
The Standing Rock Saga
CHAPTER ONE
Environmental Justice Theory and Its Limitations for Indigenous
Peoples
CHAPTER TWO
Genocide by Any Other Name
A History of Indigenous Environmental Injustice
CHAPTER THREE
The Complicated Legacy of Western Expansion and the Industrial
Revolution
CHAPTER FOUR
Food Is Medicine, Water Is Life
American Indian Health and the Environment
CHAPTER FIVE
(Not So) Strange Bedfellows
Indian Country’s Ambivalent Relationship with the Environmental
Movement
CHAPTER SIX
Hearts Not on the Ground
Indigenous Women’s Leadership and More Cultural Clashes
CHAPTER SEVEN
Sacred Sites and Environmental Justice
CHAPTER EIGHT
Ways Forward for Environmental Justice in Indian Country
Acknowledgments
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index
Dina Gilio-Whitaker (Colville Confederated Tribes) is the policy director and a senior research associate at the Center for World Indigenous Studies and teaches American Indian Studies at California State University San Marcos. She is the coauthor, with Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, of "All the Real Indians Died Off" and 20 Other Myths About Native Americans. She lives in San Clemente, California.
“Highly recommended for American Indian studies and environmental
justice students and scholars.”
—Library Journal
“Gilio-Whitaker takes the reader on a historical journey that, had
it been penned about the Jewish Holocaust or the ‘ethnic cleansing’
conducted at the behest of any number of twentieth-century despots,
would be well known. Yet when it comes to the United States’s
continuing campaign to wipe tribal communities from the map, most
Americans are in a state of denial that such a thing could
happen.”
—Los Angeles Review of Books
“An important and accessible work recommended for students and
scholars of political ecology from the undergraduate level up.
Gilio-Whitaker’s far-reaching work creates a compelling foundation
upon which to add specific examples of the ongoing struggle for
environmental justice and Indigenous rights during times of
anthropogenic climate change. By connecting Native American history
with the environmental justice movement in a clear and
comprehensive manner, Gilio-Whitaker clarifies the depth of the
wrong-doings of the past, while also opening the door to a wide
range of opportunities for positive change in the future.”
—Journal of Political Ecology
“Dina Gilio-Whitaker’s As Long as Grass Grows achieves a
far-reaching and nuanced account of the foundational and continuous
role colonization plays in environmental injustice for Indigenous
peoples.”
—New Mexico Historical Review
“A masterpiece and a vital road map for the ongoing fight for
Indigenous sovereignty. With every heartbreaking example of sacred
sites decimated and traditional knowledge suppressed, the power and
resilience of Indigenous people, preserving not only their culture
but their very lives, shines through. Powerful, urgent, and
necessary reading.”
—Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, author of An Indigenous Peoples’ History of
the United States
“The process of genocide, which began five centuries ago with the
colonization of the Americas and the extermination of indigenous
people, has now spread to the planetary level, pushing two hundred
species per day to extinction and threatening the entire human
species. Dina Gilio-Whitaker’s As Long as Grass Grows makes these
connections, holding the seeds of resistance, the seeds of freedom,
and the promise of a future.”
—Vandana Shiva, author of Earth Democracy
“Dina Gilio-Whitaker writes in succinct, powerful, and deeply
historical ways about Natives and environmental justice or—almost
always—lack thereof.”
—Andrés Reséndez, author of The Other Slavery
“As Long as Grass Grows honors Indigenous voices powerfully and
centers Indigenous histories, values, and experiences. It tells
crucial stories, both inspiring and heartrending, that will
transform how readers understand environmental justice. I know many
readers will come away with new ideas and actions for how they can
protect our planet from forces that seek to destroy some of our
most sacred relationships connecting human and nonhuman
worlds—relationships that offer some of the greatest possibilities
for achieving sustainability.”
—Kyle Powys White, associate professor, Michigan State
University
“From Standing Rock’s stand against a damaging pipeline to
antinuclear and climate change activism, Indigenous peoples have
always been and remain in the vanguard of the struggle for
environmental justice. As Long as Grass Grows could not be of more
relevance in the twenty-first century. Gilio-Whitaker has produced
a sweeping history of these peoples’ fight for our fragile planet,
from colonization to the present moment. There is nothing else like
it. Read and heed this book.”
—Jace Weaver, author of Defending Mother Earth
“In As Long as Grass Grows, Gilio-Whitaker skillfully delineates
the stakes—and the distinctive character—of environmental justice
for Indigenous communities. Bold, extensive, accessible, and
inspiring, this book is for anyone interested in Indigenous
environmental politics and the unique forms of environmentalism
that arise from Native communities. Indeed, as Gilio-Whitaker
shows, these topics are intertwined with a pressing issue that
concerns all people: justice for the very lands we collectively
inhabit.”
—Clint Carroll, author of Roots of Our Renewal
“As Long as Grass Grows is a hallmark book of our time. By
confronting climate change from an Indigenous perspective, not only
does Gilio-Whitaker look at the history of Indigenous resistance to
environmental colonization, but she points to a way forward beyond
Western conceptions of environmental justice—toward decolonization
as the only viable solution.”
—Nick Estes, assistant professor, University of New Mexico, and
author of Our History Is the Future
“As Long as Grass Grows, in the way no other study has done,
brilliantly connects historic and ongoing Native American
resistance to US colonialism with the movement for environmental
justice. This book helps teach us the central importance of Native
theory and practice to transforming the radically imbalanced world
that corporate capitalism has made into a world of balance through
extended kinship with the social and natural environments on which
human beings are dependent for life.”
—Eric Cheyfitz, professor, Cornell University, and author of The
Disinformation Age: The Collapse of Liberal Democracy in the United
States
“This groundbreaking new book will ignite conversations about
environmentalism and environmental justice. Dina Gilio-Whitaker’s
beautifully written account of environmental politics compels
readers to understand how Indigenous people and the nonhuman world
are caught in the gears of settler colonialism—and how an
indigenized environmental justice framework can powerfully reframe
our debate and our relations to one another and to the natural
world around us. As Long as Grass Grows is perfectly timed to offer
a fresh and captivating take on some of our most urgent issues of
environmental and social justice.”
—Traci Voyles, author of Wastelanding: Legacies of Uranium Mining
in Navajo Country
Ask a Question About this Product More... |