Indigenous Experiences of Environmental Changes in Historical Perspective

While climate variability has accelerated in the last few decades, the planet has been warming since the end of the Little Ice Age (LIA) in the mid-1800s. Such environmental changes have particularly impacted Indigenous communities located in mountainous areas where glaciers have retreated, avalanches have unleashed snow and ice, glacial lakes have burst, and waterways have become contaminated with metals released by melting glaciers.

This project traces the history of Indigenous experiences and understandings of climate variability since the end of the LIA to understand how environmental changes have impacted Indigenous people and how they have responded to such changes. The results of this project will help policymakers, scientists, and environmental organizations develop plans inclusive of and attentive to Indigenous views and experiences.

The project’s main goal is to examine how Indigenous people’s ecological experiences, knowledge, and practices have shifted over the last 200-years. It asks: how have Indigenous people understood and shaped their environment? How have they interacted with state institutions, industry, and non-Indigenous scientists?

How have Indigenous communities altered environmental and ritual practices in the face of environmental change? And how have their relationships with a changing environment shaped their identities and organizations? The study posits that Indigenous people’s labor has shaped the environment, that their relationships with the environment have shaped their identities and claims to resources and autonomy, that their knowledge has informed state policy and scientific expertise, and that their ideas and practices have changed over time due in part to the impacts of environmental change.

The project will be based on extensive archival research and document analysis as well as oral histories and ethnographic interviews.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.