ᓃᔪᑲᒥᑳᐸᐤ Niiyokamigaabaw Deondre Smiles, Ph.D. (he/they/wiin)

Oh definitely. If you’re eating late, there is no reason for you to be eating healthy food 😆

I definitely will! Might have to make a late night run tonight for a donut and a gyro.

Not too crazy on campus today! I think it’s close enough to finals that students are hunkered down, or maybe it’s the cold weather keeping folks inside, but it’s surprisingly very uncrowded today!

Some photos from the Northern Minnesota field school—what a fun experience. I’m planning to offer a similar experience (perhaps a bit more geography oriented) in the near future.

This past summer, I accomplished a professional dream I’ve had since I got my PhD, and led a field school of student-interns to Ojibwe territories in Northern Minnesota.

Besides doing historical research, we also got to spend time at community events and get out into nature!

Our team, consisting of myself, Dr. Margaret Newell (Ohio State University), Dr. John Bickers, and Dr. Noel Voltz (both of Case Western Reserve University) have led a series of labs over the last three years, training students on historical research, and doing research in communities!

Good morning from the campus of The Ohio State University, my alma mater, and the site of our symposium on Black and Indigenous Citizenship, the final event of our Mellon Grant that I and my co-PIs have held for the last three years!

I feel like I exist at that default state of busyness that we academics always seem to be at, but I will never say no to cowriting good work with Indigenous colleagues.

Let’s connect via email or DM and get planning!

*would be

You’re telling me that you’re not in favour of, to paraphrase Max Liboiron, adding Indigenous to science and stirring? 😆

But yes, I think that conversation and critical interrogation as something that would be extremely helpful for me in my work.

I see the question you’re asking as—what happens to our natural laws when the basis on which these laws are articulated have been materially changed?

Sounds like an amazing idea for a paper, or a series of papers, to be honest, if someone hasn’t already done it.

I think it’s something we are going to be confronted with more and more, both due to climate crisis, as well as all the other ways that colonization continues to try and destroy the ways we relate to our geographies.

You’re not too far away from my own territories—we’ve both seen the changes.

I think this is a really good question, and one I grapple with too. I know nations back home have tried to approach this with adaptation measures—how can we keep the spirit of our cultural practices alive even if the material realities around them change?

But that also comes from my views of what being Anishinaabe means, which is far more complex than the amount of “Indian blood” one has. Some of our greatest Ojibwe in Minnesota would not be considered Ojibwe or Native under current blood quantum policies.

It’s also why I have spoken out against simple adherence to blood quantum as a way to determine membership or citizenship—that has never been a part of our teachings as Anishinaabeg, and was imposed upon us to try and eliminate us.

Even if one is reconnecting, they are still making a conscious effort. A 23 and Me test is not a substitute for that.

Blood quantum and other pseudoscientific ways of measuring Indigeneity turns it into a quantitative measurement versus a network of connections, obligations, and lived experiences.

I completely agree with this.

While I have some very deep seated disagreements with her in other areas, Kim TallBear really has articulated well the ways in which genetic ancestry is being viewed as a rapid path towards self-Indigenization without meaningful connection to community.

And this made me think about the ways we’ve begun to resort to genetic research to see the effects of climate change and colonization on our ecosystems, and whether we’ve had these conversations.

This is all to say that I agree with you—I just wanted to unpack my thought process a bit more 😅

Where I was coming from with this, is that you’re seeing people saying “Well, imagine if you could have a kid without any illnesses or disabilities?”

I don’t think it’s a stretch to imagine that people are going to think we can bioengineer humans who are more resilient against climactic effects 😬

As I mention later in the thread, I think the work with manoomin will protect a valuable resource. I am far more open to adopting cutting edge technology for our uses, though.

I think colonization and anthropogenic environmental change has put us in this position, and that should not be ignored.

I don’t think the work with manoomin is eugenics whatsoever, but I do think that it opens the door to whether or not the research we do is in keeping with our own values and a reminder that knowledge production should be evaluated on individual merits, rather than uniformly being considered “good”.

For what it is worth, I do think that the work being done with manoomin is important, and promises to be a net good—but I also am aware that not everyone in our communities agrees with that assessment.

This heightens the importance of conversation and being thoughtful with our science.

This is what makes me nervous around discourse on whether or not things that may or may not be eugenics can be a good thing. People aren’t coming to the issue with nuance and a recognition that cutting edge science isn’t neutral, and may not be a net good, even if it ostensibly appears to be such.

As someone who has viewed this manoomin genetic work as being an example of Indigenous climate resilience, it was a sobering moment to me—are we playing Creator in order to try and stave off the cultural and ecological impacts of a climate apocalypse, even if it is not of our own making?

I know many of the people on that research team—many are Native. They have been working with tribal nations including my own, and have done so in a positive and ethical way.

But I’ve also had an Ojibwe elder l speak directly to me about their strong disapproval of genetic modification of manoomin.

Support for genetic modification and meddling, whether in humans or more than human kin, is not a given, even when there is potential benefit.

There has been research, for example, into making manoomin (wild rice) more genetically resilient against climate change and warming water temperatures.

Maybe sooner rather than later, considering that eugenics is apparently the Topic of the Day on Bluesky on this beautiful Thursday morning:

I hope you find them interesting! I was more immersed in death geographies and the role of the Indigenous deceased in making the settler colonial state healthy when I was in my MA and PhD, but I’ve dabbled in that space in the years since. My book on my dissertation will hopefully be out next year.

And! For what it’s worth, I wish your article on the KKK and medical politics would have been out when I wrote my comps and dissertation—it would have been cited often.

I think we definitely are on the same page too, just approaching the same conclusion from different angles. :-)

The power dynamics and structures that underpin how we define and “do” science is such an important thing to call out, especially when it comes to the history of science!

Anyway, this has been a very long thread. Maybe later I’ll drop some recommendations for reading about eugenics and its impact on racialized groups.