INDIGENIZING GEOHERITAGE INTERPRETATION AT GRAND CANYON AND BEYOND

Geoheritage sites in the Southwest United States such as Grand Canyon have been traditional homelands of Indigenous peoples long before they were identified as geoheritage sites. Native Nations stewarded these places for thousands of generations, and today maintain their sovereignty, voices and rights over them. They hold deep connections to these places through their origin stories, ceremonies, beliefs, identity, cultural values, and languages. However, National Parks and Monuments have historically not adequately acknowledged the presence of Indigenous peoples. Indigenous knowledges have largely been marginalized and excluded from geoscience interpretive programs. Indigenous people whose traditional homelands have become National Parks and Monuments often feel excluded from what is really their land. What is geoheritage to Indigenous people, and how can interpretive programs and assets at National Parks and Monuments be re-created to render them culturally equitable and inclusive—in a word, “Indigenized?”

In collaboration with and in support of an effort already underway by Grand Canyon National Park, our National Science Foundation-funded team is collaborating with the Park, and other entities and communities, to engage with and listen to the recommendations of representatives of the eleven Traditionally Associated Tribes of the Grand Canyon region. One goal is to foster a respectful, reciprocal, and lasting partnership at Grand Canyon among members of the Traditionally Associated Tribes, the Grand Canyon Trust, Interpretive Park Rangers, professional guides, and Grand Canyon geoscientists; to jointly develop a culturally equitable and inclusive (Indigenized) plan for place-based informal geoscience education at Grand Canyon. A follow-on goal is to collectively develop new approaches for more inclusive informal geoscience education and interpretation. We are carrying out this project through in-person meetings and listening sessions, held in the Park and in other culturally and scientifically important places on the Colorado Plateau. The partnership will produce written documents that include common goals, specific recommendations to the Park, and action plans for Indigenizing geoheritage interpretation in which Tribes have greater input and oversight. The model will be adaptable to other National Parks and to other geoheritage sites.