00:00.00 archpodnet Welcome to heritage voices episode 64 I'm Jessica Yuquinto and I'm your host and today we are talking about indigenous education climate change and technologies of care before we begin I'd like to honor and acknowledge that the lands I'm recording on today are part of the nooch or ute people's treaty lands. The danta and the ancestral puebloan homeland so today we have Dr Clint Carroll on the show. Clint Carroll is an associate professor of native american and indigenous studies in the department of ethnic studies at the University Of Colorado Boulder ah, citizen of the Cherokee nation he works at the intersections of indigenous studies anthropology and political ecology with an emphasis on cherokee environmental governance and land-based resurgence so welcome to the show Clint. 00:51.10 Clint Thank you Thanks for having me. It's great to be here. 00:54.34 archpodnet Yeah, So um, you are somebody that has been recommended to be on the show multiple times for a long Time. So I'm very excited to finally have you on? um and just like I was I was telling you off air just so much to talk about. So. Um, let's let's just get started at the beginning and how you got into this field. 01:17.27 Clint Sounds sounds great. Great I'm looking forward to the conversation. 01:25.67 archpodnet Um, so what got you interested in this type of work. 01:27.80 Clint Oh you sorry I'll let you go again because I realized that the question was at the end of the last thing you said but go ahead. 01:34.48 archpodnet Okay, yeah I got a little like excited and okay, yeah, so Chris obviously you know what? edit? Um, okay yeah, so so what got you interested in this kind of work. 01:53.62 Clint Well, it's it's it's a long story but I'll try to be well I think it's all related to really the work as a whole um and how I got started has really just been kind of a continuation of what I'm doing now. So with that in mind. Um. My path through academia has been a windy one and so I started off at a local university in North Texas and didn't do very well I'm a first -generation college student. And didn't have a whole lot of direction at first. So I I took some time to do some work out of the academy out of the university and did a little bit of traveling and then went back to a community college local community college in dallas. Um, and from there I really just was taking courses that really piqued my interest and 1 of them took a lot of language courses and then took an anthropology course and as a combination of that experience and really kind of drawing from the. Experiences that I had outside of the university context really wanting to kind of put my passion and interest in language and and working with people and learning about different struggles and and cultural issues. Really piqued my interest in pursuing a degree in anthropology but primarily with the interest of being able to use that training and those skills to go back and work with my community and for a little bit of context I grew up in. Texas as you said I'm a citizen of the cherokee nation but I primarily grew up away from community and so it was a way for me to think about you know how can I put my educational pursuits in service of my nation. The people. And in the process make meaningful connections that I did not have the opportunity to grow up with and that includes the language and so I started getting you know, really passionate about learning my ancestral language. Back in the day we had you know, cassettes right? and so I well we had cds of course. But I bought what was then only available on cassette cherokee language tapes and listened to those over and over um and okay I'll get back to the the story at hand but that was a ah formative. 04:22.70 archpodnet 10 04:40.22 Clint Part is just kind of thinking. Okay, here's this this part of who I am in my ancestry. How can I you know eventually find my way back home so to speak so what I did was my I went to the office hours of 1 of my well v anthropology instructor. At Richland Community College and he was you know, just very supportive of the very few native students who were in his class pointing me in in the direction of Arizona and specifically and this is the funny part. He he pointed me to Asu Arizona State and I said okay, great. Well he said said they've got a great program in anthropology. Go check them out and so part of my story is I went you know online and applied to a university in Arizona and got the confirmation email back saying. You know? Thank you for your application to the University Of Arizona and I said oh wait and I didn't know that they were 2 different institutions. So but as fate would have it I ended up pursuing and I was fortunate enough to to go to continue my bachelor's education at u of a in Tucson and. And ended up just like never looking back made some um, amazing connections to the bureau of applied research and anthropology there as well as really the one of the foundational if not the foundational programs in american indian studies at u of a worked with some amazing folks. And continue to work with him to this day which which really you know that combination of of excellent programs formed who I am as ah as a scholar in terms of methodology in terms of approach to research generally um and you know I'll ah I'll always be indebted to the faculty there who. Kind of fostered that in me and so those 2 things you know, looking at both of those programs I would say are the emphasis on you know what are the outcomes of the work that we do in the in the communities. You know how does this matter and I think that stretches across applied anthropology and american indian studies which both have that. Um, just strong emphasis in work that makes a difference out in the world. Um, and so you know that continued to kind of foster and nurture within you know my mind as ah as a budding researcher scholar activist. You know community-based researcher. What can I be doing that is applicable back home and through that process of gaining research experience. It took me to Northern Mexico in Sonora it took me to the Bahamas. 07:18.37 archpodnet A. 07:31.90 Clint Of all places I worked there with local fishers surrounding the implementation of marine protected areas. So you know looking at local knowledge and how that interfaces with policy and and and conservation work. Um, all of that contributed to eventually at the end of my bachelor's degree going back home and I say home in all the different you know larger meanings of the sense because that's where community is that's where extended relatives are so I went back to Oklahoma um, and started working for my tribe. The Cherokee nation. As a luckily paid intern is actually a environmental technician is what they call them. But that's part of that story is you know going back and and and asking around you know what. Specifically I was working for the environmental services office. You know what can the skills the the experiences that I've been able to garner as ah, you know as a young researcher. How can I apply those to the community and as it turned out that office. And that department if you will had a director who was looking for ways to incorporate traditional knowledge into the the work that they did on ah on a daily basis and that office is essentially like the epa for the Cherokee nation. Um, and what came out of that experience was. Really grappling with this question in my mind of okay, we've got an environmental protection office for all intents and purposes. How is it that we've come this far as ah as an indigenous nation and we're not able to or we haven't had that conversation around incorporating our own. Ah, ways of knowing and ways of viewing the world into this office and how how it functions and from there. It just kind of launched into my graduate work which is another story but that was actually preceding the beginning of my ph d work at at Uc Berkeley 09:24.60 archpodnet A a. 09:40.59 Clint And environmental science policy and management and then the rest kind of flowed from there in kind of an iterative way. You know Berkeley was a culture shock for me big time in terms of the the different type of academic culture graduate school period not knowing. 09:56.88 archpodnet Soon. 10:00.34 Clint Necessarily What I got myself into um and you know it. It took some time to adjust but always thinking about that formative experience. Not only as an undergrad but working from my tribe that summer before grad school and I continued that I continued going back during the summers and like. You know again iteratively working on this longer project that really extends up to the present. 10:22.91 archpodnet Um, yeah I mean it seems like you know looking at your Cv.. For example that you have interests in a lot of different areas. You know like Anthropology um environmental. Ah, education even health and to me you know as ah as a cultural anthropologist the connection between all of them totally makes sense. Um, but when you were in that period like when you were looking at going to grad school when you were looking to going to work for your tribe. 10:49.91 Clint Um. 10:59.92 archpodnet You know were you having a hard time kind of figuring out what direction you wanted to go in or was it at that point clear in your mind to what you wanted to do. 11:11.15 Clint Yeah,, that's that's a great question because like kind of going off of what you said like in you know from your perspective. All the connections are are pretty much there. It's It's hard to compartmentalize all these different but you know what we might? ah. Section out in the University setting. Um, you know they don't have those types of boundaries necessarily in the in the real world and especially for tribal communities. Um I would say but for me, it's It's part and parcel to I think being. First generation I I think is a lot has a lot to do with it and I think I'm still learning um because I have all these interests and I have all these opportunities that that may arise and I think well yeah of course that makes sense but you know to to others. It may be kind of outside of that disciplinary realm and so they. Don't pursue it and for me I'm always trying to find ways to say well Yes, Absolutely for example, the relationship between the environmental work that I started out doing and health and um, you know that's been kind of a direction I've been taking more and more and then you know of course a lot of.. The health sciences are starting to come around to to acknowledging the connection between whether it be green space or conservation or just generally the relationship relationship between the health of the land and and and the health of communities and you know going back to what I was saying. Previously about discipline like disciplinary Boundaries. We look at the field of indigenous studies for example and it's It's inherently, ah an interdisciplinary field and i'm'm starting to call it an anti-discipline actually more and more because it just kind of refuses or. 12:54.50 archpodnet Alright. 13:02.51 Clint Doesn't really fit into any box and there's so many. Ah you know scholars. So so much amazing work going on in that field that doesn't necessarily have to be confined to a discipline necessarily? Um, and so it's just a matter of seeing what is you know? what are the concerns in the community and how do I translate that to work that. 13:11.18 archpodnet Right? right. 13:21.92 Clint Again, Reciprocates and kind of feeds back into actual you know outcomes and and and things that will kind of help move things forward in productive and generative ways. Um, but yeah, it's also been so going back to the first gen thing like. Not really having a like ah ah, a preordained like okay this is what I want to do this is you know it. It was all kind of new to me like the idea of going for a ph d was not something I would have imagined without the help of of programs that were there for that exact purpose like it was. Went through the mcnair program at Ua I went through another program called the Summer Research Institute Institute which actively worked with first gen and you know marginalized students to craft you know, personal statements to study for the ah gres which I failed miserably at those. But. Fortunately, that wasn't something that my my ph d program was was paying too much attention to um and now I think they're they're becoming less and less something that people you know look to when it comes to admissions but nonetheless made it to that process and. And made it to Berkeley and my family was just kind of blown away. Um, and so was I for that matter and then made it through Berkeley which was in itself. You know, just a very foreign type of culture academically but then had a lot of help along the way there. The forging community. With the american indian graduate program and you know folks within my department. You know my cohort who are also kind of experiencing the same type of culture shock. So you know community has always been a big thing throughout along the way and you know. Thinking about those doors that open that I walk through it may not have been logical in terms of you know someone who was just confined to like 1 discipline. Um, but I've been really fortunate to kind of make those connections in different ways and as you said like working with you know more health sciences. Oriented programs I was a ah fellow for the the native investigator development program that that really got me thinking about you know the intersections between the work that I was doing with my community and how that would be you know thought. Thought of or or how that would be approached from a health sciences perspective and so I learned different ways of of looking at research and you know research questions and writing that I think have just made the work itself stronger and have made me a better scholar and others may. 16:10.73 Clint You know have a perspective of like well if you're not you know, completely committed to 1 track then you kind of dilute yourself. But I don't know my my sense is that you know multiple perspectives as many as possible are going to help strengthen your your approach to the work generally. 16:23.66 archpodnet Yeah, well and I mean it's. Sorry cut out for a second so I didn't realize you were still talking. Um, Ok, ok, um, um, shoot Yeah no and I mean I think people. 16:33.88 Clint Oh no, no no I stopped. 16:47.12 archpodnet People do that they just do it in a different way so they'll they'll silo themselves to a discipline but then they'll look at a whole bunch of different things within that discipline whereas it seems like for you, you took um, kind of 1 topic in some ways and then looked at it through the lens of a whole bunch of different disciplines. 17:05.95 Clint M. 17:06.31 archpodnet Which I think is just as interesting and just as Useful. It's just ah, different. It's not like the the quote unquote you know, traditional academic normal way of doing things but in some ways I think that's a more interesting approach or more. Um. Ah, hitting it all of the complexity that the topic deserves I guess. 17:29.27 Clint Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's it's kind of it's been frustrating too. Um in that I'm trying to speak to multiple fields and I think in that sense it may be a little um you know, stretching myself. 17:40.56 archpodnet Oh. 17:48.78 Clint Too thinly. But um I you know I I just keep going back to like accountability like who am I really accountable to at the end of the day and it's it's not you know anthropology. It's not political ecology. It's It's the folks who I work with and so like you said like if you take that the the kind of grounded. 18:01.37 archpodnet Right. 18:08.90 Clint Questions or grounded issues and then kind of apply multiple disciplinary perspectives to them What remains at the end of it is that are those questions and and and and that commitment to you know, reciprocal research projects and so I am in no way like. Bashing those who do kind of take that single track you know single discipline approach but my path has been different and and whether that has been you know haphazard or intentional I'm still figuring out. Um, but at the end of it. It's it's still like again that. My my compasses or you know where where my sites are set on is how I can take these tools and resources and really apply them to making a difference back home and and you know along the way learning in the you know in the process. And you know contributing to kind of the fields that I am invested in as well. But only in the service of you know how that translates to some on the ground Stuff. You know with with the community. So yeah. 19:20.30 archpodnet Perfect. Well we're already at our first breakpoint but when we come back I want to go back and dive into your ph d work and then continue on your journey from there. 19:25.63 Clint Okay. 19:33.30 Clint Great.