Gratitude

I am learning how to honor and pay my respects to the Indigenous Peoples on whose homelands I dwell and their connections to the land that preserve, nourish and shape the community I call home.

• Bioneers Indigeneity Program
• Salmon Homecoming
• Giving the mountain back its name: Tahoma
• A very necessary book: The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee by David Treuer
• "The Myths of the Thanksgiving Story and the Lasting Damage They Imbue"
• "How these Native Seattleites are ‘taking back’ Thanksgiving"
• Songs and stories of the Coast Salish Peoples with Paul "Che oke ten" Wagner

THE ARCTIC

I am grateful to the peoples who care for and call my study site home—a dynamic polar community rich in culture and deeply rooted in local ways of knowing. 

In My Research Endeavors:

I seek to accomplish research that does not contribute to imperialism or colonial structures. I understand the need to decolonize self. I will keep a sharp eye out for any Arctic political agendas that try to diminish the role of Indigenous and local ways of knowing. 

Accountability of the Auditor

Listening inclusively and entirely is illuminated in postcolonial theory and reflected in decolonizing methodologies. As with any story form, considering the sonic story of a place too narrowly and through particular forms of language that diminish one over another may inadvertently continue to create structures of power through western research paradigms (Tuhiwai Smith, 2021) as well as isolate and characterize an individual voice versus interpreting an acoustic habitat in its entirety.