NDN Science on Earth Day

Meet Annie Sorrell the lover of manatees, from Montana (Annie is from Montana - not the manatees). And Loga Fixico, scientist, philosopher and studier of complex systems.

What do they have in common? Well, they both studied at the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment at SUNY ESF, they’re cousins, and they’re cohosts of the NDN Science Show.

We had the great pleasure of speaking with them on Earth Day in the midst of our taste of science festival on everything from how they use their training to assist their indigenous communities, to the value of understanding culture and storytelling in informing scientific research.

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You can follow the NDN Science Show on Twitter and Instagram, or simply listen to the podcast on your favorite platform.

Our featured musical artist for this episode is New York State based The Hathaway Family Plot, find more of their work on bandcamp and feature it yourself since it is available for use through creative commons.

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You can find our longer Earth Day chat on YouTube. Subscribe now for the cat cameos.

Episode transcript

[Background intro music playing is a piano instrumental called "Flat man in winter" by The Hathaway Family Plot]

Parmvir: Hello friends. And thank you everyone for joining us for this episode of our 2Scientists podcast. For those of you who don't know us, we bring you inspiring scientists to share their work with you wherever you like to. Listen. My name's Parmvir Bahia, and today we are going to be talking with Annie Sorrell and Loga Fixico.

Unfortunately, I am going to massacre the pronunciation of Loga's name (pronounced close to La-ja) throughout. So he is entitled me to say that I can call him turtle. So join us and say hello, Annie and turtle.

Loga: Hello everyone. Glad to be here. Yes.

Parmvir: How are you both doing this evening? Doing well?

Loga: Doing well. I'm enjoying the beautiful rainy weather here in Montana.

Parmvir: I love the rain too.

Loga: It it's cold and rainy.

Annie: I don't like it so much. I am, I am ready for the spring and I'm ready for summer.

Loga: Yeah, it's weird. It's my favorite hiking weather, even though you probably shouldn't go hiking in this weather. But in my mind personally, I wouldn't take people with me.

Yeah.

Parmvir: All right. So before we get started what I'd like to do is read out land acknowledgement statement from the University of south Florida based in St. Petersburg. Because I think it's really apt for today's episode. And so:

The University of south Florida, St. Petersburg campus wishes to acknowledge and honor the indigenous communities who lived and took stewardship of this land.

The university recognized that this campus was built on the indigenous homelands and resources of the Seminole, Miccosukee, and Tocobaga people. I hope I said those correctly, as well as their ancestors, going back over 10,000 years, we acknowledge the painful history of genocide and forced removal from the territory.

And we honor and respect the many diverse indigenous people still connected to this land on which we gather. This is a call for all of us to commit, to continuing to learn how to be better stewards of the land we inhabit.

So for anybody who hasn't heard land acknowledgement statement before, could you explain what this is and why they're so important?

Annie: Yeah, yeah, I can, I can do it. We, I guess when we do our presentations. We like to do it in the beginning as well. Because I think legend and I both agree that everybody is indigenous to somewhere and it is extremely important to recognize the people that are indigenous to the area. And as science is progressing, we are learning that the knowledge that is gained from those indigenous people are important and should be included in pretty much all aspects of science.

So we do it in recognition of those indigenous people. You know, I think that it is definitely a new form of a land acknowledgement. Not everybody does it, not everybody. I think understands it. Yeah, it's definitely one of those things. And I, I will say before, because my network bandwidth is low.

I am currently in a very, very, very rural location. So my wife high is extremely spotty. So I'm sorry if I end up being patchy or if it comes out a little unclear, I feel your pain it's really bad. I mean, so like our land acknowledgement, I'm Loga and I are at the Flathead reservation in Northwestern, Montana where we are, I am Bitterroot Salish among other tribes and among other races as well.

Loga do you want to say what you are?

Loga: Yes, I am officially human. But aside from that, I saw, I grew up here. Interestingly enough, I'm on enrolled Seminole in Oklahoma and Loga is a Seminole word. That means turtle and Fixico is a Seminole word that was, so I've heard two different stories. One is that it was given to escaped slaves before the revolutionary war, when they would make it to the Everglades, they'd get adopted into the tribe and they were given their own communities.

And the way my dad explained this is that Fixico means you can never be a slave. Or in short free man. So that's what I said for a long time free man, but an uncle of mine, the same one that helped me figure out that it's not "Luja", but "Laja", and he helped me understand that there's a little more to it than that. That Fixico, yes, it meant that, but it also meant that it was a something you earned in battle like a rank or maybe like a like a star. It means "no heart". And the best way I can explain that is by referencing the film, The Last Samurai, where that one dude walks up to Tom Cruise because he's getting his ass kicked and says, "Hey, you're paying attention to too much, man. No mind." And the way I interpret no heart is it's not that I don't have a heart, but that when you only listen to your emotions, it can get people hurt. It can get people killed, especially if you're a warrior and you have a lot of responsibilities. Can't just function off of emotions. That's important. You can't only listen to those. And that's why, especially in a crazy situation, you have to have no heart, not to say you can't listen, but it should not make your choices for you. But anyways I'm Amskapi Pikuni culturally, so that's the long story to my federal designation. As a federally recognized member, of have a tribe, but in my heart and in my mind, and in my voice I'm Amskapi Pikuni, which is the "scabby robes" of the people, which we call ourselves: Niitsitapi, but the, if you look at English, it's "Blackfeet", and we have jokes until this very day about where we got that name Blackfeet. And I'll say we could, there's probably a half dozen jokes I could tell about that. That no one would get, unless you actually live here.

And I grew up here in Western Montana, living in the mountains, fishing, hunting, going out, picking berries with my grandmas, my mom, and all of that led up to me being a scientist and has influenced my view on science and why I think science is important, but limited, and why it's so important to have good conversations with other scientists.

That's I think what huge part of science is, is we have to have hard conversations about really important topics that are often very emotionally charged and hence "No heart" that's. I think I was born to do this.

Parmvir: I love that. That's so poignant and is the perfect segue into the first question that we usually ask our scientists, obviously our, our name is kind of a little bit inaccurate today.

Normally the 2scientists consists of me and somebody else. So today we're three scientists. But we'd like to ask you what it was that inspired you to go into science, what your, your kind of story was and where it is that you are now.

Loga: I would say how about I go first because I tend to ramble.

So I'll think if I go first, I'll keep it a little more short. I kind of already told a little bit about that, but in, in so many ways, I, and I use this word not negatively, I was indoctrinated to be a scientist by my mother. She always told me that I need to grow up and be a biologist so we can get back glacier park from the feds.

I didn't know what that meant back when I was a kid and I still don't entirely know what that means, because I can't read her mind or her heart, but eventually I did not become a biologist. I became an ecologist. I learned that I love complex systems and I love, especially the way different complex systems interact in unbounded environments.

So this is an especially hard thing for me because I'm also deeply fascinated and into modeling. And those two things were rarely fit together. So as an ecologist and looking at things as, from a restoration point of view, I've been fascinated with traditional ecological knowledge. Since the very beginning, even though I grew up with it, I never really heard that term until I got into undergraduate school.

And then I found out about it and I thought, wow, why isn't anybody using these data to model ecological systems? I tried and it worked okay, but I realized I was shoving something into a box when it doesn't really belong in a box and the models are always wrong. Any good model modeler will tell you, all models are wrong.

It's just a model, but they are very useful and they help us focus, our efforts in areas where we could be running in a million different directions. And I think, especially with things like climate change and ecological restoration, without models to guide our efforts, we are very likely going to continue to make changes that we didn't understand, that are going to have effects that we didn't foresee. And these models that are going to keep on proving that we didn't really understand the system to begin with until we figure out, I don't know if it's possible, but until we figure out how to integrate in traditional ecological knowledge or indigenous knowledge systems, however you want to phrase it into these modeling schemes, because we're never going to be able to be successful at it, especially with things as complex as restoration and ecosystems or climate change.

And that's my science, I'm very intimately involved in that, but also the philosophical side, because traditional knowledge very much has a lot of philosophy involved in it. So understanding the philosophy of science and the history of science is just as important as understanding the technical more quantifiable side of the model.

Parmvir: Yeah, very cool. So I can already hear David, kind of the cogs turning since modeling is definitely his kind of field of research as well, except he applies it to cancer and evolutionary biology there instead. I'd imagine he's going to have a lot of questions, but that then leads us to you, Annie. So how did you end up where you are?

Annie: Yeah, I didn't quite have the same growing up as well, Loga did. Even though we grew up literally, probably within 50 miles of each other, most of our lives. I really didn't fall in love with science in high school. I definitely chose sports over like pursuing any type of like understanding of what college was.

I just knew I had to get good grades to play softball or golf. So I also, I knew I had, I had to do that, but. We get a free year at our local college or tribal college. So I decided to go to take my first year there. And then I took a general biology class and the teacher there really changed how I looked at biology.

She made it extremely fun. I think that I had wanted to be a teacher for a long time in my life, but not knowing really what that meant or what my future holds. So fell in love with general biology. I have also had an, a fascination with manatees as well, being from Montana, don't know why. I went to Disney world and Disney world at Epcot, they have a like rescued manatee exhibit and I was like five and fell in love with manatees. And, and so I, I knew at some point that maybe manatees was what I wanted to do. And so after two years at the tribal college, I was like, I'm going to be a Marine biologist. And so I went to the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.

So I spent some time there being on an island and being surrounded by like a Marine wildlife. I realized I, I do like large mammals in mountains. It definitely got claustrophobic that island I, man, I, you can drive around in two hours. And to me, that's, that's crazy. Cause you can't even get it from across, like what a quarter of Montana. And it's like 10, 10 and a half hours. So to me like that, that was just crazy. So then I just, I came back, worked for a while. Then I decided to go to Haskell Indian Nations University, which is an all tribal university in Kansas. And there, I, I, again, I, I chose science but really I chose like very hard sciences.

I did like iron ferrate in water quality. I did a little bit of, of Manatee, evolutionary biology, little field in there. Nothing involved, traditional ecological knowledge. And even though I went to a fully tribal school, I think the most indigenous thing I did was I helped my partner work on a food desert for the donate people which has the Navajo people. So it wasn't even focusing on my tribe.

And then I came back home after a really dark point in my life that that really forced me to look at how I'm moving forward and in what I'm going to do. And I'm now at this age, I've graduated. I had to do something. And so we participated in what was called return to our Return to the Homeland. And it was the 120 fifth anniversary of the removal of my people, the Bitterroot Salish people from the Bitterroot area to the reservation. And it was over three days and like, it was, it really kind of changed how I looked at my own cultural identity in my own indigeneity at that point before then my father you know, my, my family has a lot of historic traumas in our life, so had never really been super into my culture.

So I'm a late bloomer right now. I'm really learning. So that moment really changed my life and so happened that I got afforded a chance to do a master's program where I do focus more on this idea of a biocultural restoration and focusing on culture in science, and then how has that applied, and to me that was extremely fascinating. And it felt like something that I wanted to know more about and learn. So it's completely opposite than Loga who had known some idea of it, his whole life. Which is why I think that we work so well together. We have very different worldviews in how it looks about how that plays into our lives and how that portrays in, in all aspects of our worldviews.

So definitely been interesting. So now I, when I'm here, I have now realized that I love environmental education. So I am now doing that. I do work for a visitor service operation for the feds. So I have chosen environmental education and this podcast is kind of an example for that.

Parmvir: Very cool. So you both ended up as students at the Center of Native Peoples and the Environment which is at the State University of New York is quite a mouthful.

I can't remember what the ESN stands for. Environmental...

Annie: science and forestry.

Parmvir: There we go. That's the one. It sounds like an incredibly unique place. So do you, can you tell us something about the history of its founding?

Loga: Oh, I can't do that without talking about Bob Marshall.

Parmvir: So please tell us more about Bob Marshall!

Loga: And I had no idea about this story until I went to ESF. So apparently Bob Marshall went to, not apparently, but Bob Marshall went to school there. And there are the largest wilderness area in the state of Montana is called the Bob Marshall wilderness area. And I have been back in there and it is one of the most epic places. You know what I'm going to correct myself besides maybe Badger-Two Medicine or up behind Chief Mountain, the Bob Marshall, especially certain areas around like the Chinese wall, or if you look at some of these drainage's that come back out of the Sun River area, and some Montana locals will know this. It's one of the most epic, beautiful places I've ever seen in my life. So, with that foundation Bob Marshall wasn't from here at all. Apparently he was not from even with a thousand miles of this place.

He went to school and lived on the east coast and they even have a building there at ESF named after him, the Marshall building, which I did a lotta, his classes in, and I was always, I had not always, but I kind of in the back of my mind, I thought Marshall, because every time I hear that word, Marshall, I think of Bob Marshall and how special forestry is in Montana.

And he got his start in forestry and then eventually did so much work to create modern forestry that they named an entire wilderness area after him here in Montana and our school there is one of the oldest any, you might be able to correct me if I'm wrong on this. Is it the oldest environmental school in the nation? The oldest in a university in the nation that teaches forestry, specifically the oldest forestry school in the nation, I might be wrong. It could be Yale. I might be a little off on that, but it's at least as old school as Yale. And it's one of the most well-renowned. I didn't know about it. I wasn't really into forestry, even though I have a degree in forestry, I did it because of the modeling stuff and David, that question's a really good one and I have a very specific answer to that, but the the forestry stuff always captivated me because I, the way I see it as it's like these ecologists that are struggling to deal with a complex system that is fundamentally a human one and by excluding humans, they're all the, they're actually missing an entire set of gears that make the whole system work. So I really love the talking to foresters. And I hear so much about this problem of how humans interacting with forests and how there's different value systems colliding. And that is exactly what ESF is good at, in my opinion, is bringing different worldviews together to do science together. And in New York State especially, they have a very different forestry policy than we have here in Montana. Over there in their state forest and their national lands people own property. That's not, we, we don't have that over here at all.

And so I didn't know that existed. So I went there and I learned that they have to do that. Complex systems interacting together in a way that I never experienced growing up because we go to glacier park, you're not going to see a town unless it's run by the government. We, you go to the Bob Marshall, you will not see any towns. You will not see any vehicles. You will not see anything except maybe a pack train of people going back or hunters, backpackers, never any mechanized vehicles. That's not like that over in New York. So what I started realizing living over there is that ESF specializes in that human, let me rephrase that in that urban wilderness and landscape to use technical terminology.

But in reality, in my perspective, that dichotomy is a false one. Urban landscapes are just as natural as a forest that people have been managing with fire and selective harvesting for hundreds of years. In an urban landscape is just as natural because it comes from human culture. How is human culture not a part of nature?

It's just an expression of our biology in my opinion. So the way I see urban landscapes is a necessary thing to help us learn more about who we are as humans. And that's what ESF is doing a lot of good things in is they're right in the middle of a big city, but they're surrounded by all these amazing parks and all of these amazing wilderness areas, not like what we have in Montana, but they're definitely, there's bears, there's all sorts of stuff that people have to deal with. And talking to folks that do live out in the countryside in New York, I found that we have a lot more in common than we have different even 2000 miles away. And that blew me away. That just completely blew me away. And he did. Did I miss anything?

I think you kind of, you had a different experience, but like Annie said, her and I, we, we see the world in very different ways, partially because of our upbringing, but also because we're just different people and she's a woman, I'm a man and it's just going to change the way we react and the way we see and the way we feel.

And that's not a bad thing. That's a good thing because in that way, like she said, we compliment each other and I don't know, I don't think I can actually quantify how much I've learned from Annie and would that being said she helps me learn how to quiet down and listen. Yeah.

Parmvir: So Annie can you tell us, sorry, can you tell us what's so unique about the program and what your experience was going through it?

Annie: I mean, I know that bio cultural restoration is probably only talked about and discussed, especially when we started, we started three years ago. It really was only at SUNY ESF where we were at. It was one of the first kind of masters programs that really wanted to incorporate this idea of traditional ecological knowledge into restoration. And you know, it, it's definitely, aah man. Yeah. I mean, it definitely changes how you look at things that, you know, I observe more when I'm out walking. You know, I think that before it was, you tend to like power walk or like run and then miss out on a whole bunch of things. I learned a lot about value systems as well.

You know, we talk about respect, responsibility and reciprocity a lot of the times you know, and I think that that has just generally changed in my life and a lot of aspects. And I now get to explain those value systems to people that really have no idea of about indigenous knowledge or even indigenous communities or people.

You know, we, we tend to be this idea of past tense people were, we're not modernized. You know, why, that's why we decided to do the NDN Science Show kind of playing on the idea of, of a modernized version of, of what are indigenous people today and kind of what are they doing, because I think there's like, this stereotypical idea of what an indigenous person is. And there are over 570 federally recognized tribes in the United States alone. You know, that doesn't consider the First Nations in Canada or speaking about Australians or their Aboriginal people you know, and Maori people, people in South America as well. You know, I think that it does touch base on this idea.

And this program has opened my eyes to indigenous people across the world. And it is extremely interesting to me that Robin Kimmerer, who is our advisor and mentor while we're there you know, really has kind of pioneered a unique way to look at science and especially storytelling and science. And I really feel like that's what this program has helped me on a lot is how to become a better science storyteller. I'm not trying to use big words and, you know, I had my first kind of long talk with one of our cultural elders and the moment I said, a big word, you can just see it zoom across his head.

And he just, he just didn't know. And so like understanding how to communicate with people in a extremely different way. I think that that's what this program has kind of helped build kind of my own personal, like personal outlook. It kind of how I interact with people and how I teach people about science.

And how we've always had this idea of, of you have to walk in two different worlds. So you have your cultural and your native side, then you have your science, everything kind of has to be separated, but this program really is revolutionary. And the fact that it is blending and merging and integrating the two so that you can have your culture and science in bringing something back to your people that is meaningful. And it is important to you, not only you, but to yourself as a scientist. That's what I'm, I'm kind of learning and getting out of the program.

Parmvir: That's very cool. And I completely agree with the importance of language when you're communicating science and making sure that you don't include a lot of jargon and so on.

I think there's also a larger conversation going on around who is included within scientific conversations and the idea that we're not using native languages at which point there's an entire, like swathe of the entire world that's excluded. So I've spoken to my mum about my research in the past and she was just like, yeah, yeah, okay, whatever. And the first time I tried to explain it to her in Punjabi, she finally connected with something and she started asking me questions. I was like, oh, wow. Okay. So it was super hard for me to do that, cause my Punjabi is gross these days, but you know, it was just this, this idea that I just hadn't considered that. Because she speaks English, but to her it didn't mean something until I told her in a way that, you know, she felt like she resonated with, I know this is like listening to your podcast and certainly listening to I've been listening to Robin's book Braiding Sweetgrass, which I highly recommend to anyone who is joining us right now. Like, I would, I'll read the book as well, but to listen to the audio book is just, like in her voice. Yeah. It's just magical.

Loga: I love when authors read their books on audio books. Yeah.

Parmvir: Yeah. And it's, as you say, like it's her story and it's, it's so hard not to get swept away with what she's telling you. And it's so, so much easier to connect to the science she's talking about.

So. Well, I want you to ask you next is, is actually about your research. So can you tell us about your scientific projects? And David had actually asked us in here what does a day look like for you? What's a typical day. If there is such a thing, let's start with Loga this time.

Loga: So I really deeply believe in morning routines and waking up at the same time every day. It's not just my own belief in my own opinion, but this is very well-established in the medical literature that circadian rhythms are so important for so many different things. There's no reason why we shouldn't be integrating our daily habits into those rhythms.

So I try to do that as in as many ways as I can. And so typically I wake up and drink some water, take care of my body and. Do some movement of some kind and some days I meditate some days, I don't typically feel like it comes and goes as I need it for a long time I did meditate every day mostly through breathing exercises which I view meditation as a part of, but the science part of it really begins with really begins after that, where I've actually taken care of my mind and primed myself.

So I can start focusing on things. And my science today is, has almost nothing to do with, so practically the practical application has almost nothing to do with what I was training for in masters, which was the biocultural restoration and bringing social science and natural science together into a framework that is not only operational, but morally and philosophically robust.

Now, what I'm currently doing is working with people to pull, to put together a food sovereignty network here in Montana, and an effort to renew these old trade networks that we've been utilizing for thousands of years. And they've shifted over time and now we need to shift them again. And so that's what we're working on right now.

And the project is called the Montana indigenous food sovereignty initiative. And I say almost completely away from what I was training to do, because. A lot of what I am doing is, is bringing people with different worldviews together to talk about important stuff. And that's really hard not just to talk about it, but to try and facilitate a conversation where people have completely different opinions about stuff that I did not.

So I've been interviewing folks for years and I had no idea how difficult this would be until I started doing it. But it's also extremely rewarding. And in, throughout this process, I've learned, we have way more that we agree about than we disagree about whether you're left, right, center, libertarian, conservative, Democrat.

I mean, it doesn't even matter what kind of group that you're associating with, whether it's politics, or just societal or cultural or scientific. What I've found is we typically agree about things. 90% of the time, but we choose different words in different ways to symbolize what we're talking about.

And that is where we find our disagreements. Not that we disagree about family or about how we want to live our lives, but we disagree about how you should go about doing that and what words you're using to describe how you're doing that. And so my work at ESF was specifically looking at indicators or how you measure things one way or another, whether it's going horribly wrong or terrifically successful, an indicator is like a gas gauge where you're figuring out which direction are you going, and how to measure that as it concerns culture, it's very, amorphous. It's very difficult. And my task was to figure out how it's being currently measured, culture, and if it's possible or how it's currently being measured in relation to ecology.

So is culture related to ecosystems like a grassland and fire management? That's one of the most easy, easily identifiable cultural indicators. Of ecosystem success or ecological cultural or biophysical biocultural indicators. There's so many, and this is a part of our program is it's a, it's a brand new field and a part of any new field, which I didn't understand until I got into this, is creating terminology, coming up with a set of words, with a specific set of semantics, so we can operationalize that across continents and work on things at a scale that humans, I don't know, could possibly work on them without this kind of framework, which is the huge benefit of modern science is shared terminology. It's one of the major benefits, but it's also one of the major restrictions because that excludes it from local knowledge datasets in so many different ways. And that's where I found my struggles with traditional ecological knowledge, was trying to shove those into polygons or try or the opposite, trying to represent those across a whole landscape with raster data, which is just instead of like point data where it's bounded by a polygon, or it's a single point on a map or a line on a map. Raster data is continuous across the whole surface. So it's either a point a box or a line or continuous data across the surface. And there's not much in between those two. And that is one of the biggest problems with trying to represent traditional knowledge in a geospatial model. And that was my big failure as an undergraduate is I realized I didn't do that.

I did it well enough to where it get cool looking maps, but as far as actually representing the traditional knowledge on them, I don't think I succeeded in that. And one of my main interests now, and it's so weird to re to describe this because I'm a geospatial scientist, but I'm also a philosopher of science and bringing these things together has been one of the biggest challenges in my life and the short and dirty explanation I can come up with as far as why this is important is because we think we, we think about and view ourselves and the world in stories, not in some kind of set of data points.

And this has been true for time since time immemorial is we view ourselves, especially in ancient times as a part of a story. And if we can't start telling our science, through stories, we're not going to really do much for society. And that I think is one of the biggest lessons I learned by being a part of Robin's program and the Center of Native Peoples in the Environment and learning everything I did being over in New York from the Haudenosaunee, as well as the non quote unquote non-indigenous people there, is not only do we have a lot more in common than we think we do or want to admit, but we also are facing very similar problems in that we need to understand our role in the universe and to understand that the only way to do it is to speak with each other. So we can actually begin to understand each other's experiences. Nobody's right about anyone else's experience. And we can only ever be right about what's true, if we talk to each other about it, that's pretty much it. I don't know if that answers the question. That's the weird thing about talking to me about my science is my, I'm so deeply because it's philosophy and science at the same time, it's overwhelmingly challenging to, to pinpoint one thing or another.

But my main interest is integrating and trying to find out how, how complex systems interact and especially complex systems that are so complicated that it doesn't seem like there is an answer. And in this realm of, in this field, it's called wicked problems. They're so complicated. They're called wicked problems.

And these are the quote unquote unsolvable ones, the ones that are so complicated because they're actually not just one complex system, but a series of complex system systems nested within a wider complex system like forestry in America and where people have recreational values, but there's also cultural values.

And then there's economic values all colliding together. And that is my main interest as a scientist is not necessarily the restoration, but the development of philosophical, philosophical, and ethical frameworks that guide restoration.

Parmvir: So Annie, I know that your you both said that you come from very different backgrounds, you have different mindsets, but I believe that your research is also very different.

Can you tell us about yours?

Annie: Yeah. I can tell you a little bit about my you know, mine is strictly for my, the Bitter Salish people and their descendants. So I, I work closely with our culture committee and everything that I'm learning, I'm giving back to them. I'm not doing any presentations on my work. It's strictly for my community. But I am focusing on this idea of aromatic plants. And how does that reconnect you to land and kind of focusing on this idea of smell and memory. And how does, how does the smell we do a lot of harvesting of this particular plant it's called husks and it smells like celery.

It's got a different distinct smell. And so when, my sister said that that was her favorite smell, you know everybody has their certain favorite smells, and it got me to think about how this connection plays in. And so like Loga had mentioned Haudenosaunee people in New York played a drastic part in both of our lives, but what I got out of it was gardening and wanting to have a farm.

So I worked with this farm crew while I was there. And they're a part of this, the seed keepers. And so they have a collection of seeds and they really have this idea of wanting to be fully sustainable for their people. And that idea to me you know, I want my family to, I have even Loga's, my cousin, we have such a large family and we have such an interconnected community. And being here where you were seeing people. My dad has diabetes, where a majority of people will have diabetes. And then how then, if you're relying on these commodity foods, if you're relying on grocery stores that don't provide the necessarily good food quality, because we are in rural locations, how do you then become more sustainable?

So talking to them really pushed me into that. So I am also creating a forest garden proposal for two different locations for this culture committee. So if they want to grow upland plants, or if they want to grow kind of more dry shrub, like plants in one of our drier Prairie areas.

And so I do now because of COVID took a little break from my work just because my work is very community based. And I couldn't deal with you can't deal with our community because of our rural location and how COVID has impacted, you know, communities. I definitely didn't want to try to get people together.

So my summer looks like my walks every other week. Not only for the podcast, but for Sailish descendants to learn more about the basic understanding plant ID of these cultural plants and where to go on the reservation to collect or harvest these plants. So I focus on, on very much kind of an ethnobotany type Idea of, of really connecting people, but it's not even really ethnobotany because I want to connect people back to the land in a positive way that can help heal certain generational traumas that have really excluded the knowledge of being passed down since time immemorial. So little different both I think are, but it kind of shows you how different Loga and I are in our research.

Parmvir: One of the things that David asks here is how did the two of you work together? One of the things I was thinking about was obviously the, the kind of work that you do and the kind of work that the center does is not very common. So this idea of bringing together indigenous and traditional knowledge and showing that it's not incompatible with modern science. So I'm wondering how kind of like the typical "modern" scientist reacts to your work and what you have to do in terms of communicating with them, to get them to understand the importance of it.

Annie: Yeah. So I've had to do a lot of that with environmental educators. You know, and I think one of the most common things I hear is, well, how do we do it without appropriating your culture? You know, I hear that a lot is they want to make sure that it's not cultural appropriation and they're not, they're not taking it as a, not using it in a way that is misuse.

Which is why I focus on value systems a lot of the time. You know, I think Robin Kimmerer kind of helped lay out this idea of a honorable harvest and those protocols on there really can kind of help you connect to the land without actually needing to know cultural names, like what that plant was used for, but it does help you connect the land in a deeper way.

And I definitely think that that is important. And so it's not really cultural appropriation. Just like the land acknowledgement. If you do reach out to the local indigenous community, that is where you are. You know, they have tons of like environmental education and outreach programs. They do probably have a lot of tribal programs that, that can reach out and kind of help you with these questions.

And they can help engage you into that community. You know, I think that you had talked about wanting to kind of have, who's at the table and who was doing the discussion. Maybe a lot of the times native people just want to be at the table. They just want to feel like they are being heard and they have a spot to have there.

So that's what we focus on as a society of just making sure that the community is feeling heard. You don't have to speak the language. I think that you should invite elders to come out to explain it. They can talk about it. They can share their language, they can share their culture. You know, like me with my program where everything is, is strictly for my culture committee you know, there are some information that will be only for tribal members or tribal descendants.

And that's something that should be accepted that, that you won't be able to know everything that some of it is, is kind of sacred because I think boarding schools has affected, boarding schools assimilation. Colonization as well has really affected how our community interacts. So we are learning and it is a slow process and it's a hard process for a lot of communities.

And so reaching out and feeling like you can be I guess, a good ally and being that way so that you are reaching out and making sure that they are heard, that would be my best bet is respect, responsibility, and reciprocity with all of the relationships in your life. So how can you use those three to really kind of encourage a better responsibility to land? That's what I focus on. And so teaching value systems is what I focus on.

Loga: I would say being a scientist in general is difficult. No matter what field you're in, potentially one of the most difficult and challenging jobs on the planet with the lowest financial return. And I think that's a part of why it's viewed with such awe and mystery, depending on who you are, but also with such a vitriol and distrust, because people don't understand how difficult it actually really is, especially when you're on the cutting edge.

And you're trying to develop new methodologies. You're trying to validate a theory that has not been validated before. And all of this stuff comes into the work that we're doing with traditional knowledge systems and bringing those into the fold of modern science. And from my experience, the most challenging point of this whole endeavor has been grappling with, and in some way or another integrating the misunderstandings of not just the knowledge system, traditional knowledge systems, but of the people that hold it. That the ideas that surround being indigenous, the ideas surrounding this idea of what is an Indian or what is an Indian. And I think you could probably relate that there is definitely a difference between Indian and NDN and in a very strange way, even though you didn't grow up on the Rez, you know, you can relate with this joke.

It's a joke, but it's also a reality that, so there's this thing of group identity and the topic of identity politics has never been more out there in the media sphere than ever. And there's two sides to this and neither one of them is right. Kind of going back to David's question from before. I don't think it's important to be right. I think it's important to understand because humans aren't good at truth. We're good at interpreting the truth. And that's where science has become so powerful is it's been the most powerful and most specifically influential tool that has helped us get past that problem of never really, truly being able to actually find the truth, but only ever being able to interpret it.

And then agreeing on a system where we can actually start describing the truth, but that still doesn't mean we know how to deal with it. That doesn't mean we know what it means. Why is it the truth? Why does that work the way it does? That's not really a science question. That's a philosophy and a religious question.

So my that's, my biggest challenge is trying to bring philosophy and science together and encourage especially scientists to understand the history and philosophy of what they're doing. Very rarely do I find that scientists understand where their science comes from. And me I've done a lot of archeology and anthropology work professionally.

And so I had to understand where this comes from. And I was also interested. So knowing that eugenics and the gas chamber program that the Nazis had going on is a direct by-product of the high science of anthropology at the time really gets me thinking skeptically about science in general. When I hear things like it's settled, or this is cutting edge science, I'm like, well, let's keep asking questions.

Let's keep looking at it. Instead of trying to make these huge decisions for other people's lives based off of this, that's not our job, our science, a scientist, it's not our job. Our job is science and not science and politics, not science and this or that. That's where in our communities and our families.

Yes. But when it comes down to making decisions for millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions of people spread across thousands of miles. I'm like, who am I to say what, how they should live their lives? I don't know what they have to deal with every day. And so that's what I've learned from my research is cultural systems, cultural value frameworks are of the most important.

And especially in politics and science, people like to operate under this illusion that we escape those things. When we actually don't and Annie knows this, we've talked about it a lot. You can't separate your politics from your science, but that is our job. So anyone listening, that's not a scientist just to remember that we got a weird job.

It's a really weird job. One of the most especially challenging ones, because in so many ways we're acting against human nature because that's our nature to group people into identities and to, and to easily identifiable categories. That's just how our brains work, it's biology. But we also have this very unique and awesome ability to be able to recognize that and to shift our behavior.

And that's where culture comes in. There's this amazing tool and culture and language that we've invented to mitigate these things when they become unnecessary. And that's what I'm seeing right now is we need to stop just separating ourselves into different groups and start looking at what we do have in common and finding solutions based off that, instead of what we don't agree with, I don't know how we can find solutions of off things we disagree about.

I just don't know. I don't know if that's possible, but I'm also very ignorant about a great many things. So I'm very willing to listen and I think everybody should be doing something, talking, doing something to talk with people they disagree with and listen. And I include myself in that.

Parmvir: Well, while we're on the subject of talking, it feels like a good time to introduce your podcast.

And so on the, also on the subject of identity politics, now obviously as you alluded to the fact that my my parents are from India, but I was born and raised in the UK and as a very young child watching American westerns and thinking Cowboys and Indians, what, what, who are these people? Because I do not understand this at all.

And obviously it's, it's been used as a pejorative term, but I noticed that actually I have to finding your podcasts that a lot of indigenous folks use this term, N D N, which is like a contraction of the term. So can you explain why you use something that is a derivative of the term Indian.

Loga: Hm. So part of it was like, Hey, this is pop culture.

Let's do it. We'll get more clicks, but also because in a, in a very real way. So for Piikani people, and again, I can't speak for all of us but I love the word Savage. I am Savage AF and I would love to make a shirt, there's probably a shirt out there that says that, but I would sport it specifically because I'm Piikani. We are definitely Savage. And so it's a rebranding of the word the way I see it. And and I know in South America, they very much own the word Indian and but for scientists, it doesn't make sense kind of like you're talking about like, wait a minute, Cowboys and Indians, what those aren't Indians, but at the same time, that's what we were labeled.

And so owning it, rebranding it as what NDN is, is owning it and rebranding it to mean something different than what it was supposed to mean when it was forced on us. Does that sound about right?

Annie: Yeah, it's just rebranding it. Yeah, definitely. It, it shows you a generational difference as well.

You know, a lot of older native folks don't really use it. My mom likes the term American Indian. I don't you know, if chosen, I guess, Native American I prefer indigenous. And then, yeah, so I was thinking it's just accepting a term that was given to us, not by choice and rebranding it and making it more moderate and indigenous to not be, is there a past tense, like, like we always are considered in textbooks and in other things.

Loga: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and that's the thing too, is like this culture under a glass is the way I've heard it phrased before, but I mean, we're we're on zoom. I have a computer here. I use a cell phone, I drive a car, but I also sleep in a teepee sometimes. I also know how to ride a horse. I also know how to track an animal, and I also know how to order from Uber eats.

So this idea that being indigenous one is one thing or another is complete nonsense. It's just being human, we're adaptable and creative, like all other humans.

Parmvir: So we, kind of along those lines, we have a question from somebody in the audience today and they say, I love the conviction with which you speak.

Loga I also appreciate how you articulate, not forcing science truths on the resistant. How would you approach the COVID vaccination resistant population if at all?

No pressure.

Loga: So that's a really interesting one because I think it really comes down to how you speak, because I mean, this, this is also fairly well established in behavioral science that people do not make choices for the most part off of rationality and logic.

They make them off of emotional impulses based off of what they're feeling at the moment, and even the most rational and the most logical people in the world do this. So thinking of that and realizing that we're all human. And I think that's where a good place to start, because I don't know if it's actually possible to convince anybody that it's a good idea to get vaccinated until they convince themselves.

And the only way to do that is to speak to people in a certain way. So condescension not gonna work, guilt, tripping, not gonna work. If anything, that's going to make people more resistant and more willing to say it. Okay, well, screw you, then I'm just going to do this, this or that. So just being really in a weird, ironic way.

It's empathy, real empathy, not conditional empathy, but real empathy. Actually caring about what they're going through, what their opinion is, what they've experienced and acknowledging that. Yeah. Maybe they've seen things on the internet that got them confused. They've seen and heard things from government officials that got them confused and skeptical and not just understanding it, but being like, yeah, that makes sense.

Based off of their perspective, really putting yourselves in other people's shoes and speaking to them that way, instead of trying to force your science down their throat, or this is the worst thing, and you know what, I don't understand why anybody would ever think this would motivate people, but to use guilt and condescension.

I just don't understand why people take that approach. Just think about it. And have, have you ever changed your mind when someone was being patronizing to you?

Parmvir: No. It's more likely to make you dig your heels in right?

Loga: Yeah. Yeah. You dig your heels in. So that, just remember that. And remember how you respond when people are condescending to you, or if people try to shove any idea down your throat, think about it from that point of view, and then just proceed forward one step at a time because it's tough.

It's really tough when you have done so much reading and you have done all this research and you understand a certain thing at a certain level, and then you have somebody that comes along and says, I know this about that, but they maybe watched a few YouTube videos and they don't really understand it.

It's really frustrating. And, and, and with science, especially, it's not like, okay, well, I read a blog, I read an article. It's like, I read 20 articles. I watched these lectures. I've spent a year thinking about this thing. So when someone comes along and they're like, no, because this, and they're convinced off of just based off of a few videos or off of one influential voice, I can understand how frustrating that is.

I've been frustrated by it. I'm consistently, almost every day frustrated by this stuff, especially when it concerns maps. But that doesn't mean that I need to take my frustrations out on these people just because they don't understand.

Parmvir: Yeah. It's, conversations and communication or a two-way street, like, yeah.

Loga: And to, to wrap that all into one nice little thing Hanlon's razor, it's this notion that you should never attribute malice that which is equally attributable to ignorance or stupidity, because it's very, more likely, they just don't know what the hell they're talking about. They're not evil. They're not trying to pull the wool over your eyes or whatever it is.

They're just people like you.

Parmvir: I like that. So going back to the podcast and can you tell us how it was that the podcast came about and what it is that you would like - I don't want to say the word achieve because presumably you do that just because you enjoy it. But if there's something that you would like people to take away from it?

Annie: Yeah, so we started the podcast. It was about a year I would say. Oh, probably about six months after being at Syracuse. It was really hard. I think it's really hard when you are so tied to your community. And I was learning all these new things and we actually had one of our, but there was a third person who was from the same reservation.

We are went to the same program we did. And she left after the first semester because she felt like she needed to be with our community in order to get her degree. And I think that it goes either way. I think it's a 50:50. And so the way that we wanted to do the podcast then was just started with our conversations after.

I was a gen bio TA for what my very first semester in grad school with over 300 students and it, it kicked my butt and, and on top of coursework I didn't even get to really think about my research until probably after my first year. And then just start to think about how that plays into indigenous communities, how that plays into our own lives us being completely different.

We thought about these different lands. These conversations, we just thought that. Even if it was a very select few amount of people would hear it. If we can kind of help somebody who is struggling with their own cultural identity in any way. If people are trying to understand traditional, ecological knowledge, if they're trying to understand how modern indigenous people are we do not only focus on the United States, but we also focus globally on different indigenous issues.

I hopefully after the pandemic want to travel a lot more and see a lot of these indigenous communities, I want to go to Chiapas, Mexico and work with them. I'm an avid coffee drinker. And so I'm really getting into fair trade coffee beans, and they're one of the largest producers. And so in they're very indigenous based when they grow.

And so it kind of started that way. And so I hope that people, what they get out of the podcast is an understanding that everybody is indigenous to somewhere and learning your own indigenous roots and knowing how that plays into your own life and, and really understanding that traditional ecological knowledge is valid in that oral traditions and oral histories are extremely important when it comes to not only science, but I think every aspect of our life can be used and figure it out. And at least that's what I hope they get out. I don't know. I'm pretty sure Loga is going to be a little bit different, but know where you're from and see how you can increase your own cultural identity. Because every place is so unique and so amazing and learn where you're from and very place-based and land-based, and so learn to love the land and respect the land and, and a deeper connection.

That's only just artificial. It doesn't have to be pretty to be loved in any way.

You should love the land.

Loga: Yeah, that. So starting from the very beginning, I think it was just kind of, we were so convinced that our ideas are so cool that everyone on the internet would want to listen to them and download them.

So we're like, let's start a podcast. Of course it makes sense. I still think that way, but also, I, I agree with Annie, there's so much confusion and misinterpretations around traditional knowledge and indigenous people. And I didn't really understand the scale of that until I lived in New York and got to talk to people that thought, oh, so you guys don't really live in teepees or, whoa so you guys really still do exist, or whoa I had no idea that suicide was such a problem for you. So knowing just how little people know about us, but how many assumptions that are made has was something that really opened my eyes. And so that alone was enough of a reason to start a podcast, but also my, my love for science and philosophy and the philosophy of science was the driving force for me, I feel like that science has such great potential and we are vastly underestimating it by trying to use it, to answer all questions.

Instead of looking at all these other tools we've developed for hundreds of thousands of years, things like language. And cultural ceremonies. These are things that have been around for so long and science is brand new, but that's the weird misinterpretation is again, I want to redefine this word science and teach people that it's not a Western thing for one science, modern science uses Arabic numerals.

It uses inventions from China. How could we possibly call it Western science in any other way, aside from its drive to separate church from the science, that's really the main thing that seems to make European science unique, but, and it led to so many amazing things, but it's also been the single most limiting factor that ups modern science is the separation of spirituality from it.

I'm not convinced that was a bad thing, but it definitely limited its answering capability. So if I could ever, if I, if there's one message I could get out to folks is to, by spending time in a place and learning to respect and love that place, not only will you, will you learn less the lessons from that land, but you're also gonna learn the real nature of science, which is a human thing, not a Western or a European thing.

Now don't get me wrong. I love Western Europe. I love the cultures. And I especially love this story of this plant called skurrit(?), which was displaced, displaced by potatoes. So it's an indigenous European plant that was displaced by potatoes, opposite of

Parmvir: kind of along those lines, we have a question from somebody in the audience today and they say: I love the conviction with which you speak Loga, I also appreciate how you articulate, not forcing science truths on the resistant. How would you approach the COVID vaccination resistant population if at all?

No pressure.

So just being really in a weird, ironic way, it's empathy, real empathy, not conditional empathy, but real empathy. Actually caring about what they're going through, what their opinion is, what they've experienced and acknowledging that. Yeah. Maybe they've seen things on the internet that got them confused. They've seen and heard things from government officials that got them confused and skeptical and not just understanding it, but being like, yeah, that makes sense.

I just don't understand why people take that approach. Just think about it. And have, have you ever changed your mind when someone was being patronizing to you?

Parmvir: No. It's more likely to make you dig your heels in, right?

It's really frustrating. And, and, and w with science, especially, it's not like, okay, well, I read a blog, I read an article. It's like, I read 20 articles. I watched these lectures. I've spent a year thinking about this thing. So when someone comes along and they're like, no, because this, and they're convinced off of just based off of a few videos or off of one influential voice, I can understand how frustrating that is.

Parmvir: Yeah. It's conversations and communication or a two-way street, like, yeah.

They're just people like you.

Parmvir: I like that.

So going back to the podcast and can you tell us how it was that the podcast came about and what it is that you would like? I don't want to say the word achieve because presumably you do that just because you enjoy it. But if there's something that you would like people to take away from it.

We are went to the same program we did. And she left after the first semester because she felt like she needed to be with our community in order to get her degree. And I think that it goes either way. I think it's a 50:50 And so the way that we wanted to do the podcast then was just started with our conversations after.

We thought about these different lands. These conversations, we just thought that. Even if it was a very select few amount of people would hear it. If we can kind of help somebody who is struggling with their own cultural identity in any way. If people are trying to understand traditional ecological knowledge, if they're trying to understand how modern indigenous people are we do not only a little focus on the United States, but we also focus globally on different indigenous issues.

I hopefully after the pandemic want to travel a lot more and see a lot of these indigenous communities, I want to go to Chiapas, Mexico and work with them. They I'm an avid coffee drinker. And so I'm really getting into fair trade coffee beans, and they're one of the largest producers. And so in they're very indigenous based when they grow.

Not only science, but I think every aspect of our life can be used and figure it out. And at least that's what I hope they get out. I don't know. I'm pretty sure Loga is going to be a little bit different, but know where you're from and see how you can increase your own cultural identity. Because every place is so unique and so amazing and learn where you're from and very place-based and land-based, and so learn to love the land and respect the land and, and a deeper connection.

That's only just artificial. It doesn't have to be pretty to be loved in any way.

You should love the land.

So you guys really still do exist or whoa. I had no idea that suicide was such a problem for you. So knowing just how little people know about us, but how many assumptions that are made has was something that really opened my eyes. And so that alone was enough of a reason to start a podcast, but also my, my love for science and philosophy and the philosophy of science wasn't was the driving force for me, I feel like that science has such great potential and we are vastly underestimating it by trying to use it, to answer all questions.

It just so happens that Western Europeans were very dominant militarily and culturally. So in a weird way, they're, they're taking credit for a lot of things that are more human than they are a Western. That's my message. I guess if we could say anything about NDN science is science is not Western it's human, and we need to take ownership of that as humans and stop given Western European so much damn credit For everything now don't get me wrong. I love Western Europe. I love the cultures. And I especially love this story of this plant called skurrit (?) which was displaced, displaced by potatoes. So it's an indigenous European plant that was displaced by potatoes, opposite of what the moderate, what you usually hear.

And that's, again, going back to this notion that we're all indigenous to somewhere, the plants teach us that a lot, but also if we just look back at our stories and we appreciate where we come from, I don't know how any bad can come from that. Whether it's a good lesson or a dark one, you're going to learn something and hopefully become better for it.

Parmvir: I think that seems like a very appropriate place to wrap up. thank you again so much, really appreciate your time. And I look forward to plodding through the remainder of your podcast episodes. yes. So happy earth day and thank you to our audience for joining as well.

Annie: Yeah. Thank you for having us on here especially on earth day. I mean, we both, I think love earth. it's such a special day, so thank you for having us on this day. I really appreciate, and thank you for everyone listening.

Loga: Yeah, thank you. We appreciate it. And I've, I'm slowly, I didn't listen to your earlier stuff, but I was listening to your COVID series and it's definitely interesting. I, I, I mean, it's one of the subjects I've know very little about is microbiology, so I'm big complex stuff. I don't very little about the tiny microbial world, so yeah.

Thank you. I'm appreciative. Just Google NDN science show. If you want to find us and I'm looking forward to learning and hearing more of your podcast.

Parmvir: You too. Thank you so much. I love this mutual appreciation society thing we have going on here.

Annie: Yeah. I I mean, science. Science brings every walk of life together and it's so interesting. Different world views of science.

Loga: Podcasters are like that too. Like generally, cause we kind of understand, there's a lot that goes on behind the scenes to get ready for this stuff. It's not that easy. I appreciate it. Definitely.

Parmvir: Alrighty, thank you again. And I hope everybody has a wonderful rest of their evening. Yes, bye bye.

Loga: I'll talk to you later. Peace.

Parmvir: Bye.

[Musical interlude]

Annie: In a whole episode on a plant and the entire name, but the entire time I called it the wrong name, I was looking at my screen saying, looking at it. And I was like, oh, Nope, instantly kept saying the wrong plant every time. And then, so we completely had a scrap an entire episode because for some reason I could not think of that plant name instantly just every time I was like, whoops, like, so we just lost about two hours of recording.

And that was when we were very like, still, probably like in school, like had a lot of coursework. so like my bad, I just could not get my stuff together that day.

Loga: Yeah, I remember that. Yeah. I definitely remember that. And I'm trying to think of like one of the biggest oopsie moments I've ever...

Okay. It's modeling. So when I made the very first model to predict habitat for a very culturally significant species here in Montana. what I did was I made the model, I had everything set up and I went and I sent my committee, it was like an undergraduate committee. They designed it to be like, it would be like a thesis defense.

I sent them all my stuff. I sent them all my data, but what I didn't do is there's this stuff called metadata that's attached to GIS layers, and I didn't have any of that sorted out at all. So they didn't even know what they were looking at under the hood. All I sent them was a bunch of data points that didn't really mean anything aside from what I was saying. And I meant, which is like not the best way to do that kind of work. And I didn't even know what I was doing. And so that, I guess if there's any big oopsie moment where I just like afterward, I was like, oh God, that makes so much sense.

[Musical outro]

Loga: And that's why I love doing this podcast with Annie is we do disagree on a lot of different things, but in the end, It always comes back to that crazy meme with the dude with a big hair saying "Aliens!".

Season 8ScientistsIncAugust 24, 2021science, scicomm, #2scis, ecology, grad school, indigenousComment