Occidental's Community Book Program Presents: Responsibility and Reciprocal Relationships with the Land: Indigenous Knowledge, Conservation, and Land Return.

Join Oxy Professor of Biology Gretchen North, Celestina Castillo, Executive Director of the Center for Community Based Learning, artist and scientist Samantha Morales Johnson, Tina Calderon, Tongva Language Committee member, Bryce Lewis-Smith, Research Assistant at UW’s Center for American Indian & Indigenous Studies, and Jesus Alvarez, president of the Tataviam Land Conservancy for a dynamic conversation around indigenous knowledge, conservation and land return. This panel was curated by Celestina Castillo and Professor Gretchen North.

Occidental's 2023-24 community book selection,Braiding Sweetgrass Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, by Potawatomi professor Robin Wall Kimmerer, is about the role of Indigenous knowledge as an alternative or complementary approach to Western mainstream scientific methodologies. We invite all community members to read the book and engage in our year long programming to engage with themes of the book.

Learn more at oxy.edu/community-book-program.

Before the lecture, engage with Oxy Arts fall exhibition, The Iridescence of Knowing, a group exhibition exploring the rich lineage of Indigenous cultural production in Tovaangar, known today as the greater Los Angeles basin.