Heritage Voices · The Archaeology Podcast Network

Relational Engagement with Indigenous Communities through the Heritage Lands Collective - Ep 86

·1 hr 5 min·4 clips

At the ESA workshop, Native women described sexual assault and dehumanization in lab groups.

1. Heritage Voices episode 86 focuses on respectful engagement with Indigenous communities through the Heritage Lands Collective. 2. Jessica Uquinto hosts Joseph Gazingwolf, who says he is Lakota from Standing Rock, Hamazig and Nubian from Upper Egypt, a PhD student at Arizona State University, and the executive director of the Heritage Lands Collective. 3. The episode asks what it takes to work with tribes without repeating settler-colonial patterns of erasure and self-importance. 4. Joseph ties his motivation to childhood poverty in Egypt, displacement in Nubian communities, and the loss of language and land. 5. He describes the Aswan Dam flooding traditional Nubian lands along the Nile and forcing relocation to Aswan. 6. He says he worked at age five, lived away from his grandparents, and saw culture disappear around him. 7. Joseph recalls promising under the stars in Upper Egypt to spend his life protecting Indigenous heritage, culture, and the land that shaped them. 8. He says there was never a separation between people and land in his understanding of place. 9. Joseph connects that view to Egypt’s dry climate, saying the Sahara preserves materials and that seeds recovered there have remained viable for 30,000 years. 10. He points to Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Alexandrinus as examples of biblical manuscripts preserved in Egypt. 11. Joseph says losing elders means losing an entire library of knowledge, and he treats that loss as a climate and survival issue. 12. He explains that buffalo stewardship brought him into land management and into closer relationships with Lakota relatives. 13. He says his grandfather helped reintroduce buffalo at Standing Rock and taught him through poetry and family stories. 14. Joseph describes Buffalo as a relative whose presence changes how people behave in the field. 15. He contrasts his early work with white ranchers, where he says he saw protection and solidarity, with the racism he encountered around buffalo work. 16. He says the academic world exposed him to arrogance and narcissism that he found harder to tolerate than overt racism. 17. Joseph explains that he created his own academic community by gathering 21 Native ecologists and environmental scientists through the Ecological Society of America and an NSF grant. 18. He says that work shifted his dissertation toward Indigenous persistence in STEM and toward changing institutions that were designed to erase Native people. 19. The interview has an earnest, confrontational, and reflective tone, with long-form storytelling, detailed examples, and direct criticism of institutions. 20. Listeners interested in Indigenous land stewardship, ecology, and tribal collaboration will get the most from it, while people wanting light background listening may skip it.

As heard by us

A pointed interview that treats heritage work as a test of whether institutions can change.

Heritage Voices episode 86 centers on respectful engagement with Indigenous communities through the Heritage Lands Collective. Jessica Uquinto introduces Joseph Gazingwolf, who explains the rename from the Living Heritage Research Council, his role as executive director, and his…

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Hear a direct, unguarded case for respectful engagement with Indigenous communities.

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