Sonya Atalay Highlights Center for Braiding Indigenous Knowledges and Science in 2024 Daffodil Lecture

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On Thursday, March 12, Commonwealth Honors College and the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi hosted the 2024 annual Daffodil Lecture in the Student Union Ballroom. This year’s speech was delivered by Sonya Atalay (Anishinaabe-Ojibwe), provost professor of anthropology, who talked about the newly inaugurated Center for Braiding Indigenous Knowledges and Science (CBIKS). 

Atalay was first introduced by dean Mari Castañeda, who also explained the founding of the Daffodil Lecture: “We hold this lecture in honor of [late dean Priscilla Clarkson’s] memory, and her important role in overseeing the college during the time the [Commonwealth Honors College Residential Community] was being built.” 

From left: Sonya Atalay with Mari Castañeda

The CHCRC was “built with the belief that nature, especially daffodils and trees, have a lot to teach us about creativity, vitality, and resilience,” the dean explained. 

Atalay then took to the stage, introducing herself by Indigenous protocols, where she started with her relationality, her spirit name, her tribal affiliation, and her clan. 

She then introduced CBIKS, explaining that the vision for the project is looking forward to 2033: “After a decade of CBIKS, we see a world where Indigenous knowledge and Western science is at the forefront of scientific inquiry, and an enhanced workforce of students, scientists, and Indigenous communities have the skills and training to conduct and apply braided methodologies,” she said. 

Atalay also sees “greater equity through greater connections, improved quality of life through enhanced climate adaptation and mitigation planning, improved care of tribal homelands, public lands and cultural heritage,” as part of this vision.

She highlighted CBIKS’ research objectives, which include providing foundational understanding of braiding Indigenous knowledge and Western science, carrying out transdisciplinary studies to address climate change, developing generalizable methodologies for research, training the next generation of scientists and focusing on Indigenous students, and lastly, informing policy and practice. 

The first-ever Indigenous center of this scale globally, CBIKS was funded through a $30M National Science Foundation grant that is renewable for up to five years, making it the largest investment known in Indigenous studies. The grant was to fund NSF’s Science and Technology Centers (STCs) and CBIKS is the only social science-based STC. It is the largest grant ever awarded to UMass Amherst.

CBIKS has three primary components: regional hubs, thematic working groups (TWGs) and an online knowledge base. “We think of these as interconnected components of a woven basket,” said Atalay.

There are eight regional hubs that are foundational to the center. These are similar to the base of the basket, which are upright stakes, she explained. They are made up of Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars that “actively braid together Indigenous and Western science and data” and conduct research in partnership with Indigenous communities. 

The center has identified three key focus areas to carry out their research: climate change, care and protection of cultural places, and food insecurity and sovereignty. “They’re siloed in separate departments in most academic institutions – but in CBIKS, we allow them to be the way they are in the world and the way Indigenous communities engage with them, [which is] in an interconnected and braided way,” she said. 

Following the regional hubs are the seven TWGs, each focusing on understanding a key step of an Indigenous research process. The TWGs are considered “weavers” that are pieces a basket maker wraps around the base of upright stakes. Atalay explained: “The scholars in TWGs look across all the hubs to learn how to Indigenize the research process, learning to braid together Indigenous and Western science practices and data at every step of the research process.”

The last component, the online knowledge base, is represented by a completed basket, showing how it holds knowledge. It is an online repository of publications and documents gathered by CBIKS and other Indigenous scholars, where people can take from, and give to, the knowledge base. 

She went into detail about the CBIKS team, which is made up of over 50 Indigenous scholars across the globe, many of them being the only Indigenous researcher in their field. She also explained the STC process and the energy and time that went into it. 

Atalay originally wasn’t planning on applying for the grant since she thought it would be impossible for a center of this kind for Indigenous studies, especially when these grants are awarded to more traditional STEM fields. However, the chance of potentially starting a center of this kind, and at this scale, was an idea she just could not resist, so she eventually decided to go through with the process. 

The application process was lengthy, Atalay explained. She applied for the grant two years prior and after numerous campus visits and proposal rounds, her group was awarded the grant in September 2023. 

“I want to share the level of review that's required and the intense levels of labor and hours that members of our incredible team committed to this effort,” she said.   

Explaining the concept of braiding knowledge, Atalay stated that it's a co-creation of knowledge, (both a product and process) and that the braid represents three strands of knowing. It is shown as the braiding of the past, the present and the future of Indigenous knowledge. 

CBIKS’ research is done at three scales: global, local and meta. The local scale would be through their regional hubs, the global scale is their network and online knowledge base, and the meta scale is through the seven TWGs.

Atalay then explained each of the three components in detail. The eight regional hubs have two co-leads each, and are divided into geographical regions. At each hub, there are research foundations projects, which are to decolonize and build foundational pieces of Indigenous research, and place-based studies, where communities can propose projects related to at least two of the three research areas and receive $100,000 in funding. 

CBIKS has made numerous accomplishments in their first year alone. The team rewrote the intellectual property agreements for 20 of their partnering institutions to state that Indigenous communities maintain control and the rights to their own knowledge. The rewritten agreement was accepted by the NSF as well. 

This is a historic win for Indigenous research globally, Atalay explained, as most Indigenous research belongs to the scholar that pursued it, not the community that it was retrieved from, giving these Indigenous groups more protection and recognition for their practices and knowledge.

In closing, Atalay talked about CBIKS’ participatory planning and conversations with their partners, where they asked them to envision what the victory circle could look like seven generations from now, where they shared what they the  success of CBIKS as in the future.

Robin Kimmerer, a partner of their team, shared her reflection during one of their meetings, saying “Together, we imagine dancing in our Victory Circle [through] a celebration of the growth of a new generation of Indigenous leaders equipped with the skills of Braiding Knowledges. We want to celebrate creating a climate in which Indigenous Knowledge systems are represented and valued in decision making. We want to celebrate the spread of new narratives we cheer for tribal colleges [which] CBIKS’ models are part of. We are dreaming of a way to decolonize scientific establishments of self-determination for the time when we know ourselves as research leaders, not research subjects. We will know we are successful when social and ecological well-being for land and people is the highest research reward.” 

Following Kimmerer’s reflection, Atalay asked her audience to consider the same kinds of questions she presented. How can one transform their research practices to center relationality? What practices would you incorporate to act as protocols of care? How will you ensure data sovereignty care and protection of Indigenous knowledge? What would Braiding Knowledges look like in your research and how would these practices look in your Victory Circle?

“I ask all of you to consider those pieces and think about how you can share your talents and your skills to build regenerative science practices that ensure we all make it to this Victory Circle,” said Atalay.