Blog: Voices of Decolonization

Reflections on Writing a Land Acknowledgment By Libby Bischof & Aaron Witham For the first time in 141 years, the University of Southern Maine opened its May graduation ceremonies with a Land Acknowledgment. Due...

Between February and June 2021 the Native-led Land Recognition Committee (LRC), established at the University of Southern Maine (USM), met to make recommendations for an aesthetic representation of land acknowledgement for the new buildings...

by Marissa Joly Reprinted with permission from the Gloria S. Duclos convocation at University of Southern Maine - Written Expressions: Voices from Native American Communities (April 2021) Growing up as a mixed indigenous person,...

by Barbara Will and Charlotte Bacon This essay appeared in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution January 29, 2021 and is reprinted with permission. It has been six years since the historic Maine Wabanaki-State Child Welfare Truth and...

by Bennett Collins We are so pleased to share this month's blog written by our dear friend and accomplice Bennett Collins who, along with his friend and research partner, Ali Watson followed the Maine...

Part 1:  The Kennebec by Diane Oltarzewski "Reverence brings healing. It is the fulcrum of the great turningof civilization toward reunion with nature." (Charles Eisenstein) Rivers are the veins of our Mother. They carry...

Tom Reynolds and the Paths Growing Awareness Can Take · by Gregory Brown · Finding the exact intersection of past experience, known skills, personal blind spots, and the desire to evolve and grow can...

by Morgan Talty It’s winter, and at the beginning of the bridge to the Penobscot Nation, bolted to a cold streetlamp, is a red sign that reads: “CHECK POINT AHEAD: BE PREPARED TO STOP.”...

By Gregory Brown When it comes to the land, food, and medicine, what does it mean to be an expert? Colonial culture, in its nastiest, know-it-all ways and well-grooved system of exclusion, points to...

Text and Photos by Erica Buswell “Colonization established a system that paves the way for a privileged group to take control of a territory for the purposes of gaining wealth.  Colonization views the land,...