Decolonizing land management in institutions of higher education

ABSTRACT

Many institutions of higher education (IHE) were founded on and continue to benefit from the violent dispossession of Indigenous Land. IHE and Land managed by IHE frame scientific knowledge as universal, marginalizing Indigenous, non-Eurocentric perspectives and knowledge. Including local and Indigenous knowledge systems in IHE Land management has implications for fostering resilient socio-ecological systems as well as for decolonizing IHE Land management. However, scholarship on what kinds of knowledge systems are included in Land managed by IHE is lacking. Subsequently, interventions to decolonize IHE Land management are also absent. Through qualitative methods, this study examines knowledges included in IHE Land management plans. Findings show scientific knowledge dominates the plans, followed by local knowledge and professional knowledge, with almost no Indigenous knowledge. The absence of Indigenous knowledge in IHE Land management supports calls for changes to IHE knowledge production and rematriating Indigenous Land to Indigenous communities. The study concludes with implications for decolonizing IHE Land management in higher education and beyond.

KEYWORDS:

• Scientific knowledge
• professional knowledge
• local knowledge
• Indigenous knowledge
• academia
• Land use

Within settler colonialism, the most important concern is land/water/air/subterranean earth … Land is what is most valuable, contested, and required. This is both because the settlers make Indigenous land their new home and source of capital, and also because the disruption of Indigenous relationships to land represents a profound epistemic, ontological, cosmological violence. This violence is not temporally contained in the arrival of the settler but is reasserted each day of occupation (Tuck & Yang, 2012, p. 5).

In the process of settler colonialism, land is remade into property and human relationships to land are restricted to the relationship of the owner to his property (Tuck & Yang, 2012, p. 5).

Introduction

As a white woman educated at a liberal arts institution, and as a person of color educated in a formerly colonized country as well as an institution in the global North, we both have different relationships to settler colonialism. Both of us met at Ithaca College, in Tompkins County, Ithaca, New York, which is located on the traditional, ancestral, and contemporary Lands of the Gayogo̱hó:nǫ' Nation (generally known as the Cayuga Nation) and one of the Six Nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. The first author as an undergraduate sought to collaborate with the second author, faculty at Ithaca College, for research on environmental governance and justice. The investigative reporting in High Country News on Land-grab Universities, ongoing erasure of Indigenous peoples and Indigenous knowledge systems, and our research on cultural ecosystem services on IHE Lands birthed this project. This collaboration allowed us to see our implication in settler colonialism and led us to acknowledge our responsibility toward ending it.

Because we are complicit in how IHE perpetrate settler colonial violence, we seek to address the chasm between our scholarship and teaching, and action in the IHE. We echo calls of scholars who recommend that we who have benefits and privileges of a college degree have a responsibility toward moving resources back to Indigenous communities (Mayorga et al., 2019). In response to this research, faculty at our institution are working with Indigenous peoples to reconsider the broader human-environmental relationships with the Land that we occupy.

Since neither of the authors are Indigenous, and do not have Indigenous knowledge, it would be inappropriate – and would make us further complicit in settler colonialism – to co-opt Indigenous methodologies for our research. This research follows western scientific methods while critiquing the processes that enable scientific knowledge to masquerade as universal knowledge.

In the current era of unprecedented and dramatic anthropogenic environmental change, knowledge systems such as scientific knowledge (SK), local knowledge (LK), and Indigenous knowledge (IK) can enhance Land management by strengthening monitoring and feedback mechanisms and improving management of socio-ecological systems. Firsthand knowledge, experiences, cultural values, and worldviews of people intimately connected to Land can provide feedback on changing environmental conditions (Berkes et al., 2000), predict ecological dynamics, and build spiritual relations between human and non-human actors (Albuquerque et al., 2021). However, western SK’s failure to acknowledge a diversity of peoples, knowledge systems, and solutions limits possibilities for addressing the environmental crisis (Trisos et al., 2021). Excluding Indigenous peoples and their knowledge is common in favor of an over-reliance on SK, which is ultimately detrimental for Land management. For instance, Indigenous communities used fire to shape landscapes for centuries through prescribed burns based on their perceptions of fuel overload, habitat management practices, and cultural traditions. Colonial science-based fire suppression policies, however, are now known to fuel catastrophic fires, exacerbating the climate crisis.

Just as multiple knowledge systems are essential for fostering sustainable and resilient socio-ecological systems, they are also crucial for decolonizing higher education. Institutions of Higher Education (IHE) in the United States (U.S.) arose and continue to profit from the violent dispossession of Indigenous Land (Stein & de Andreotti, 2016). Investigative reporting by Robert Lee and Tristan Ahtone in High Country News, revealed that the Morrill Act of 1862 allocated over ten million acres of Land to 52 land-grant universities by forcibly dispossessing Indigenous peoples of their Lands (Lee & Ahtone, 2020). Beyond Land-grant universities, public and private IHE also own Land (Coleman et al., 2020). This seizure and settlement of Land is settler colonialism, ‘a form of domination that violently disrupts human relationships with the environment’ (K. Whyte, 2018, p. 1). For example, the forced dispossession and subsequent forced migration of Indigenous peoples reshaped the North American continent and have made Indigenous peoples vulnerable to climate risk and hazards (Farrell et al., 2021).

In IHE, most often, Land managers are scientists trained in ecology, forestry, and biology – fields that have colonial origins. Research stations on IHE-Lands are commonly led by scientists, who base Land management on SK. The domination of scientists in IHE Land management results in an overt reliance on scientific research and knowledge that tends to focus on specific, isolated mechanisms. Additionally, IHE Land managers or university employees may not accurately understand the details, scale, and scope of Indigenous dispossession and migration (Farrell et al., 2021). Thus, Land management would benefit from a holistic approach that includes not just SK but also local and Indigenous knowledge, but the extent to which different knowledges are included in IHE Land management is unknown.

Therefore, this study investigates the following research questions:

1. What kinds of knowledge systems are included in plans for Land managed by IHE?

2. How are these knowledge systems included in Land management?

In the next section, we review the role of knowledge systems in environmental conservation and academia. We present a conceptual framework for determining the inclusion of knowledge systems in Section 3. In Section 4, a description of the qualitative methods and IHE Land management plans follows. In Section 5, results demonstrate SK dominates the management plans, LK is moderately included, professional knowledge (PK) is minimally present, and IK is nearly absent. We discuss the exclusive and hegemonic dominance of SK that erases Indigenous peoples and their knowledge from Land management and higher education, and conclude with future questions for research in Section 6.

Knowledge systems

Broadly, academic literature identifies four types of knowledge systems: SK, PK, LK, and IK. Table 1 below describes how each knowledge system is applied to Land management.

Table 1. Knowledge systems in Land management

Knowledge Systems	Purpose for Land Management
Scientific Knowledge	SK is systematic inquiry but is embedded within colonialism. Interdisciplinary SK is more likely to consider human dimensions of conservation, but natural science is more prominent (Lahsen & Turnhout, 2021).
Professional Knowledge	PK may prioritize profits, efficiency, and marginalize other knowledge systems because it may be based in dated colonial scientific practices (Fleischman & Briske, 2016).
Local Knowledge	LK includes site-specific information on ecosystem health, species abundance, ecosystem history, and human livelihoods (Olsson & Folke, 2001). In many cases, LK occurs in colonial frameworks that view it as a secondary supplement to SK (Ballard et al., 2008). Including LK may redistribute power by increasing local community access to Land and influence in management decisions, which may disrupt colonial hierarchical structures.
Indigenous Knowledge	IK is systematic inquiry with predictive potential. IK can increase understandings of long-term ecological trends, monitoring mechanisms, and socio-ecological change (Berkes et al., 2000). Including IK can serve as a foundation for decolonial education.

SK is systematic inquiry that uses evidence to create or assess theories, gain greater understanding of a phenomena, solve problems, or meet applied goals (Kuhn, 1970; Stokes, 1997). Yet SK, specifically ecological science, is embedded within colonialism (Kean, 2019). For instance, ecological theories arose because European ecologists had unfettered colonial access to Land for expeditions and establishing field stations (Baker et al., 2019). Thus, western scientific ecology is built on a foundation of dispossessing colonized peoples of their Land and ways of life, discounting existing knowledge systems, and/or appropriating LK and IK (Trisos et al., 2021). Scientific knowledge’s history of excluding local and Indigenous knowledge and communities from Land management and the Land itself seperates humans and nature. Such biases continue in the ‘objective’ scientific claims of the economic efficiency of creating wilderness areas, such as fortress conservation, E.O. Wilson’s Half-Earth proposal, institutionalized exclusionary conservation, and the 30 × 30 conservation policy (Kashwan et al., 2021). Thus, ‘the effects of colonialism and racism are etched in the dominant philosophy, models, and institutional apparatus of global conservation’ (Kashwan et al. 2021, p.13).

Professional knowledge emerges from training, codified ecological concepts, or technical procedures/guides (Fleischman & Briske, 2016). Since PK develops from SK, it entrenches a reliance on outdated colonial scientific practices, reinforced through standardized Land management regulations. Thus, PK may prioritize profits, efficiency, and compliance, marginalizing other ways of knowing (Fleischman & Briske, 2016).

LK and IK are place-based knowledge systems, developed through first-hand experiences, human-environment interactions, and observations (Olsson & Folke, 2001). Even though local and Indigenous knowledge are based on systematic inquiry using everyday evidence (Simpson, 2014), SK delegitimizes these knowledge systems because local and Indigenous knowledge holders do not fit the image of a scientist (Trisos et al., 2021).

Even the naming of ‘local’ and ‘Indigenous’ is fraught with problems as it creates a false duality by framing LK and IK as ‘native/traditional’ and SK as ‘modern’. However, these distinctions can challenge Euro-modernity to ask what decolonization has to do with modernity, science, history, and knowledge production. As Indigenous Bolivian, anti-colonial feminist scholar, Silvia Rivera Cuscicanqui writes, the ‘Indigenous world does not conceive history as linear, (but that) the past-future is contained in the present’; hence a project of ‘Indigenous modernity can emerge from the present in a spiral whose movement is a continuous feedback from the past to the future – a “principle of hope” or “anticipatory consciousness” – that both discerns and realizes decolonization at the same time’ (Cusicanqui, 2012, p. 96). For the African scholar, this is a grammar of Indigenous futurity, a striving and living for the future now, in the present and with lessons of the past (see also Campt, 2017).

Altogether, the context of SK and PK is based on methods prescribed by standardized curriculums, agendas, and validation rooted in colonialism, but for LK and IK the context is the Land itself (Simpson, 2014). Non-SK conceptions of Land as a physical, spiritual, and cultural entity, described through Land and Earthly teachings ‘of relationality, sharing, reciprocity, connections, mutual interdependence, community building, social responsibility and accountability’ (Mokuku, 2021, p. 783), can enrich anti-colonial and decolonial practices of Land management. These teachings subvert colonial hierarchies and the practice of knowledge privileging to reimagine new possibilities that have a wider pool of knowledge.

However, the inclusion of different knowledge systems in Land management is vulnerable to existing power asymmetries, where SK is used to validate other ways of knowing, often excluding elements that do not align with SK norms (Tengö et al., 2014). Eurocentric conceptualizations of SK frame non-white communities and non-scientific knowledge systems as subjects to be studied, illustrating ongoing colonization in knowledge production (Grosfoguel, 2012). Such practices are pervasive in academia, which rewards scholars, usually in the global North, who extract and appropriate knowledge from local and Indigenous populations to further their own careers (Cusicanqui, 2012). The dissemination of white colonialist narratives in IHE erases Indigenous histories and relationships with Land (Stein & de Andreotti, 2016). The erasure of IK in IHE Land management might be expected, but the extent of this erasure is not known. Studying the knowledge systems included in IHE Land management is therefore an opportunity to illustrate the need to enact fundamental changes in all realms of IHE to decolonize the academy.

Conceptual framework

The study’s first research question is what kinds of knowledge systems are included in plans for Land managed by IHE? The analytical lens for identifying knowledge systems in IHE Land management plans builds on previous studies on the use of science in collaborative watershed management (Koontz, 2019) and regulatory impact analyses (Desmarais & Hird, 2013) to include PK, LK, and IK. The study measures SK as citations of published scientific scholarly articles and grey literature, theses and dissertations, consultation with scientists, unpublished scientific research, and scholarly books. The interdisciplinarity of cited scholarly articles examines the prevalence of natural and social science following Porter and Chubin (1985)’s Citations Outside Category (COC). We operationalize COC as the percentage of citations in the scholarly article outside of the two most cited subject categories, as determined by Scopus’ Scimago database. For example, if a scholarly article cites articles most often in the subject categories of forestry or ecology, then the COC would be the number of cited articles outside of forestry and ecology divided by the total number of cited articles.

Indicators of PK include citations of best management practices, procedural manuals, and the codification of broad ecological principles (Fleischman & Briske, 2016). Indicators of LK include references to place-based knowledge accumulated through first-hand experiences or observations (Brenner et al., 2013). Indicators of IK include references to place-based knowledge accumulated over generations held by culturally distinct peoples with ties to a specific locale (Johnson et al., 2016b). It is important to note that while this categorization of knowledges can identify the presence or absence of different knowledge systems, it does not reveal how SK may be appropriating LK and IK. It also does not account for the overlapping elements of knowledge systems. In fact, such a categorization may maintain the dichotomy between SK and other knowledge systems (Agrawal, 1995).

The second research question investigates how knowledge is used in IHE management plans. This study draws upon a framework for analyzing the use of science in collaborative environmental planning (Koontz, 2019) and government agencies (Amara et al., 2004). The framework has three categories of knowledge-use: instrumental, conceptual, and symbolic. Instrumental use is directly applying knowledge to management decisions with the intent to solve a specific problem. Conceptual use is knowledge that is not directly linked to a specific decision in the management plan, but increases broad understanding (Koontz, 2019). The use of instrumental and conceptual knowledge systems could indicate differing levels of power. Since instrumental knowledge is used to make decisions, it can be more influential for decision-making. Since conceptual knowledge is not linked to specific decisions, it may have less direct power over decisions (Souchon & Diamantopoulos, 1996).

Symbolic use of knowledge justifies decisions made earlier (Beyer, 1997). While some scholars regard symbolic use of SK as ‘bad’ or disingenuous (Koontz, 2019), others suggest that symbolic knowledge can support previous decisions based on intuition (Souchon & Diamantopoulos, 1996). The post-decision use of knowledge could play a role in adaptive management to assess previously made decisions to inform future management. Thus, depending upon the context and goal, symbolic knowledge could be used in different ways. Overall, power dynamics determine who gets to decide which knowledge to include in plans, and how to use that knowledge – instrumentally, conceptually, or symbolically.

Figure 1 illustrates the conceptual framework of the study below.

Figure 1. Conceptual framework for examining the inclusion of knowledge systems (Amara et al., 2004; Desmarais & Hird, 2013; Koontz, 2019).

Materials and methods

Data collection

This study includes IHE Lands based on a review of research conducted on IHE-owned Land by Coleman et al., 2020. Other management plans were found based on land-grant status, presence of a forestry program, and the Organization of Biological Field Stations database.¹ We included a total of 41 parcels of Land from the northeast, south, midwest, and northwest U.S., each with their own management plan, owned by 12 different IHE. There may be overlaps in missions and priorities between Land owned by the same IHE, as well as between multiple IHE that have similar levels of research activity. IHE with high levels of research activity may be overrepresented, but may also indicate the types of IHE that are more likely to own land and have publicly available management plans.

The oldest management plan in the study is from 1997, and the newest is from 2020. The plans differ in length; the shortest management plan is three pages, the longest management plan is 287 pages, and the average length is 55 pages. Of the 41 management plans, 37 are for Lands managed by Public Research-1 IHE¹ i.e. very high research activity. Two plans are for Land managed by Public Research-2 IHE, i.e. high research activity. One plan is for a Public M1, which has a large master’s program. One plan is for a Private Baccalaureate IHE, with bachelor’s degree programs.

To supplement management plans, the first author conducted semi-structured interviews with IHE Land managers to understand the use of different knowledge systems in Land management. Managers were contacted via email to set up 30–60-minute interviews on the phone or on a Zoom call, depending on the interviewee’s preference. With low response rate, only seven managers were interviewed, but these interviews corroborated data analyzed in the management plans. Names of interviewees and their associated Lands, from the northeastern, southeastern, and western United States, are not identified to maintain confidentiality (see Appendix A for the semi-structed interview questionnaire).

Data analysis

The first author qualitatively coded IHE Land management plans using a codebook with a list of codes, definition of each code, and indicators of what content fits that code (Creswell, 2013) (see Appendix B). The first author deductively coded the management plans for the inclusion of SK, PK, LK, and IK, and each instance of knowledge as instrumental or conceptual using QSR NVivo 12.6.0. The management plans were not coded for symbolic use since discerning when knowledge was considered in relation to decision-making in written documents is impossible. Interviews supplemented information on symbolic knowledge. Weekly meetings between the first and second authors and recoding by the first author ensured coding reliability. Recoding by the first author continued for five rounds, until over 80% of each round of coding was the same (Miles & Huberman, 1994).

Results

This section first reports on the inclusion and exclusion of knowledge systems, i.e. SK, PK, LK, and IK, in the 41 IHE Land management plans.

Knowledge systems in management plans

Knowledge systems in the IHE Land management plans refer to the frequency of SK, PK, LK, and IK. The occurrence of each knowledge system in the 41 IHE management plans is included in Table 2 below.

Table 2. The inclusion of knowledge systems in the management plans

	SK	PK	LK	IK
Number of plans	41 plans	13 plans	29 plans	1 plan^[1]
Average number of coded references	19.2	2.2	5.8	1

Scientific Knowledge

All the management plans include SK such as scholarly articles, grey literature, academic books, consultation with scientists, theses and dissertations, and unpublished scientific research (see Table 3).

Table 3. The inclusion of different sources of SK in the management plans

	Scholarly Articles	Theses	Grey Literature	Books	Unpublished Scientific Research	Consultation with Scientists	Total
Number of plans	11 plans	5 plans	26 plans	15 plans	40 plans	7 plans	41 plans
Average number of coded references	3.7	2.6	10.2	7.9	8.5	1.3	19.2

SK is applied to invasive species management, downed wood management, forest stand thinning, species conservation, grazing management, reforestation, and wetland mitigation in the plans. All but one management plan uses unpublished scientific research conducted on the Land to inform management. Management plans only cite scholarly articles and theses that are based on natural science research. Social science research is only from unpublished research, primarily in the context of educational and recreational use. Based on the COC, management plans cite scholarly articles, most commonly in the subject area of ecology, that are not interdisciplinary. Faculty at the Land’s institute wrote 62.5% of cited articles, and 95.1% of the articles are based on studies conducted near or on the IHE Land. Thus, management plans depict an overt reliance on SK, specifically natural science.

Professional knowledge

Thirteen management plans use PK. The most common uses of PK are citations of state forest practice regulations, such as the Forest Practices Act (FPA) of 1971, and annual allowable cut, both of which are included in four plans. Between 1990 and the 2000s, scientists and faculty critiqued the FPA for the use of outdated, political and interest group influenced, and non-scientific requirements (Hairston-Strang et al., 2008). This is also when IHE management plans citing them were written.

Local knowledge

While LK is not as widely included in the IHE Land management plans as SK, it is included more often than IK and PK. In contrast to SK, LK is included for identifying the presence of certain species, establishing grazing practices, understanding land use history, and conducting prescribed burning. Some plans frame LK as filling SK data gaps. For example, one plan describes recording observations of species that cannot be monitored through scientific methods. In species monitoring, 14 plans use both LK and SK, and two plans use only LK. One management plan uses LK as a primary source of knowledge by interviewing nearby property owners about their grazing practices. Including LK as a primary source of knowledge may provide opportunities for community members to contribute their perspectives to Land management.

Indigenous knowledge

Three management plans refer to the inclusion of IK, either for cultural resources management or without specific context. Two of these management plans discuss consulting Indigenous groups without providing specifics of this consultation. One plan has a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with a Native American Tribe for protecting cultural resources, but the extent of IK inclusion for protecting cultural resources is unclear. Overall, Indigenous groups may be involved in Land management, but it is not revealed in the management plans.

In interviews, two managers said discussing culturally important plants with members of local Indigenous groups could determine indicators for ecosystem health. One manager said, ‘We try to get information that can highlight potential management goals or pathways, or species that can be used as indicators as to whether or not a certain restoration objective is doing what it’s supposed to be doing or at least moving in the right direction.’ Altogether, management plans rarely mention IK, and such rare mentions are usually vague, only for protecting cultural resources.

In total, SK dominates management plans, followed by LK, PK, and lastly IK. SK is used for a broader range of management contexts, whereas LK and IK are used to fill gaps in SK, and IK may exclusively be used for cultural resources management. PK is usually linked to regulations and timber harvesting involving profit. Interviews suggest that LK and IK may be included in Land management, with opportunities for involving community members and Indigenous groups, but the frequency of these opportunities and nature of involvement of these groups is unclear.

Use of knowledge: instrumental, conceptual, and symbolic

This section reports how each knowledge system is used in the 41 IHE Land management plans. The occurrence of each knowledge system and its instrumental, conceptual, and symbolical use is included at the end of this section in Figure 3.

Instrumental use of knowledge

Scientific Knowledge. There are 595 instances of instrumental use of SK from 41 plans with an average of 14.5 coded references. Faculty and students conduct research, including unpublished natural science and social science research on the IHE Land, which 26 management plans explicitly state is for informing management. Nearly all the grey literature is used instrumentally and based on studies conducted near or within the IHE Land. The citation of theses, dissertations, and scholarly articles completed by students or faculty at the Land’s IHE also exemplifies the connection between data gathered near the IHE Land and the instrumental use of SK. This may reflect a desire for locally relevant knowledge, gathered through scientific methods.

Professional Knowledge. PK is used 29 times instrumentally in 13 management plans, with an average of 2.2 coded references, often to determine timber harvesting schedules or for following regulations, even those not aligned with current scientific practices. For example, when discussing aforest practice act, one interviewee said, ‘Reforestation practices changed but forest practice act regulations did not. Iguess that professional knowledge did not keep up with the scientific knowledge.’ Thus, PK, based on dated colonial scientific practices, is more likely to be used instrumentally for Land management than IK, indicating the hegemony of SK. Additionally, some PK-based laws and standards require certain management actions demonstrating how regulatory systems uphold colonial-based knowledge systems.

Local Knowledge. Local knowledge is cited instrumentally 129 times in 29 plans with an average of 4.4 coded references. Management plans instrumentally use LK from IHE staff and community members for prescribed burning and species monitoring. The LK from IHE staff rather than community members is more often linked to management actions. For example, one management plan states that prescribed burning is contingent on managers’ familiarity and experience with the Land’s historic and ecological relationship with fire.

Indigenous Knowledge. Only one plan describes IK that may be included instrumentally by drawing on tribal elders’ oral knowledge for cultural resources management but lacks detail regarding the application of this knowledge. Two interviewees discussed the instrumental use of IK for determining ecosystem indicators, and one of these interviewees discussed involving and learning from Indigenous peoples in the context of prescribed fire. One interviewee said, ‘First peoples are brought out to actually recreate how they use fire on the landscape. So, they’re actually bringing them in to do the Land management, as they have done in the past, and then studying the resiliency of these areas. And what happens with those plants are the biggest questions using their tactics so that they’re involved very organically and intrinsically.’

Other interviewees described a general lack of engagement with Indigenous peoples. One manager said, ‘I don’t see it [their inclusion] as being a very active role because their relationship is now historical. They’re not landowners. They don’t really have any regulatory authority or management authority over the [reserve].’ Thus, Land managers may equate ownership over Land with the right to participate in IHE Land management, where the involvement of Indigenous communities with their dispossessed Land is contingent on managers and/or higher education administrators. Such framing illustrates a lack of awareness about Indigenous peoples and their relationship with Land, with a preference to relegate Indigenous peoples to the past. Assuming Indigenous peoples and IK only have historical relationships to the Land falsely subjugates IK as a static, othered, and historical knowledge system and inhibits efforts toward decolonizing IHE Land management.

Conceptual use of knowledge

Scientific Knowledge. Out of 41 management plans, SK is cited conceptually 187 times, with an average of 4.6 coded references. On average, management plans use books conceptually rather than instrumentally, often for ecological or historical background of the Land, without connection to specific management decisions. Conceptual and instrumental use of each category of SK is included in Figure 2 below.

Figure 2. Comparing the average instrumental and conceptual uses of different types of scientific knowledge.

Professional Knowledge. There are no conceptual uses of PK throughout the management plans, and no interviewees discussed using PK conceptually.

Local Knowledge. Local knowledge is cited conceptually 40 times in 29 management plans with an average of 1.4 coded references. These conceptual uses include consulting LK-holders, primarily from outside of academia on the history of the Land. For example, one plan uses a local resident’s memory of an oil spill to reconstruct a historical record to challenge a formal report of the event and gain a general understanding. Management plans also use LK conceptually to interpret signs of historic Land use, such as evidence of agricultural fields transitioning to forest. Thus, conceptual uses of LK are largely in the context of the Land history, similar to conceptual uses of SK.

Indigenous Knowledge. There are no explicit conceptual inclusions of IK in the management plans, but there are five instances in which IK could be included conceptually. Unlike instrumental use, possible conceptual uses of IK are not limited to cultural resources. A plan may include IK by inviting Indigenous groups to review the plan, but a lack of detail in the plan makes it unclear how the knowledge of consulted members of the Indigenous groups is included in Land management. One interviewee discussed the conceptual inclusion of IK through consulting members of local Indigenous groups for writing Land acknowledgements and a general history of the Land. The interviewee said, ‘Because we are going to include updated and expanded history and an acknowledgement, we will definitely be conferring with them. But will they be at every meeting? Will they review every rough draft? No, probably not.’

Thus, interviewed Land managers may view Indigenous groups as holders of historical knowledge, and consequently view IK as lacking contemporary relevance to Land management. Such a perception maintains the exclusion of Indigenous groups and IK from IHE Land management and prioritizes SK. More broadly, it reinforces colonial management and knowledge production in the academy that erases the presence and contributions of Indigenous peoples to Land management.

Symbolic use of knowledge

Symbolic use of knowledge could not be discerned in the Land management plans, but it can be gathered from interviews. There was general agreement about the symbolic use of knowledge in management in the interviews with the seven Land managers.

Scientific Knowledge. Interviewees described using SK to assess past management decisions. One manager described how SK is used to justify certain methods of growing oak trees from acorns. After the management decision, SK is later used to validate or contradict management methods. Such processes might reflect adaptive management, where management changes based on the response to changing conditions.

Professional Knowledge. Interviewees did not describe using PK symbolically.

Local Knowledge. IHE Land managers did not describe using LK symbolically to the same extent as SK. Two managers discussed that consulting LK-holders can result in knowledge to assess decisions made by prior managers, and then guide future management decisions.

Indigenous Knowledge. No interviewees discussed current symbolic uses of IK in management, but one interviewee expressed interest in consulting Indigenous peoples on their perception of the efficacy of prescribed burning of IHE Land in the future. Several managers said the challenge of including IK is not knowing how to contact Indigenous groups, indicating a lack of awareness about Indigenous peoples. One interviewee said, ‘It’s probably just the lack of presence of Indigenous people in and around. I could proactively, or we could as a university, proactively seek them out, those communities, [but] I don’t know how that would be perceived [by the Indigenous communities].’ This perception parallels that of another manager from the Southeastern U.S. who said, ‘I think we’re more receptive nowadays if they were here, but we simply don’t have that population, at least in our local area.’ However, the institution’s website reveals that Indigenous communities who were dispossessed of the Land now owned by the IHE are a soverign nation residing within the region. Furthermore, this institution, like many others, has a website dedicated to ‘decolonizing’ the institution, along with a Land acknowledgement. Such responses from Land managers suggest that they have not made efforts to learn about Indigenous communities or cultivate relationships with them. This may be because managers do not prioritize including non-SK systems in Land management. The lack of awareness of Indigenous groups maintains the erasure of Indigenous people and their connection to IHE Land, despite Land acknowledgements.

Figure 3 below compares the average coded references of SK, PK, LK, and IK instrumentally, conceptually, and symbolically, with symbolic use coded from the seven interviews, not the management plans.

Figure 3. The average coded references of instrumental, conceptual, and symbolic knowledge use for scientific knowledge, professional knowledge, local knowledge, and Indigenous knowledge. Note symbolic knowledge is based on data from seven interviews.

Discussion

This study set out to answer two research questions. The first research question asked which knowledge systems are included in IHE Land management plans. A key finding is that SK dominates the management plans, followed by LK, PK and then IK. An overreliance on SK inhibits understanding of complex social-ecological systems and continues to uphold settler-colonial processes that prioritize SK. Throughout the management plans, natural science is used for ecological components, such as managing forest health, whereas social science is used less, often for recreation and education. This indicates that natural science is privileged over social science even though the need for interdisciplinarity for sustainable Land management is well-established, (Lahsen & Turnhout, 2021). Land managers recognize that PK is dated yet utilize it to abide by laws and regulations. PK representing dated colonial scientific practices may contribute to further exclusion of LK and IK.

Local knowledge and IK, if any, often supplement knowledge unavailable through scientific methods. Thus, LK and IK are seen as secondary to SK, rather than as independent knowledge systems. SK domination, and the near absence of IK from the management plans is not surprising. Many North American educational institutions teach from white perspectives, disseminate colonialist narratives, and erase Indigenous histories and relationships with Land (McLean, 2013). Such erasure is evident through the absence of IK in the management plans and the minimal to no involvement of Indigenous groups.

Of pressing concern is that IHE Land managers view IK as only historically relevant to Land management, and Indigenous groups as having no basis for participation in management or access to IHE Land. Relegating Indigenous peoples to the past attempts to assuage complicity in settler colonialism, maintaining the status quo of dispossession (Cusicanqui, 2012). Such exclusion prohibits the possibility of reparations, reimagining access of Land to Indigenous groups, and including IK in Land management (Simpson, 2014).

The second research question asked how knowledge systems are included in IHE Land management plans. This study shows that there are more instrumental than conceptual uses of knowledge in the IHE Land management plans, with SK, LK held by IHE staff, and PK used mostly instrumentally rather than conceptually. LK, when used, is often gathered via a casual and sporadic process, often for filling gaps. Only one IHE management plan describes the potential instrumental inclusion of IK for cultural resources management, suggesting that IK is only considered relevant to topics that managers consider outside the realm of science.

SK and LK are used conceptually with more instances of SK uses than LK uses. Conceptual uses of both knowledge systems determine IHE Land history. This illustrates that different knowledge systems can contribute to the same purpose in Land management. While there are no explicit conceptual inclusions of IK in the management plans, the vagueness with which a plan refers to input from Indigenous groups could be a symbolic gesture rather than an opportunity for meaningful participation. PK has no conceptual uses. While interviews revealed that there are no major uses of symbolic knowledge, here too, interviewees reinforced the erasure of Indigenous peoples. Thus, SK is most often used instrumentally as well as conceptually, indicating the power and hegemonic dominance of this knowledge system, with a minimal involvement of LK and no IK.

Conclusion and recommendations

This study builds on the literature on knowledge systems, with several key findings for Land management and decolonizing the academy. First, SK, specifically ecology, is the most included knowledge system in IHE Land management plans and for more management contexts than LK, the second-most included knowledge system. SK and ecology are more often used instrumentally than LK and IK, reflecting the bias toward SK inherent in Land management and academia. Even for conceptual uses such as generating Land history, SK is predominant over LK and IK. The absence of IK, instrumentally and conceptually, depicts the ongoing exclusion of Indigenous people and perspectives from IHE Land management and academia. Second, Land managers relegate Indigenous peoples to the past and suggest that they have no place in contemporary Land management. Thus, just as colonial science excluded — and continues to exclude — local and Indigenous peoples for settler-colonial projects, Land managers continue to erase Indigenous peoples from IHE Land management. These erasures indicate a ‘desire to disappear the Native; it is a desire to not have to deal with this (Indian) problem anymore’ (Tuck & Yang, 2012, p. 9). By claiming that Indigenous peoples do not exist anymore, settlers (white and brown) make moves to claim settler innocence to relieve guilt and responsibility without giving up power, privilege, and Land. Third, the conceptual framework used to identify different types and uses of knowledge systems may be used for evaluating the presence of knowledge systems and their use in contexts beyond Land management. Applying the framework to other contexts such as forest, water, irrigation, and pasture management, could refine the framework to identify processes of inclusion and exclusion while improving upon its limitations of knowledge categorization.

Future studies can build upon this study’s limitations in several ways. Since some plans are from two decades ago, they may not reflect knowledge systems in day-to-day management. Therefore, multiple sources of data such as management plans, interviews with Land managers, and observations during meetings would provide a more comprehensive view of knowledge inclusion and exclusion in IHE Land management. Interviews with Land managers could reveal Land manager attitudes toward non-SK knowledge systems, non-SK knowledge holders, and instances when non-SK knowledge systems are included in Land management. Second, including Land management plans from a variety of institutions could better elucidate what knowledge systems are included. Finally, any knowledge on IHE Land management produced by non-Indigenous scholars will continue to have biases. While scientific research methods cannot ever fully quantify the social and cultural trauma, economic deprivation, and political marginalization of dispossession (Farrell et al., 2021), Here, scientific research methods illustrate how IHE Land management continues to maintain dispossession and exclusion of Indigenous groups.

Just because IHE Land management was shaped by Indigenous dispossession, it does not mean that the status quo should continue. To truly decolonize the academy, Indigenous scholars suggest a range of proposals: rematriating Indigenous Land, converting university resources to dispossessed communities, and funding Indigenous scholars and students (Mayorga et al., 2019; Simpson, 2014). To avoid complicity in further colonization, the importance of IK and Indigenous perspectives must be recognized in every facet of IHE, including IHE Land (Dei, 2000). As a first step, Land managers can research, learn, and acknowledge the presence of Indigenous peoples and their histories. There is a move by IHE to make Land acknowledgements after IHE become aware of their histories. However, we caution against symbolic Land acknowledgements without substantial institutional changes to undertake reparations and restorative justice (Sobo etal., 2021). In fact, Land acknowledgements without systemic changes, such a (Sobo, et al., 2021) those that include Indigenous peoples in Land management, are symbolic gestures that attempt to absolve settler-colonialists of guilt and are more detrimental to Indigenous peoples (Sobo et al., 2021).

Land managers can, therefore, also practice deep listening to build community and mutual reciprocity, along with learning about the history and philosophy of science (Trisos et al., 2021). Land managers should critically reflect on their power, privilege, and language that allows them to erase Indigenous peoples. Land managers sharing Land management responsibilities with Indigenous peoples can be an example of a structural change, with the ultimate goal of rematriating Land to Indigenous peoples.

Second, the inclusion of Indigenous groups and IK in IHE Land management cannot occur in colonial frameworks because attempts to ‘Indigenize the academy’ designate non-SK knowledge as the ‘other’ (Simpson, 2014). Therefore, Land can serve as a foundation for decolonial education (Mayorga et al., 2019), to socialize students into ‘relationships between individuals, families, peoples, and with their lands’ (p. 97) to understand the colonial histories intruding upon those relations. Such Indigenous Land-based education can include perspectives and epistemologies differing from white colonial curriculums to emphasize mutuality and social responsibilities (Dei, 1995).

Third, it is well-established that a diversity of worldviews on human-environment relations, knowledge systems, and inclusion of Indigenous peoples is a primary pathway for effective long-term conservation (Dawson et al., 2021). Delegitimizing conservation practiced by Indigenous peoples by colonial and neocolonial regimes have led to dire consequences for these communities and the ecosystems that they inahbit (Pascual, et al., 2021). Thus, including IK in Land management, and valuing it as equal to western approaches, candecolonize practices that position western ways of knowing as universal and impartial (Held, 2019). IK must be recognized for its predictive potential instead of assessing it based on SK or expecting both knowledge systems to converge (Albuquerque et al., 2021). Inquiry led by Indigenous peoples rather than scientists, who may be limited by frameworks and tools, can ensure that Indigenous peoples maintain autonomy over their knowledge and how it is shared (Nakata, 2002). The goal should not be to romanticize, tap, take, expropriate, exploit, and harvest IK, and/or appease Indigenous peoples, but to follow their lead.

Western-trained scholars can educate themselves on Indigenous research paradigms (IRPs) such as Two-Row Wampum that ‘center the relationships and responsibilities researchers carry with respect to Indigenous lands, peoples, and systems of knowledge and governance’ (Latulippe, 2015, p. 1). As Potowatomi scholar, K. P. Whyte (2013) suggests, ‘TK [Traditional Knowledge] should be understood as a collaborative concept. It serves to invite diverse populations to continually learn from one another about how each approaches the very question of “knowledge” in the first place, and how these different approaches can work together to better steward and manage the environment and natural resources’ (p. 1). Inviting a diversity of expertise must be followed up with honest conversations on how people in positions of power can make room for others.

Ultimately, Land managers and higher education administrators must recognize that decolonizing IHE Land management needs to carry more weight and action than metaphorical gestures to truly allow for a just, ethical, and sustainable future where different knowledge systems and communities can thrive.

Acknowledgments

We thank Dr. Jake Brenner, Ithaca College, for his thoughtful and encouraging feedback on drafts of this article and throughout the research process. The authors also thank Dr. Jason Hamilton, Ithaca College, for his insights on the project. We are grateful to the Ithaca College Natural Lands Committee for their support.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, PM, upon reasonable request.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Notes

1. Organization of Biological Field Stations Database can be found here: https://www.obfs.org/directories#/

1. Classified by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education.