Description
Brian Burkhart, the author, is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, born and raised in the Navajo Nation of Arizona. In Indigenizing Philosophy Through the Land, Land is key to the operations of coloniality, but the power of the land is also the key anti-colonial force that grounds Indigenous liberation. This work is an attempt to articulate the nature of Land as a material, conceptual, and ontological foundation for Indigenous ways of knowing, being, and valuing. As a foundation of valuing, land forms the framework for a conceptualization of Indigenous environmental ethics as an anti-colonial force for sovereign Indigenous futures. This text is an important contribution in the efforts to Indigenize Western philosophy, particularly in the context of settler colonialism in the United States. It breaks significant ground in articulating Indigenous ways of knowing and valuing to Western philosophy—not as artifact that Western philosophy can incorporate into its canon, but rather as a force of anti-colonial Indigenous liberation. Ultimately, Indigenizing Philosophy Through the Land shines light on a possible road for epistemically, ontologically, and morally sovereign Indigenous futures.