Landback Universities Project to Address 'Decolonization' in Higher Education

Landback Universities, an initiative co-led by Roopika Risam, an associate professor of film and media studies and of comparative literature, has received a grant from the Mellon Foundation to address decolonization in higher education. 

"While colleges and universities are eager to 'decolonize' their institutions, the initiatives they are developing largely overlook their occupation of Native American lands," Risam says. 

The pilot project aims to move colleges and universities beyond "performative nods towards decolonization"—such as land acknowledgments—to identify and implement hands-on practices for decolonizing higher education. Risam and colleagues Jennifer Guiliano (IUPUI), Megan Red Shirt-Shaw (University of South Dakota), and Elizabeth Rule (American University) will convene meetings of administrators, faculty, staff, and students across the country who have been developing programs to facilitate shared land use with Native communities. 

These events will result in a set of recommendations for practices that colleges and universities could adopt to address their relationship to land and the Native nations they have displaced.

"Ultimately, we will work collaboratively to develop a vision of higher education rooted in humanistic inquiry and the collective stewardship of the lands on which colleges and universities sit," Risam says. 

The project emerged from a collaboration between Risam, Guiliano, and Meredith McCoy (Carleton College) on an article in Native American and Indigenous Studies on "Land-Grab Universities," a data visualization that exposes how universities have financially benefited from stolen land. In "The Future of Land-Grab Universities," they argue for the importance of moving beyond the idea of land as purely real estate and towards shared stewardship with Native communities. Through the generous support of the Mellon Foundation, Landback Universities explores how to put these ideas into practice, taking into account varying regional histories of dispossession.