Reimagining Land Relations in Geoscience: A Collaborative Teaching Module with the Navajo Nation

Thursday 2:45pm
Oral Presentation Part of Thursday Oral Session

Authors

Jordan Jeffreys, University of South Carolina-Columbia
Katherine Ryker, University of South Carolina-Columbia
Geoscience has long been intertwined with settler colonialism and the systems of power that shape our understanding of land and its uses. Settler colonialism, characterized by the ongoing displacement of Indigenous populations to secure land for settlers, is a structure deeply connected to geology. Geoscience has operated as a tool of dispossession and exploitation in a settler colonial state that has perpetuated colonial beliefs while eroding Indigenous sovereignty and knowledge systems. As an extractive discipline grounded in access to territory and resources, geology developed alongside U.S. expansion, naturalizing the removal of minerals, fossils, and positioning Western knowledge over Indigenous frameworks. This presentation evolves from a USC Honors senior thesis, examining how geology can move toward anticolonial practice through collaboration and curriculum transformation. It is based on a case study involving a collection of geological samples labeled as originating from the Navajo Reservation, removed in 1988 and deaccessioned from USC's McKissick Museum in 2024. In consultation with the Navajo Nation, the discovery of this collection prompted critical questions regarding ownership, consent, cultural significance, and the ethical responsibilities of geoscientists. Rather than treating the samples solely as scientific objects, they are recontextualized within broader histories of dispossession and Indigenous sovereignty. The primary outcome of this project is the development of a physical geology laboratory activity and lecture on geology land ethics that integrates Indigenous perspectives, anticolonial methods, and the history of geoscience as a settler colonial science. The teaching module was piloted to assess student engagement and responsiveness to ethical inquiry in the earth sciences and show that ethics-centered curriculum can meaningfully shift how students understand their role as future geoscientists. By documenting both the collaborative design process and the classroom implementation, this project offers a model for geoscience departments seeking to cultivate more accountable, relational, and anticolonial land practices through education.
  • Curriculum and Instruction