3 credits
Tuesdays 6:30 - 9:30 pm Marshall Hall Rm 319 (and Onondaga Nation School, January 24, Syracuse Stage, February 27, March 7, April 11, April 18)
Class Facilitators: Frieda Jacques, Thane Joyal, Robin Kimmerer, and Jack Manno
For all students interested in understanding the history and basis of Onondaga Land Rights and in exploring the creative opportunities the Land Rights Action may offer for restoring the land and waters of the traditional homeland of the Onondaga Nation and rectifying historic wrongs suffered by the Onondaga people.
On March 10, 2005 the Onondaga Nation filed a legal action asking the U. S. federal Courts to declare that New York State violated federal law when it took Onondaga land. The complaint in the land rights action opens with the following words:
“The Onondaga People wish to bring about a healing between themselves and all others who live in this region that has been the homeland of the Onondaga Nation since the dawn of time. The Nation and its people have a unique spiritual, cultural and historic relationship with the land, which is embodied in Gayanashagowa, the Great Law of Peace. This relationship goes far beyond federal and state concepts of ownership, possession or legal rights. The people are one with the land, and consider themselves stewards of it. It is the duty of the Nation’s leaders to work for a healing of this land, to protect it, and to pass it on to future generations. The Onondaga Nation brings this action on behalf of its people in the hope that it may hasten the process of reconciliation and bring lasting justice, peace and respect among all who inhabit the area.”
The focus of this course will be on healing: healing the damage caused by environmental degradation, healing the human damage caused by the legacy of oppression of Native people. This course will accompany the first part of a year-long series of public educational programs sponsored by Syracuse University, SUNY ESF and Neighbors of Onondaga Nation aimed at increasing understanding and awareness of issues associated with the Onondaga Land Rights action including Onondaga history, culture and spirituality; the role of Haudenosausee women in the U.S. women’s rights movement; the encounter between Onondagas and European settlers; racism and the oppression of native people; environmental stewardship and finding common ground between Traditional Environmental Knowledge and contemporary biological and ecological science.
Classes will consist of guest speakers, lectures, videos, classroom discussions, hands-on activities and weekly opportunities when students will meet in groups of three or four for listening and learning (L & L) sessions. Students will be asked to respond to one or more questions and take turns expressing their thoughts on the question(s). Students will also be asked to respond to the question in writing (no more than 2 pages) to be emailed to the instructors before the next class. These questions will often involve material from the readings and the lectures. You must have completed the readings prior to class and be prepared to share your thoughts. There are no right answers to the L & L questions, only more or less thoughtful responses.
In addition to the weekly L & L response papers, each student will be required to complete a term project in one of following categories:
1) Ecological history of environmental change in the area covered by the land rights action;
2) Report on restoration efforts in some part of the land rights area;
3) Corporate profile, including the environmental performance, of one of the corporations named in the land rights action,
4) Analysis of some aspect of the land rights action in the context U.S. Indian law;
5) Project to discover and document prevalent attitudes toward the land rights action in Central New York
6) Inventory and analysis of SPDES permits in Onondaga Lake watershed,
7) Inventory and analysis of toxic chemical releases in the Onondaga Nation claim area from TRI data,
8) Inventory and analysis of inactive hazardous waste sites and Superfund sites in the land claims area
9) Paper exploring some aspect of the relationship between traditional environmental knowledge and contemporary ecological and/or biological science.
10) Analysis of the implications for future water quality of alternative approaches to clean-up of Onondaga Lake
11) Report on other land rights and treaty rights actions in North America in relationship to environmental stewardship
12) Paper on land rights action in the context of the theory and experience of the environmental justice movement.
13) Others to be proposed by the student and approved by instructors.
Students will be required to give a presentation based on their term projects at the final class and are encouraged to present project results next fall during the ESF Teach-In on Environmental Stewardship and Onondaga Land Rights (10/17/06).
All of the individual student projects will contribute to a collaboratively produced document which can be shared to educate the wider community. The goal of the document is to present our combined knowledge on the Onondaga Land Rights Action as a case study. All students will complete a focused research paper on a topic noted above, which will become a chapter in the case study. This paper will be due on March 28. Graduate students in the course will have the responsibility of compiling and synthesizing the individual reports into a cohesive case study which is due on April 28.
We expect that students will:
- be at every class session (unless excused in advance) on time,
- be active listeners to whoever is speaking,
- complete reading assignments prior to class,
- complete and turn in writing assignments on time,
- be active learners and teachers as exhibited through thoughtful participation by asking questions and contributing thoughtfully to classroom discussion,
- treat each other and the instructors with courtesy and respect,
- submitting thoughtful written questions weekly during class.
The students should expect the instructor:
- to serve as facilitators of learning for the students collectively and individually,
- to come to class prepared,
- to be accessible to students outside class time, and to serve as an effective consultant to the student in their learning,
- to assist students in finding additional resources when needed to reach the expected learning outcomes.
Texts
The textbook will only be available at Follett's Orange Bookstore in Marshall Square Mall:
Words that Come Before All Else, by Haudenosaunee Environmental Task Force.
In addition the instructors will provide weekly handouts.
Grading
Written responses to L & L 10 @ 10 points each = 100 points
Response papers 4 @ 45 pts. = 180 pts
Participation (see expectations above) 14@ 20 points each =280 points
Project:document: 200 points
Project presentation: 50 points
Draft Syllabus for Onondaga Land Rights and Our Common Future
1/17 Introduction to course objectives and structure
Thanksgiving address
Introduce context of healing
View video “Brighten the Chain”
Introduction to the Land Rights Action
Pre-test
Learning and Listening Session
Reading for 1/24: Words That Come Before All Else
1/24 Story of the People
Creation story, Thanksgiving Address, Two Row Wampum
contemporary Onondaga culture and society.
1/31 Story of the Land
Ecological history, traditional resource management, traditional land use practices, the biota that supported people, the state of the resources, subsistence food/material culture, human ecology, agriculture
2/7 Land and Religion
Contrasting western and indigenous concepts of land, sacred vs property, religion
housed in “book” vs religion housed in land, establish spiritual connection, land as
identity
2/14 Sovereignty and the Loss of the Land (guest speakers: Chief Irving Powless, Jr. and Professor Robert Venable)
2/21 The specifics of the Onondaga Land Rights Action Guest speaker: Joseph Heath.
2/27 NOTE: This is a Monday evening. Series at Syracuse Stage: The Nation in Our Midst: Onondaga History, Culture and Sprituality, Sid Hill, Audrey Shenandoah and others, Reaction paper due by email 3/13.
3/7 Series at Syracuse Stage: Visionary Women: The Haudenosaunee and the U.S. Women’s Rights Movement. Jeanne Shenandoah and Sally Roesch Wagner. Reaction papers. Reaction paper due by email 3/13
3/14 SPRING BREAK
3/21 Physical degradation of land, industrial history, degradation of lake and land Guest Speaker: Ed Michalenko, Onondaga Evironmental Institute.
3/28 Cultural losses –boarding school/assimilation, both cultures western disconnect from land, materialism, land as property
4/4 Restoration of relationship to land. Onondaga Creek Restoration. Our Good Minds: The Key to Healing our Relationship to the Earth.
4/11 Series at Syracuse Stage: The Onondaga Nation Encounters European Settlers. Guest speaker: Robert Venables.
4/18 Series at Syracuse Stage: “Discovering” the US: Haudenosaunee Influences on U.S. Culture and Democracy.
4/25 Visions of healing
imagine resolutions to Land Rights Action
5/2 Student presentations