Open Access“First in Time, First in Right”: Indigenous Self-Determination in the Colorado River Basin
Author(s) -
Paul Formisano
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
review of international american studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.107
H-Index - 1
ISSN - 1991-2773
DOI - 10.31261/rias.10049
Subject(s) - mainstream , narrative , indigenous , metis , canyon , traditional knowledge , environmental ethics , sociology , identity (music) , indigenous rights , ideology , geography , history , ethnology , political science , law , politics , aesthetics , ecology , philosophy , linguistics , cartography , world wide web , computer science , biology
This article adopts the premise “first in time, first in right” to bring Indigenous knowledge about the Colorado River Basin and the natural world more broadly out of the mainstream’s obscurity to reposition these perspectives at the foreground of the region’s water cultures. To initiate what is in essence a decolonization of Colorado River Basin water knowledge, I examine texts representing various tribal affiliations and genres to consider how their particular use of story engages the historic and ongoing environmental injustices they have faced and continue to negotiate in their fight to preserve their sacred lands, identity, and access to reliable, clean water. Such a decolonization occurs through these texts’ use of narrative to work within and against the scientific and instrumental discourses and their respective genres that have traditionally constructed and dictated mainstream Colorado River knowledge and activity. My treatment of narrative within the Ten Tribes Partnership Tribal Water Study (2018) and the Grand Canyon Trust’s “Voices of Grand Canyon” digital project (2020) sheds greater light on the essential relationships the Basin’s nations and tribes have with the Colorado River. Through these counternarratives to the West’s dominant water ideologies and cultures, the Basin’s tribal nations draw attention to past and ongoing struggles to secure equitable water access while amplifying their resilience and determination that defines their calls for environmental justice.