Cherokee Nation tribal citizen Clint Carroll examines Cherokee environmental governance from the late eighteenth century before removal from their homeland until the present. He argues that Indigenous environmental governance differs from state forms of environmental governance because it looks beyond resource-based environmental management to a relationship-based approach. Carroll uses a tribal ethnobotany project and elders’ meetings as examples of incorporating traditional knowledge into environmental governance. Carroll’s multidisciplinary methodology combines American Indian studies and political ecology, arguing that this methodological approach offers a more thorough analysis of Cherokee resource governance than either method alone. Roots of Our Renewal insightfully demonstrates alternate methods of tribal land resource management that look beyond profit maximization to incorporate more traditional methods that recognize the importance of human-land relationships.
The first three chapters focus on Cherokee forms of government during a tumultuous period when Cherokees faced forced removal from their traditional homelands to Oklahoma. Before removal,...
