Unsettling Resilience: Colonial Ecological Violence, Indigenous Futurisms, and the Restoration of the Elwha River*. Mauer, K. W. Rural Sociology, 86(3):611–634, September, 2021.
Unsettling Resilience: Colonial Ecological Violence, Indigenous Futurisms, and the Restoration of the Elwha River* [link]Paper  doi  abstract   bibtex   
Abstract This study challenges dominant, academic conceptualization of resilience in light of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe's (LEKT) experiences of ecosystem restoration. Resilience has gained traction in social science as a framework for a community's response to environmental, social, and political disturbances, the contours of which are not well understood in Indigenous contexts. Interviews with LEKT members on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State reveal that colonial ecological violence associated with the damming of the Elwha River in the early half of the 20th century continues to shape contemporary possibilities for Klallam resurgence, sovereignty, and self‐determination. Cultural resurgence has been enhanced; but unanticipated burdens and heightened feelings of powerlessness and deprivation remain. Resilience‐based approaches to ecosystem restoration support aspects of Indigenous survival and collective continuance, but they are unlikely to support significant revitalization and self‐determined development unless the structural basis of ecological violence and Indigenous futurisms of resurgence, self‐determination, and sovereignty are addressed.
@article{mauer_unsettling_2021,
	title = {Unsettling {Resilience}: {Colonial} {Ecological} {Violence}, {Indigenous} {Futurisms}, and the {Restoration} of the {Elwha} {River}*},
	volume = {86},
	issn = {0036-0112, 1549-0831},
	shorttitle = {Unsettling {Resilience}},
	url = {https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ruso.12365},
	doi = {10.1111/ruso.12365},
	abstract = {Abstract
            This study challenges dominant, academic conceptualization of resilience in light of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe's (LEKT) experiences of ecosystem restoration. Resilience has gained traction in social science as a framework for a community's response to environmental, social, and political disturbances, the contours of which are not well understood in Indigenous contexts. Interviews with LEKT members on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State reveal that colonial ecological violence associated with the damming of the Elwha River in the early half of the 20th century continues to shape contemporary possibilities for Klallam resurgence, sovereignty, and self‐determination. Cultural resurgence has been enhanced; but unanticipated burdens and heightened feelings of powerlessness and deprivation remain. Resilience‐based approaches to ecosystem restoration support aspects of Indigenous survival and collective continuance, but they are unlikely to support significant revitalization and self‐determined development unless the structural basis of ecological violence and Indigenous futurisms of resurgence, self‐determination, and sovereignty are addressed.},
	language = {en},
	number = {3},
	urldate = {2023-09-14},
	journal = {Rural Sociology},
	author = {Mauer, K. Whitney},
	month = sep,
	year = {2021},
	pages = {611--634},
}

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