This post is guest-authored by History MA student, Roberto Rios.
Robin Wall Kimmerer, mother, enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, Native American botanist, professor, and author, spoke with community members and students at Bowling Green State University on Friday, March 27, in Kobacker Hall of the Moore Musical Arts Center, and at the Veterans Memorial Building at the Bowling Green, City Park, Saturday, March 28. Dr. Kimmerer, discussed themes from her book Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plant, and her perspective of interacting with the environment to a combined crowd of over 1200 people from across the region.
Kimmerer’s visit to BGSU was a part of an ongoing series known as in the round, which is a collaborative effort across different departments at BGSU, as well as with local organizations with support from several foundations. This project highlights the works of Native Americans that enhance the education and perspectives for students, faculty members, and the local community.
Kimmerer’s talk dived into the symbiotic relationship that is often overlooked when we fail to acknowledge our place as a being within an environment. For Kimmerer, language is also an important factor in acknowledging our place in the world. She expanded on the concept in her talk about how in the English language we put humans above all other living beings in the world. By contrast, Potawatomi speakers identify living beings with its own pronoun. She encouraged us to shift our paradigms to behave as if the environment we encounter everyday is our family and not as if it were a warehouse or commodity.
Kimmerer’s visit was the culmination of ongoing collaborative efforts to broaden our understanding of how we interact with our environment. Graduate students in History like myself were at the center of this year long series as we collaborated with undergraduate Design students in creating the In The Roots exhibit last November. Through that project we sought to engage the public through the past and present of our relationship with the native environment, resonating with Kimmerer’s themes of reciprocal relations between humans and nature.
The visit made visible that we as a community acknowledge the ongoing crisis with the environment. Furthermore, her visit shows that people came from across the Northwest Ohio region and filled two venues beyond capacity to listen about what we can do at a personal level to begin to live more harmoniously with our environment.