Because This Land is Who We Are

Book excerpt: Because This Land Is Who We Are is an exploration of environmental repossession, told through a collaborative case study approach, and engaging with Indigenous communities in Canada (Anishinaabe), Hawai'i (Kanaka Maoli) and Aotearoa (Maori). The co-authors are all Indigenous scholars, community leaders and activists who are actively engaged in the movements underway in these locations, and able to describe the unique and common strategies of repossession practices taking place in each community. This book celebrates Indigenous ways of knowing, relating to and honouring the land, and the authors' contributions emphasize the efforts taking place in their own Indigenous land. Through engagement with these varying cultural imperatives, the wider goal of Because This Land Is Who We Are is to broaden both theoretical and applied concepts of environmental repossession, and to empower any Indigenous community around the world which is struggling to assert its rights to land.