world view
Decolonizing geoscience requires more
than equity and inclusion
Colonial relationships with Indigenous land and knowledge in geoscience disciplines must be
acknowledged to address harm and change how science is done, argues Max Liboiron.
S
cience has long played an integral
role in colonialism. Since the
European Enlightenment, research
on tropical and Arctic climates, diseases
like malaria, and on soils and the cultivation
of plants, among other topics, was required
to prepare “new” lands for settlers and
settlers for those lands. At the same time,
science was considered a gift that imperial
powers brought to colonies, part of what
was seen as a civilizing mission. The
replacement of local forms of knowledge
with Western science was considered a
mark of success.
Colonialism is not a historical event,
but an ongoing set of relations that
still characterize the common sense of
professional science. As more scientists
come to realize that science has power
relations that do not serve all people equally,
we are left trying to understand how we
might change the way science is done.
Anticolonial science is not only possible,
but is being created by both Indigenous and
non-Indigenous people today.
The current mechanisms of colonialism
might look different but non-Indigenous
entitlement to Indigenous land, life and
knowledge still characterizes everyday
relations in science. In the geosciences,
samples are collected from Indigenous land
without Indigenous consent1 and mining
and extraction continue2 as Indigenous
groups protest the developments. Colonial
entitlement leads to scientists sailing around
the world to gather water samples, professors
picking up rocks on hikes for pedagogical
show and tell, and scientists crunching
numbers in datasets that seem landless,
so they deem no permissions necessary.
Indigenous DNA3, bodies and parts of land
are stolen and treated as nothing more than
samples. However, colonialism is not just
clashes with Indigenous communities about
research or fieldwork, it pervades the entire
practice of science.
As a dominant system, colonial
relationships with land, life and knowledge
have become mundane. Dominant systems
stay dominant, in part because they dictate
what counts as common sense: what seems
normal and even natural. Colonialism
876
continues through the assumed universal
superiority of civilized, Western ways of
knowing and doing. Local and Indigenous
ways of knowing are considered insufficient
or simply heritage. Science camps for
Indigenous youth taught by settler teachers
aim to lift youth out of their underdeveloped
local settings and into bright futures, a
trajectory that takes them further and
further from Indigenous ways of knowing,
language and community teachers.
Academic scientists sometimes advocate for
Indigenous participation in science through
citizen science. This is seen as development
and success.
These are our inheritances as scientists,
whether we like them or not. What’s a
researcher to do?
First, we must be specific. Colonialism
is about access to Indigenous land and the
replacement of Indigenous ways of knowing
and living. The opposite of colonialism is
not inclusion. Adding more Indigenous texts
to a syllabus neither impacts land relations
nor changes the dominant knowledge
paradigm. In fact, using Indigenous
knowledge to enrich non-Indigenous
learning has been a core component of
colonial knowledge systems that require
local knowledge to survive and flourish
on colonized land. Whenever I hear the
phrase “Indigenous voice” instead of terms
like “expertise” I know the uneven power
dynamics of Western versus non-Western
knowledge systems is firmly in place,
through inclusion.
Being specific about what we mean
by colonialism in science is essential
if we aren’t to mistake other positive
actions for anticolonialism. Inclusion,
respect, anti-racism, equity, finding
common ground, environmentalism and
diversification are essential, but they do not
usually address colonialism4. If colonialism
means non-Indigenous access to Indigenous
lands, knowledge and lives, what would the
opposite of that look like?
We need to investigate our own
scientific practices. How do our disciplines,
pedagogical norms and research methods
benefit from access to Indigenous land,
life and knowledge? Who has done the
Nature Geoscience | VOL 14 | December 2021 | 876–877 | www.nature.com/naturegeoscience
research on Indigenous land and where
are they from5? What are the permission
processes for field trips and research sites,
including seemingly landless datasets? What
open-access data management policies are
in place and how might they increase access
to Indigenous land, rather than respect it6?
If your department has sample archives,
where are they from? What are the
implications of saying a research group
is the first to have knowledge of something
on Indigenous land7?
We should accept that sometimes
the anticolonial move is to stop. To not do
the research if you don’t have permission
from Indigenous people and governing
bodies. To not propose research with
Indigenous groups or on Indigenous
land unless you’ve been explicitly invited
by those groups. To not use the sample
extraction method that creates toxic
chemicals that require land to absorb. To
stop carbon-intensive research that directly
impacts Arctic and other Indigenous
peoples8. All forms of ceasing or mitigating
the entitlement to Indigenous life and
land are anticolonial science, and can be
practiced by anyone9.
Finally, practicing anticolonial science
requires us to treat Indigenous knowledge
as expertise, rather than culture. Cite us.
Pay us as experts when you need us in your
classrooms and panels. Talk to us before
you complete a grant application as full
collaborators, rather than as unfunded
additions at the end. Don’t take it personally
when we still say no. Repatriate data
and samples.
In all of this, we must first learn about the
ways our disciplines have specifically aligned
with and benefited from colonialism so that
everyone can see those legacies with enough
clarity to address them. ❐
Max Liboiron ✉
Department of Geography, Memorial University
of Newfoundland and Labrador, St. John’s,
Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada.
✉e-mail: mliboiron@mun.ca
Published online: 2 December 2021
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-021-00861-7
 world view

References
1. Sahagún, L. Caltech says it regrets drilling holes in sacred Native
American petroglyph site. Los Angeles Times (19 July 2021);
https://go.nature.com/3o1itgH
2. Tollefson, J. Nature 598, 15–16 (2021).
3. Wade, L. Science https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aav5286 (2018). 8. Brook, R. K. Arctic 62, 253–255 (2009).
4. Tuck, E. & Wayne Yang, K. Decolonization 1, 1–40 (2012). 9. Liboiron, M. Pollution is Colonialism (Duke Univ. Press, 2021).
5. Liboiron, M. et al. Sci. Total Environ. 782, 146809 (2021).
6. Walter, M. et al. Aust. J. Soc. Issues 56, 143–156 (2020).
7. Anderson, J. & Christen, K. J. Radical Librarianship 5, Competing interests
113–152 (2019). The author declares no competing interests.

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