LAND GRAB UNIVERSITIES: Dispossession, Indigenous Futures & the True Cost of Higher Education w/ TRISTAN AHLONE, ANDREW HERSCHER, ROBERT WARRIOR

“I think in terms of the Land-Grab project: looking at that history and really beginning to learn more about the history of education in the United States—and especially Indian education—a lot of that was new to me. So, our project that we did about two years ago, building on Land-Grab, was our Misplaced Trust investigation at Grist. We wanted to go back to those universities and start looking at not just the history of how they got their finances, but looking at the present to understand how dispossession and extraction are ongoing.”

In this episode of the Speaking Out of Place podcast, Professor David Palumbo-Liu and guests Tristan Ahtone, Andrew Herscher and Robert Warrior take a deep look into universities, and education more broadly with We focus on a critique of land grant universities, which were built on land granted by the federal government. What we learn is that lands were stolen from Indigenous peoples through violence-based treaties and seizures. These 57 universities have used wealth derived from those initial acts of theft to buy more property, expand holdings, and enrich themselves. In contrast, we see the continued harm these universities do to Native peoples. This harm comes what Herscher calls “non-memory,” which creates knowledge that distorts and omits historical truths and impedes upon Indigenous futures. We talk about the deep damage non-memory does to education for all, and the ways people have fought back to retrieve, restore, and grow knowledge through scholar-journalist activism like the Land Grab University project.

(6:18) The Morrill Land-Grant Act and the Origins of Institutional Wealth

(7:38) Visualizing the Massive Wealth Transfer

(15:30) The Northwest Ordinance and the Architecture of Deletion

(27:32) Reframing Education as Indigenous Negotiation

(46:33) Settler Insecurity and the Politics of Non-memory

Tristan Ahtone (Kiowa) is Editor at Large at Grist and one of the foremost journalists covering Indigenous affairs in America. He previously served as Editor in Chief of the Texas Observer and Indigenous Affairs editor at High Country News.

Andrew Herscher’s work endeavors to bring the study of architecture and cities to bear on struggles for justice, democracy, and self-determination across a range of global sites. He is the co-founder of a series of militant research collectives, including Detroit Resists, Settler Colonial City Project, and the We the People of Detroit Community Research Collective.

Robert Warrior is Hall Distinguished Professor of American Literature and Culture at the University of Kansas and a member/citizen of the Osage Nation. He is the author of Tribal Secrets: Recovering American Indian Intellectual Traditions, The People and the Word: Reading Native Nonfiction.

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