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featuring:
Angela Mooney D'Arcy, Executive Director and Founder of Sacred Places Institute for Indigenous Peoples
Gabriella Lassos, Research and Policy Program Director for the Sacred Places Institute for Indigenous People
Christina Marsh, Ph.D. Student, Department of American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California
Stephanie Martinez, Ph.D. student, Urban & Environmental Planning & Policy Department at the University of California, Irvine

About the talk:
Research partnerships between the community and the academy are complex. Beginning in 2021, the Sacred Places Institute for Indigenous Peoples and fellows with UCI’s CLIMATE Justice Initiative began a collaboration under the tenets of research justice. This partnership led to the foundations of a broader project to understand accessibility of the San Joaquin Marsh. The San Joaquin Marsh, adjacent to the University of California, Irvine (UCI) campus, is a reserve under the ownership of UCI by the UC Natural Reserve System. It lies on the unceded land of the Acjachemen and Gabrielino/Tongva Peoples. The traditional caretakers of the land and many community members not affiliated with the university have faced massive barriers in accessing the land. As a land-grant university that has verbalized support of local Indigenous stewardship, UCI’s ownership and management of the present significant contradictions, particularly through its ownership model and the barriers it imposes on Indigenous people seeking access to the wetland. However, the marsh might also be envisioned as an opportunity to begin building better relations between the University and the Gabrielino/Tongva and Acjachemen people. This presentation will share insights from our ongoing collaboration, as well as experiences that may be useful to those seeking models of co-constructed and collaborative research.

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