Walking Toward Relationality
An Autoethnographic Inquiry of Inner Work for Personal and Systemic Change
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.47061/jasc.v5i1.9416Keywords:
Relationality, awareness based systems change, settler colonialism, decolonization, inner-outer transformations, walking methodologies, autoethnographyAbstract
In this essay, I share an autoethnographic walking experience that is part of my inner work as an early-career sustainability scholar seeking to relate differently with land, people, and knowledge. This research began after I learned about the Exodus: the 1875 forced removal of Yavapai (Yavapé) and Apache (Dilzhę́’é) peoples from their ancestral lands in today’s Arizona, USA—the region where I, a white settler, was born and raised—which provoked in me intense shame. To unpack my relationships with settler colonialism and begin a process of becoming naturalized to place, I walked a section of the Arizona Trail that is part of the Exodus route. Employing a critical, relational walking methodology, as well as arts-based methods, I propose an autoethnography to illustrate six personal (un)learnings that aim to be insightful for the emerging relational paradigm in sustainability science. This includes drawing attention to the ways in which settler colonialism, intertwined with religions and science, may unconsciously orient relationships to land (ontology), people (axiology), and knowledge (epistemology) that are anti-relational. My walking experience underscores the importance of relational ethics as embedded in Indigenous relationality, which taught me that learning to relate differently with land in a more-than-human sense necessitates healing relationships with the First Peoples. This situates the turn toward relationality as far more than an intellectual endeavor that includes embodied experience, embracing difficult emotions, and acknowledging inner work as important for systems change.
References
Abson, D. J., Fischer, J., Leventon, J., Newig, J., Schomerus, T., Vilsmaier, U., von Wehrden, H., Abernethy, P., Ives, C. D., Jager, N. W., & Lang, D. J. (2017). Leverage points for sustainability transformation. Ambio, 46(1), 30–39. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-016-0800-y
Adams, T. E., Jones, S. L. H., & Ellis, C. (2015). Autoethnography. Oxford University Press.
Alexiuk, E. (2022). Telling sauna stories: A role for autoethnography in systems change Research. Journal of Awareness-Based Systems Change, 2(1), 15–36. https://doi.org/10.47061/jabsc.v2i1.1976
Aoki, J., & Yoshimizu, A. (2015). Walking histories, Un/making places: Walking tours as ethnography of place. Space and Culture, 18(3), 273–284. https://doi.org/10.1177/1206331215579719
Basso, K. H. (1996). Wisdom sits in places: Landscape and language among the Western Apache. University of New Mexico Press.
Bednarz, J. C. (1988). The Mexican wolf: Biology, history, and prospects for reestablishment in New Mexico. The Service.
Berkes, F. (2008). Sacred ecology, Second Edition. Taylor & Francis Group.
Bockler, J. (2021). Presencing with soul: Transpersonal perspectives on awareness-based social change practice. Journal of Awareness-Based Systems Change, 1(1), 15–33. https://doi.org/10.47061/jabsc.v1i1.471
Braatz, T. (2003). Surviving conquest: A history of the Yavapai peoples. University of Nebraska Press.
Bristow, J., Bell, R., Wamsler, C., Björkman, T., Tickell, P., Kim, J., & Scharmer, O. (2024). The system within: Addressing the inner dimensions of sustainability and systems transformation. The Club of Rome. Earth4All. Deep-dive paper 17. https://www.clubofrome.org/publication/earth4all-bristow-bell
Brown, D. E. (1996). The Grizzly in the Southwest: Documentary of an extinction. University of Oklahoma Press.
Burns, M. (2012). The only one living to tell: The autobiography of a Yavapai Indian. University of Arizona Press.
Campion, O. B., West, S., Degnian, K., Djarrbal, M., Ignjic, E., Ramandjarri, C., Malibirr, G. W., Guwankil, M., Djigirr, P., Biridjala, F., O’Ryan, S., & Austin, B. J. (2023). Balpara: A practical approach to working with ontological difference in Indigenous land & sea management. Society & Natural Resources, 0(0), 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/08941920.2023.2199690
Chilisa, B. (2020). Indigenous research methodologies. Sage Publications.
Cook, A. (2018). Recognizing settler ignorance in the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Feminist Philosophy Quarterly, 4(4), Article 6. https://doi.org/10.5206/fpq/2018.4.6229
Corbusier, W. T. (1969). Verde to San Carlos: Recollections of a famous army surgeon and his observant family on the Western Frontier, 1869–1886. Dale Stuart King.
Curnow, J., & Helferty, A. (2018). Contradictions of solidarity. Environment and Society 9(1), 145–63. https://doi.org/10.3167/ares.2018.090110
Datta, R. (2018). Decolonizing methodologies: A transformation from science-oriented researcher to relational/participant-oriented researcher. American Indian Culture and Research Journal, 42(1), 115–130. https://doi.org/10.17953/aicrj.42.1.datta
de Araujo Goes, V., Lungu, B., & Maseko, M. (2023). Exploring autoethnographic and arts-based approaches to planetary health: Honoring diversity through creativity, Indigenous knowledge systems and loving relationships. Challenges, 14(4), 53. https://doi.org/10.3390/challe14040053
Deloria, V. (2003). God is red: A native view of religion. Fulcrum.
Deloria, V. (2018). Custer died for your sins. Scribner.
Dunbar-Ortiz, R. (2023). An Indigenous peoples’ history of the United States. Beacon Press.
Ellis, C. (2004). The ethnographic I: A methodological novel about autoethnography. Rowman Altamira.
Escobar, A., Osterweil, M., & Sharma, K. (2024). Relationality: An emergent politics of life beyond the human. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Gallegos-Riofrio, C. A., Zent, E., & Gould, R. K. (2022). The importance of Latin American scholarship-and-practice for the relational turn in sustainability science: A reply to West et al. (2020). Ecosystems and People, 18(1), 478–483. https://doi.org/10.1080/26395916.2022.2108499
Giovale, H. (2024). Becoming a good relative: Calling white settlers toward truth, healing, and repair. Green Writers Press.
Goodchild, M. (2021). Relational systems thinking: That’s how change is going to come, from our Earth Mother. Journal of Awareness-Based Systems Change, 1(1), 75–103. https://doi.org/10.47061/jabsc.v1i1.577
Gould, R. K., Martinez, D. E., & Hoelting, K. R. (2023). Exploring Indigenous relationality to inform the relational turn in sustainability science. Ecosystems and People, 19(1), 2229452. https://doi.org/10.1080/26395916.2023.2229452
Gram-Hanssen, I., Schafenacker, N., & Bentz, J. (2022). Decolonizing transformations through ‘right relations.’ Sustainability Science, 17(2), 673–685. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-021-00960-9
Harrison, M., & Williams, J. (2022). Oral history of the Yavapai. University of Arizona Press.
Herman, D. J. (2012). Rim Country Exodus: A story of conquest, renewal, and race in the making. University of Arizona Press.
Ingold, T., & Vergunst, J. L. (2008). Ways of walking: Ethnography and practice on foot. Ashgate Publishing.
Irlbacher-Fox, S. (2014). Traditional knowledge, co-existence and co-resistance. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, 3(3), 145–158. https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/des/article/view/22236
Ives, C. D., Schäpke, N., Woiwode, C., & Wamsler, C. (2023). IMAGINE sustainability: Integrated inner–outer transformation in research, education and practice. Sustainability Science, 18(6), 2777–2786. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-023-01368-3
Jackson, O. (1908). The White conquest of Arizona: History of the pioneers. West Coast Magazine, Grafton Company.
Johnson, J. T., Howitt, R., Cajete, G., Berkes, F., Louis, R. P., & Kliskey, A. (2016). Weaving Indigenous and sustainability sciences to diversify our methods. Sustainability Science, 11(1), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-015-0349-x
Kabat-Zinn, J. (2017). Walking meditations. Mindfulness, 8(1), 249–250. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-016-0638-1
Kimmerer, R. (2013). Braiding sweetgrass: Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge and the teachings of plants. Milkweed Editions.
Kizuk, S. (2020). Settler shame: A critique of the role of shame in Settler–Indigenous relationships in Canada. Hypatia, 35(1), 161–177. https://doi.org/10.1017/hyp.2019.8
Knight, L. (2021). Inefficient mapping: A protocol for attuning to phenomena. punctum books.
Koenig, O., Seneque, M., Pomeroy, E., & Scharmer, O. (2021). Journal of awareness-based systems change: The birth of a journal. Journal of Awareness-Based Systems Change, 1(1), 1–8. https://doi.org/10.47061/jabsc.v1i1.678
Kovach, M. (2021). Indigenous methodologies: Characteristics, conversations, and contexts, Second Edition. University of Toronto Press.
Kuhn, A. (2007). Photography and cultural memory: A methodological exploration. Visual Studies, 22(3), 283–292. https://doi.org/10.1080/14725860701657175
Leavy, P. (2020). Method meets art: Arts-based research practice: third edition:. Guilford Publications.
Malchiodi, C. A. (2011). Handbook of art therapy. Guilford Press.
Manuel-Navarrete, D., DeLuca, S., Friso, F., & Politi, M. (2024). Ayahuasca ceremonies, relationality, and inner–outer transformations to sustainability. Evidence from Takiwasi center in Peru. Ecosystems and People, 20(1), 2339227. https://doi.org/10.1080/26395916.2024.2339227
Martínez, D. (2023). Sand people and Yellow Fever: O’odham Himdag, Arizona territory, calendar sticks, and resistance, 1851–1860. Journal of Arizona History, 64(2), 139–172.
Mayuzumi, K. (2006). The tea ceremony as a decolonizing epistemology: Healing and Japanese women. Journal of Transformative Education, 4(1), 8–26. https://doi.org/10.1177/1541344605282856
Mbembe, A. J. (2016). Decolonizing the university: New directions. Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, 15(1), 29–45. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474022215618513
McGivney, A. (2020, May 20). The Exodus Trail. [Blog Post]. Arizona Highways. https://www.arizonahighways.com/article/exodus-trail
Meadows, D. (1999). Leverage points. Places to intervene in a system. Sustainability Institute, The Donella Meadows Project, Academy for System Change. https://donellameadows.org/wp-content/userfiles/Leverage_Points.pdf
Mignolo, W. (2003). The darker side of the Renaissance: Literacy, territoriality, and colonization. University of Michigan Press.
Mignolo, W. (2007). Delinking: The rhetoric of modernity, the logic of coloniality and the grammar of de-coloniality. Cultural Studies, 21(2–3), 449–514. https://doi.org/10.1080/09502380601162647
Morrison, K. M. (2013). Animism and a proposal for a post-Cartesian anthropology. In Harvey, G. (Ed.) The handbook of contemporary animism (pp. 53–67). Routledge.
O’brien, K. (2021). You matter more than you think. Quantum social change for a thriving world. cCHANGE press.
Polheim, A., Manuel-Navarrete, D., Goebel, J., & Loos, J. (2024). Embodying relationality through immersive sustainability solutions with Indigenous communities in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Sustainability Science, 19(4), 1445–1457. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-024-01523-4
Raymond, C. M., Kaaronen, R., Giusti, M., Linder, N., & Barthel, S. (2021). Engaging with the pragmatics of relational thinking, leverage points and transformations – Reply to West et al. Ecosystems and People, 17(1), 1–5. https://doi.org/10.1080/26395916.2020.1867645
Sandlin, J. A., Schultz, B. D., & Burdick, J. (Eds.). (2010). Handbook of public pedagogy: Education and learning beyond schooling. Routledge.
Scharmer, O. (2018). The essentials of Theory U: Core principles and applications. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Simpson, L. B. (2014). Land as pedagogy: Nishnaabeg intelligence and rebellious transformation. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, 3(3), 1–25.
Slavin, S. (2003). Walking as spiritual practice: The pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. Body & Society, 9(3), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1177/1357034X030093001
Springgay, S., & Truman, S. E. (2017). Walking methodologies in a more-than-human world: WalkingLab. Routledge.
Springgay, S., & Truman, S. E. (2019). Walking in/as publics: Editors introduction. Journal of Public Pedagogies, 4. https://doi.org/10.15209/jpp.1170
Stephanson, A. (1996). Manifest destiny: American expansion and the Empire of Right. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Stewart-Ambo, T., & Wayne Yang, K. (2021). Beyond land acknowledgment in settler institutions. Social Text, 39(1 (146)), 21–46. https://doi.org/10.1215/01642472-8750076
Sundberg, J. (2014). Decolonizing posthumanist geographies. Cultural Geographies, 21(1), 33–47. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474474013486067
TallBear, K. (2019). 3. Being in Relation. In S. King, R. S. Carey, I. Macquarrie, V. N. Millious, & E. M. Power (Eds.), Conversations on animals as food (pp. 54–67). Fordham University Press.
Thrapp, D. L. (1995). Al Sieber: Chief of Scouts. University of Oklahoma Press.
Tlostanova, M. V., & Mignolo, W. (2012). Learning to unlearn: Decolonial reflections from Eurasia and the Americas. Ohio State University Press.
Tran, T. C., Ban, N. C., & Bhattacharyya, J. (2020). A review of successes, challenges, and lessons from Indigenous protected and conserved areas. Biological Conservation, 241, 108271. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2019.108271
Truman, S. E., & Springgay, S. (2019). Queer walking tours and the affective contours of place. Cultural Geographies, 26(4), 527–534. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474474019842888
Tsing, A. L. (2015). The mushroom at the end of the world: On the possibility of life in capitalist ruins. Princeton University Press.
Tuck, E., & McKenzie, M. (2014). Place in research: Theory, methodology, and methods. Routledge.
Tuck, E., & Yang, K. W. (2012). Decolonization is not a metaphor. Education & Society, 1(1), 1–40. https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/des/article/view/18630/15554
Utacia Krol, D. (2011, February 20). Exodus Day Commemorates Removal, Restoration of Two People. Indian Country Today. https://indiancountrytoday.com/archive/exodus-day-commemorates-removal-restoration-of-two-people
wa Thiong’o, N. (1994). Decolonising the mind: The politics of language in African literature. Zimbabwe Publishing House.
WalkingLab. (2017, October 22). Stone walk on the Bruce Trail: Queering the trail. WalkingLab. https://walkinglab.org/stone-walk-on-the-bruce-trail-queering-the-trail
Wall, S. (2008). Easier said than done: Writing an autoethnography. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 7(1), 38–53. https://doi.org/10.1177/160940690800700103
Walsh, Z., Böhme, J., & Wamsler, C. (2021). Towards a relational paradigm in sustainability research, practice, and education. Ambio, 50(1), 74–84. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-020-01322-y
Wamsler, C., Osberg, G., Osika, W., Herndersson, H., & Mundaca, L. (2021). Linking internal and external transformation for sustainability and climate action: Towards a new research and policy agenda. Global Environmental Change, 71, 102373. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2021.102373
Waters, A. (Ed.). (2004). American Indian thought: Philosophical essays. Blackwell Pub.
Watts, V. (2013). Indigenous place-thought and agency amongst humans and non humans (First Woman and Sky Woman go on a European world tour!). Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, 2(1), 20–34. https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/des/article/view/19145/16234
West, S., Haider, L. J., Hertz, T., Mancilla Garcia, M., & Moore, M.-L. (2024). Relational approaches to sustainability transformations: Walking together in a world of many worlds. Ecosystems and People, 20(1), 2370539. https://doi.org/10.1080/26395916.2024.2370539
West, S., Haider, L. J., Stålhammar, S., & Woroniecki, S. (2020). A relational turn for sustainability science? Relational thinking, leverage points and transformations. Ecosystems and People, 16(1), 304–325. https://doi.org/10.1080/26395916.2020.1814417
West, S., Haider, L. J., Stålhammar, S., & Woroniecki, S. (2021). Putting relational thinking to work in sustainability science – reply to Raymond et al. Ecosystems and People, 17(1), 108–113. https://doi.org/10.1080/26395916.2021.1898477
White, L. (1967). The historical roots of our ecologic crisis. Science, 155(3767), 1203–1207. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.155.3767.1203
Whittlesey, S. M., Ciolek-Torrello, R., & Altschul, J. H. (1997). Vanishing river: Landscapes and lives of the Lower Verde Valley. SRI Press.
Whyte, K. (2018). Settler colonialism, ecology, and environmental injustice. Environment & Society, 9(1), 125–144. https://doi.org/10.3167/ares.2018.090109
Wildcat, M., McDonald, M., Irlbacher-Fox, S., & Coulthard, G. (2014). Learning from the land: Indigenous land based pedagogy and decolonization. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, 3(3), I–XV. https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/des/article/view/22248
Wildcat, M., & Voth, D. (2023). Indigenous relationality: Definitions and methods. AlterNative, 19(2), 475–483. https://doi.org/10.1177/11771801231168380
Wilson, S. (2008). Research is ceremony: Indigenous research methods. Fernwood publishing.
Woiwode, C., Schäpke, N., Bina, O., Veciana, S., Kunze, I., Parodi, O., Schweizer-Ries, P., & Wamsler, C. (2021). Inner transformation to sustainability as a deep leverage point: Fostering new avenues for change through dialogue and reflection. Sustainability Science, 16(3), 841–858. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-020-00882-y
Wolfe, P. (2006). Settler colonialism and the elimination of the native. Journal of Genocide Research, 8(4), 387–409. https://doi.org/10.1080/14623520601056240
Yavapai-Apache Nation. (2024, January 12). Yavapai-Apache land exchange: A brief history of the Yavapai-Apache Nation and its land. Yavapai-Apache Nation. https://yavapai-apache.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/2024_01_12-Brief-History-of-YAN.pdf
Zanotti, L., & Palomino-Schalscha, M. (2016). Taking different ways of knowing seriously: Cross-cultural work as translations and multiplicity. Sustainability Science, 11(1), 139–152. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-015-0312-x
Zapatista Army of National Liberation. (1996, January 1). Fourth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle. Schools for Chiapas. Schools for Chiapas. https://schoolsforchiapas.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Fourth-Declaration-of-the-Lacandona-Jungle-.pdf
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Brian Grant
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
