An Ethos of Radical Relationality

What if we thought about territory in terms of all of its multiple scales and engaged protocols to include the manifestations of radical inclusion, radical relationality, and the building of creative intimacies as our (re)worlding project of love? (Recollet, 2016, p.101)

Our commitment to bodies of water as guests on Central Texas Indigenous lands includes being guided by an ethos of radical relationality that honors land, and waters as places that require reciprocity, care, accountability and interdependency; we give and are given. An ethos of radical relationality encounters places as lively beings with inherent sociality and agency within which we are inextricably connected. Watery places are sites of knowledge and creation, with which we have an obligation, alongside educators, to foster non-extractive relationships.

The Project

Texas Water Stories

This research is part of a larger project examining narratives of Texas waters. Our specific research within this larger collaboration with Planet Texas 2050 UT Austin researchers aims to counter the marginalization of Indigenous knowledges and young people’s perspectives in dominant climate change scholarship. Using participatory methods, we focus on intergenerational (elders, youth, children) Indigenous narratives of sacred waters (Yana Wana) in Central Texas; particularly ajehuac yana (Spring Lake in San Marcos). Our research also investigates the development of environmental education pedagogies for young children that are connected to Central Texas waters.

We are working with:

  • teachers and kindergarten children in a school in Austin
  • teachers, children and youth at an Indigenous (Coahuiltecan) summer camp in San Marcos
  • youth and elder participants at the Sacred Springs Pow Wow in San Marcos