The Scientists of The Dawnland: Reframing the Boundaries of Knowledge Through Wabanaki Epistemologies

This honors project explores how Wabanaki scientists navigate and reshape dominant paradigms of science, land use, and education by strategically integrating Western science with Traditional Ecological Knowledge. Through theoretical and historical analysis alongside three ethnographic interviews, I show how Indigenous knowledge is not simply surviving within colonial systems but actively transforming them from within. Framing the work through the concept of etuaptmumk (two-eyed seeing), I examine how my interviewees—Dr. Suzanne Greenlaw, Sam St. John, and Tyler Everett—use science as a relational, spiritual, and community-based practice to support cultural continuity and natural resource protection. Their work challenges the dominant binaries between science and religion, objectivity and identity, and knowledge and responsibility. They engage with Western institutions on their own terms to support their communities and uphold Wabanaki sovereignty. While the work of Indigenous scientists is increasingly studied across the U.S. and globally, Wabanaki communities remain underrepresented in this discourse. This project helps fill that gap and calls on Bowdoin College to invest more seriously in reciprocal relationships with Wabanaki communities, including institutional collaboration and the hiring of Indigenous faculty.