Relinquishment

Acculturated in Whiteness and coloniality, many people of European lineage have inherited hierarchical and binary ways of thinking and being. An ethic cohered around domination, separation, and rugged individualism animated colonization, Manifest Destiny, and Western expansion. In modernity, this ethos continues to flatten Earth into a storehouse of expendable commodities, treat Land as “equity,” and characterize humans into consumers and producers, those who have and own and those who labor. Modern definitions of wealth and ownership overtly and subtly perpetuate anxiety-ridden stories of separation, scarcity, threat, and un-belonging. 

Relinquishment begins to heal the resulting deep soul wounds of hoarding resource and treating animate sovereign entities as parcels and objects. With relinquishment, through repair, inherent myths and mangled narratives and their painful limitations and consequences get re-storied. Relinquishment and Land reunion stories demonstrate willingness, bravery, and humility. Returning wealth held in Land “ownership” or stockpiled in financial institutions circulates renewable and regenerative forms of wealth: relational, emotional, psychological, creative, social. Stories involving reparative return of capital and Land reunion reveal how adopting a commitment to repair and right relationship opens channels for abundance to flow. These manifest in healthier soil, dignified and adequate collectively-stewarded shelter, regenerative livelihoods shaped around cooperative enterprise, cross-cultural and cross-class solidarity, and intraspecies hospitality that grows mutually dignifying reciprocal relationships. Practices such as respectful listening, dialogue, and shared commitment to attend to the needs of earth, creatures, and humans yield creative pathways to new stewardship arrangements. In so doing, the practices sow seeds of new culture in which the rights, dignity, and basic needs of all beings are held in right balance in an effort to sustain a sacred contract with life itself.  Relinquishment  can feel not only satisfying; it can be enriching in ways not previously imagined. 

Philanthropy As Reciprocity:  Authored by an Alaskan Native working within institutional philanthropy, this article proposes a definition of philanthropy rooted in reciprocal relationship, balance and harmony, service and contribution.

From Sunrise to Sunset: A Philanthropic Investment in Indigenous Sovereignty: One Native, one White leader of a philanthropic foundation spending out all its assets ask, “What does it really mean to ‘decolonize’ philanthropy?

The Canticle of the Turning: A series of photo-essays describing partnerships among Indigenous matriarchs, White land justice organizers,  and Catholic nuns to return land and campaign for renunciation of the Doctrine of Discovery.

Case Study: Central Virginia Agrarian Commons: Story of a White farmer in Central Virginia returning the majority of the land to which she held title to a Black-led Agrarian Commons, a gesture to securing Black farmers’ stewardship of land.