Advisory Council
The process of creating and shaping the We the Land! gathering began with engagement of the communities we belong to and are accountable to. We gathered knowledge holders representative of Indigenous, Black, and Diasporic perspectives to co-define and design our best practices and intentions with our converging communities in mind. We share our immense gratitude to our advisory council members, amanda david, Leonardo E Figueroa Helland, Mali Obomsawin, and xochicoatl bello for their time, care, wisdom, commitment, and stewardship in co-shaping the vision of the gathering with us.
amanda david
she/they
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amanda is a community herbalist, a gardener, the mother of three amazing children, and the creator of Rootwork Herbals and the many initiatives that are a part of that container. She tends plants and people growing gardens, handcrafting remedies, offering consultations and teaching.
Her approach to herbalism is based in the ways of her ancestors, building intimate relationships with the plants that grow nearby in order to bring herbal medicine and home healthcare to the people. In doing this, she sees herbalism as a means to support life and thus resist against oppressive systems, which undermine health. Above all, amanda is a lover of plants and a lover of people and is passionate about bringing them together in a down to earth, joyful and accessible way that promotes personal and planetary healing.
Leonardo E Figueroa Helland (PhD)
he/him/le’e/el
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Leonardo is Chair and Associate Professor of the Environmental Policy and Sustainability Management graduate (MS) at The New School university (Lenapehoking/Manahatta/New York City). He is Associate Director of the Tishman Environment and Design Center where he leads the Indigeneity and Decolonizing Sustainability program. A decolonizing scholar of mestizo (mixed-blood) heritage (Indigenous Mesoamerican and Euro-American), his work underlines the centrality of Indigenous resurgence and revitalization in addressing planetary crises, achieving climate justice and materializing systemic change. He does so by articulating radical Indigenous approaches with other counterhegemonic liberatory perspectives to envision and enact decolonial futures against and beyond imperialist, settler colonial, neocolonial, patriarchal, anthropocentric, capitalist and state-centric orders. His articles appear, inter alia, in the following journals: the NYU Environmental Law Journal (ELJ); Journal of World Systems Research; Perspectives on Global Development and Technology; Studies in Twentieth & Twenty-First Century Literature; Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies; Journal of Critical Education and Policy Studies (JCEPS); and UNESCO Journal of Higher Education and Society/Educación Superior y Sociedad (ESS). His chapters appear in the following volumes: Social Movements and World-System Transformation; Inhabiting the Earth: Anarchist Political Ecology for Landscapes of Emancipation; Contesting Extinctions: Critical Relationality, Regenerative Futures; and forthcoming in the Oxford Handbook of Comparative Historical Sociology; as well as in Grassroots Resistances, Alternatives and Solutions to the 21st Century Climate and Global Ecological Crises: Voices from the Global South. He has recently edited two special numbers of Perspectives on Global Development and Technology on the theme of "Earth Crisis and the Global Environmental Movement". His current projects include two books. The first one is titled Indigenous Resurgence and Earth Crisis: Decolonizing Pathways to Liberation and Regeneration (book project under contract at Routledge). The second one entitled The Indigenous Shape of Worlds to Come: Decolonial Futures beyond Resistance (book project to be prospectively published by Daraja Press).
Mali Obomsawin
they/them
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Mali Obomsawin is a bassist, singer and composer from Odanak First Nation, and one of GRAMMY.com’s top ten emerging jazz artists to watch this year. Her debut album Sweet Tooth (Out of Your Head Records, 2022) garnered international acclaim and was named in ‘best of the year’ lists from The Guardian, NPR, and JazzTimes upon its release. Evocative and thunderous, Sweet Tooth delivers a gripping and dynamic performance, seamlessly melding chorale-like spirituals, folk melodies, and post-Albert Ayler free jazz. Obomsawin’s ensemble occupies a musical universe completely their own, bringing skronk and reverence to every stage.
“Telling Indigenous stories through the language of jazz is not a new phenomenon,” Obomsawin explains. “My people have had to innovate endlessly to get our stories heard - learning to express ourselves in French, English, Abenaki… but sometimes words fail us, and we must use sound. Sweet Tooth is a testament to this.”
xochicoatl bello
they/elle/ya
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xochicoatl bello is a reindigequeer good ancestror-in-training, ARTivist, educator + healing pollinator. they come from el ombligo del luna aka méxico and the borderlands of Tongva territories, so called Los Angeles, Califas. their medicine walk on the red road is in service to Black, Brown, indigenous, and people of color sovereignty. believing that when we heal with the soil, heal the soils that sustain us, tend to the seeds, we heal our souls, we remember we have always been free.
they create spaces of remembrance, where youth and YOU may meet your sacred. meet your ancestors, and hear the truth that lives in their heart with the support of ceremony, plant medicine, and story. xochicoatl maintains an herbal and healing practice through la mala yerba that seeks to connect all people to socially-conscious plant and ancestor work.