Published in cooperation with the Quinault Indian Nation

Gifted Earth features traditional Native American plant knowledge, detailing the use of plants for food, medicines, and materials. It presents a rich and living tradition of plant use within the Quinault Indian Nation in a volume collaboratively developed and endorsed by that tribe.

The Quinault Reservation on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington state is a diverse tribal community, embodying the traditional knowledge of tribes along the entire Pacific Northwest coast. Its membership consists of descendants of many tribes—from the northwestern Olympic Peninsula to the northern Oregon coast—including the Quinault, but also many others who were relocated to the reservation in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Individuals descended from these tribal communities, including Chinook, Chehalis, Hoh, Quileute, Queets, Cowlitz, Tillamook, Clatsop, and others, have contributed to Gifted Earth, giving it remarkable breadth and representation.

A celebration of enduring Native American knowledge, this book will help non-specialists as they discover the potential of the region’s wild plants, learning how to identify, gather, and use many of the plants that they encounter in the Northwestern landscape. Part ethnobotanical guide and part “how-to” manual, Gifted Earth also prepares plant users for the minor hazards and pitfalls that accompany their quest—from how to avoid accidentally eating a bug hidden within a salal berry to how to prevent blisters when peeling the tender stalks of cow parsnip.

As beautiful as it is informative, Gifted Earth sets the standard for a new generation of ethnobotanical guides informed by the values, vision, and voice of Native American communities eager to promote a sustainable, balanced relationship between plant users and the rich plant communities of traditional tribal lands.

How can scholars best give back to the communities in which they conduct their research? This critical question arises from a long history of colonial scholarship that exploited study subjects by taking knowledge without giving anything in return. It is a problem faced by all field researchers, even those working in their own communities.

Over the past several decades—and especially since the evolution of feminist methodologies, participatory research, and the postcolonial turn in the 1990s—there have been calls for research to be less exploitative, but also for researchers and for the research itself to give something back. Giving Back: Research and Reciprocity in Indigenous Settings addresses the need for reciprocity in the research process, especially (though not exclusively) in regard to indigenous communities.

The twelve case studies in this volume demonstrate that giving back can happen through the research itself—through the careful framing of questions, co-production of knowledge, and dissemination of results—but also through the day-to-day actions and attitudes of researchers that inevitably occur in the field. It can range from everyday give-and-take to the sharing of research materials to larger and longer-term engagements.

As practitioners of community-based research gain greater awareness of these issues, scholars and institutions need guidance and strategies for ensuring reciprocity in the research process. This volume presents a variety of situations from a wide range of research contexts, discusses what has and hasn’t worked, and explores what issues remain.

CONTRIBUTORS:

Jennifer Carter
Julia Christensen
Claire Colyer
David Crew
Erica A. D’Elia
Maria Fadiman
R.D.K. Herman
Richard Howitt
Stephanie Hull
Gwyneira Isaac 
Chris Jacobson
Meredith Luze
Catrina A. MacKenzie
Lea S. McChesney
Kendra McSweeney
Janice Monk
Roxanne T. Ornelas
Tristan Pearce
Matthew Reeves
Chie Sakakibara
Wendy S. Shaw
Sarah Turner
John R. Welch

At the end of the twentieth century, the state government of Oregon was routinely entangled in intense partisan conflict, with opposing sides waging bitter battles in elections, the legislature, and the courts. Many of the most important state laws -- such as Measure 5, which capped property taxes -- were decided through the initiative process rather than by lawmakers in Salem.
 
As the twenty-first century began, this political dynamic began to shift. Partisan conflict in the capitol grew less rancorous, legislative gridlock eased, and ballot initiatives lost their central role in defining Oregon politics. Less visible changes reshaped issues from agricultural policy to tribal government. This shifting dynamic coincided with significant transformations in Oregon’s economy and cultural life.
 
The state’s economy sustained severe blows twice in the early 2000s, but by 2014, Oregon boasted one of the fastest-growing economies in the nation. Along with economic expansion, Oregon’s population grew in both size and diversity. Despite these powerful forces of change, other aspects of Oregon political life remained entrenched, including the deep urban-rural divide and the state’s problematic fiscal system.
 
With contributions from 27 leading experts and political insiders, Governing Oregon: Continuity and Change offers insight into the people, political practices, governing institutions, and public policies of Oregon. It will be of tremendous value to political scientists, public servants, and engaged citizens alike.

Contributors:
 
Warda Ajaz is a PhD candidate in the School of Public Policy at Oregon State University.
 
Jeannine Beatrice is Chief of Staff with the Oregon Department of Human Services (DHS).
 
David Bernell is an Associate Professor of Political Science in the School of Public Policy at Oregon State University.
 
Joe Bowersox is the Dempsey Endowed Chair of Environmental Policy and Politics in the Department of Environmental and Earth Science at Willamette University.
 
Alexandra Buylova is a PhD candidate in the School of Public Policy at Oregon State University.
 
Paul De Muniz retired as Chief Justice of the Oregon Supreme Court in 2012 after serving for twelve years on the court. De Muniz currently teaches at Willamette University College of Law as a Distinguished Jurist in Residence.
 
Mark Edwards is Professor of Sociology in the School of Public Policy at Oregon State University.
 
Leanne Giordono is a PhD candidate in the School of Public Policy at Oregon State University and a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow. 
 
Daniel Gray is a Master of Public Policy (MPP) student in the School of Public Policy at Oregon State University.
 
Sajjad Haider is a PhD candidate at the School of Management, Lanzhou University (China), and a visiting research scholar at the Mark O. Hatfield School of Government, Portland State University.
 
Jordan Hensley earned a Master of Public Policy (MPP) degree from the School of Public Policy at Oregon State University.
 
Allison L. Hurst is an Associate Professor of Sociology in the School of Public Policy at Oregon State University.
 
Abdullah Husain is a PhD candidate in Environmental Sciences at Oregon State University.
 
Phil Keisling is Director of the Center for Public Service at Portland State University’s Mark O. Hatfield School of Government. He was Oregon Secretary of State from 1991–1999 and a Member of the Oregon House of Representatives from 1989–1991.
 
Chris Koski is Associate Professor of Environmental Studies and Chair of the Political Science Department at Reed College.
 
Justin Martin owns and operates, Perseverance Strategies, Inc., a government relations and public affairs firm.
 
Melissa Buis Michaux is Associate Professor of Politics at Willamette University.
 
Douglas Morgan is Professor Emeritus of Public Administration and Director of the Executive MPA Program in the Hatfield School of Government at Portland State University.
 
Sanne A. M. Rijkhoff is a former adjunct assistant professor of political science at Portland State University. She is currently an Eyes High Postdoctoral Associate at the University of Calgary.
 
Ethan Seltzer is an Emeritus Professor in the Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning at Portland State University. 
 
Brent S. Steel is Professor and the Director of the Graduate Program in the School of Public Policy at Oregon State University. 
 
Casey L. Taylor is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Political Science at Idaho State University.
 
Rebecca Warner is Professor of Sociology in the School of Public Policy at Oregon State University.
 

Marijuana legalization is unfolding across the American West, but cultivation of the cannabis plant is anything but green. Unregulated outdoor grows are polluting ecosystems, high-powered indoor grows are churning out an excessive carbon footprint, and the controversial crop is becoming an agricultural boon just as the region faces an unprecedented water crisis.

To understand how we got here and how the legal cannabis industry might become more environmentally sustainable, Grass Roots looks at the history of marijuana growing in the American West, from early Mexican American growers on sugar beet farms to today’s sophisticated greenhouse gardens. Over the past eighty years, federal marijuana prohibition has had a multitude of consequences, but one of the most important is also one of the most overlooked—environmental degradation. Grass Roots argues that the most environmentally negligent farming practices—such as indoor growing—were borne out of prohibition. Now those same practices are continuing under legalization.

Grass Roots uses the history of cannabis as a crop to make sense of its regulation in the present, highlighting current efforts to make the marijuana industry more sustainable. In exploring the agricultural history of cannabis, There are many social and political histories of cannabis, but in considering cannabis as a plant rather than as a drug, Grass Roots offers the only agriculturally focused history to date.

Beneath the 24/7 national news cycle and argument over “fake news,” there is a layer of journalism that communities absolutely depend upon. Grit and Ink offers a rare look inside the financial struggles and family dynamic that has kept a Pacific Northwest publishing group alive for more than a century. The newspapers of the Aldrich-Forrester-Bedford-Brown family depict the histories of towns like Pendleton, Astoria, John Day, Enterprise, and Long Beach, Washington. Written by noted historian William Willingham, Grit and Ink describes threats presented by the Ku Klux Klan, the Great Astoria Fire of 1923, the Great Depression, the Aryan Nation, the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge occupation, the Digital Revolution, and more.

Grow Food, Cook Food, Share Food is a practical food history lesson, an editorial on our use of packaged convenience foods, and a call to arms—of the kitchen variety. Mixing food writing and history, adding a dash of cookbook, author and scholar Ken Albala shares the story of what happened when he started taking food history seriously and embarked on a mission to grow, cook, and share food in the ways that people did in the past.

Albala considers what the traditions we have needlessly lost have to offer us today: a serious appreciation for the generative power of the earth, the great pleasures of cooking food, and the joy of sharing food with family, friends, and even strangers. In Albala’s compelling book, obscure seventeenth-century Italian farmer-nobles, Roman statesmen, and quirky cheesemakers from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries all offer lessons about our relationship with the food we eat.

A rare form of historical activism, Grow Food, Cook Food, Share Food is written for anyone who likes to eat, loves to cook, and knows how to throw a great dinner party.

An OSU Press Horning Visiting Scholars Publication.