Tribal Community-University Partnerships for Indigenous Futures

The nexus of the #LandBack movement, the discovery of unmarked gravesites at residential schools, the return of ancestral remains, the uptake of settler land acknowledgments, and uncovered truths about the expropriation of Indigenous lands by higher education institutions individually and collectively illuminate historic and ongoing tensions between settler colonial schooling and Indigenous Peoples; incidents that continue to have severe consequences on educational outcomes. Reckoning with extraction, exploitation, paternalism, and violence, institutional leaders nationwide have commented on the need to “engage Native Nations.” However, within community–university scholarship, there are limited guiding frameworks for building and strengthening sustained relationships with Native Nations that respect and reinforce tribal sovereignty. This chapter reviews research on university engagement with Native Nations and Indigenous communities to forward a framework for fostering tribal community–university relationships, that is, the political, external, economic, curricular, and co-curricular relationships and partnerships between Indigenous Peoples and institutions of higher learning that recognize, reinforce, and respect tribal sovereignty and self-determination. I conclude with principles and practices for engagement and offer implications for future research and theory.