Abstract
This chapter proposes the concept of places of repair as a contribution to contemporary, sustainable urbanism in North America, starting with the everyday urban environment around us. The chapter is inspired by and builds on the work of Native American scholar and activist, Vine Deloria, Jr. by suggesting that Deloria’s work can inform how the everyday built environment is created, experienced, and cared for. I draw from Deloria’s explanation of sacred places by proposing that the agential capacity of places allows for the emergence of new sorts of sacred places, places of repair. This concept is presented through analysis of Deloria’s texts and discussion of two contemporary projects in the built environment of the North American Pacific Northwest.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Beatley, T. (2000). Green urbanism: Learning from European cities. Washington, DC: Island Press.
Beatley, T. (2010). Biophilic cities: Integrating nature into urban design and planning. Washington, DC: Island Press.
Carroll, R., & Prickett, S. (Eds.). (2008). Exodus 3: 1–22. In The Bible: Authorized King James version. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Casey, E. S. (1998). The fate of place: A philosophical history. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Charleyboy, L. (2012). The ancient art of smudging: Purify yourself and your home with a traditional native American practice. Spirituality & Health Magazine. https://spiritualityhealth.com/articles/2012/10/19/ancient-art-smudging. Accessed 22 Apr 2020.
Cortes, A. (2014). Treaty rights and totem poles: How one tribe is carving out a resistance to coal. Grist. http://exp.grist.org/lummi. Accessed 22 Apr 2020.
Deloria, V., Jr. (1988). Custer died for your sins: An Indian manifesto (reprint). Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press.
Deloria, V., Jr. (1999a). For this land: Writings on religion in America. New York: Routledge.
Deloria, V., J. (1999b). Spirit and reason: The Vine Deloria, Jr. reader. Golden, CO: Fulcrum Publishing.
Deloria, V., Jr., & Wildcat, D. R. (2001). Power and place: Indian education in America. Golden, CO: Fulcrum Publishing.
Deloria, V., Jr. (2003). God is red: A native view of religion (30th anniversary edition). Golden, CO: Fulcrum Publishing.
Deloria, V., Jr. (2006). The world we used to live in. Golden, CO: Fulcrum Publishing.
Deloria, V., Jr. (2012). The metaphysics of modern existence (revised edition). Golden, CO: Fulcrum Publishing.
Dunbar-Ortiz, R. (2014). An indigenous peoples’ history of the United States. Boston: Beacon Press.
Eliade, M. (1987). The sacred and the profane: The nature of religion (W. R. Trask, Trans.). New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. (Original work published 1957).
Farr, D. (2007). Sustainable urbanism: Urban design with nature. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Hall, P. (2014). Cities of tomorrow: An intellectual history of urban planning and design since 1880 (4th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Blackwell.
Hughes, J. D., & Swan, J. (1986). How much of the earth is sacred space? Environmental Review, 10(4), 247–259. https://doi.org/10.2307/3984349.
Lane, F. X & Jones, J. (2017). From the ancestors to our grandchildren [film]. Our shared responsibility: A totem pole journey. https://totempolejourney.com/2017-totem-pole-journey/.
Let Us Build Cully Park. (n.d.). Native gathering gardens. https://letusbuildcullypark.org/park-feature/native-gathering-gardens-phase-2/.
Making the Invisible Visible. (n.d.). Portland Indian leaders roundtable. http://www.oneskycenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/MakingVisible_FINAL.pdf. Accessed 22 April 2020.
McKenna, E., & Pratt, S. L. (2015). American philosophy from wounded knee to the present. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, An Imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.
McLeod, C., & Maynor, M. (2001). In the light of reverence [film]. A Production of the Sacred Land Film Project of Earth Island Institute. https://sacredland.org/in-the-light-of-reverence/.
Muller, B. (2018). Blue Architectures. Environmental Philosophy, 15(1), 59–75.
Pratt, S. L. (2006). Persons in place: The agent ontology of Vine Deloria, Jr. APA (American Philosophical Association) Newsletter, 6(1), 3–10. https://cdn.ymaws.com/ www.apaonline.org/resource/collection/13B1F8E6-0142-45FD-A626-9C4271DC6F62/v06n1American_Indians.pdf.
Pratt, S. L. (2018, 21 April). Indigenous ontologies and the moral universe. What is Universe? Plenary presentation conducted at the University of Oregon in Portland. https://blogs.uoregon.edu/whatisuniverse/.
Rosiek, J. L., Snyder, J., & Pratt, S. L. (2020). The new materialisms and indigenous theories of non-human agency: Making the case for respectful anti-colonial engagement. Qualitative Inquiry, 26(3–4), 331–346. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800419830135.
Silko, L. M. (2016). Ceremony (reprint). New York: Penguin Books, An Imprint of Penguin Random House, LLC.
Tuck, E., & Yang, K. W. (2012). Decolonization is not a metaphor. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, 1(1), 1–40. http://www.mlajournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1632/pmla.2008.123.5.174.
US Green Building Council. (2020). LEED certification for neighborhood development. https://www.usgbc.org/leed/rating-systems/neighborhood-development. Accessed 22 Apr 2020.
Acknowledgements
My thanks goes to the editors for including my essay in this book. I am grateful for the Lummi Nation House of Tears Carvers, the Totem Pole Journey participants, and the many people who brought to life the Native Gathering Gardens at Cully Park for their ongoing work to heal relationships with the Earth and its humans. I also give my thanks to Scott Pratt and Brook Muller for their guidance on this project. To my friend and editor, Toby Veeder, thank you for your endless encouragement and clarity. My deep gratitude goes to the places of the Earth with which I have been so fortunate to entangle and to Vine Deloria, Jr. for his leadership, brilliance, generosity, optimism, commitment, and humor.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Meier, B. (2021). Emerging Places of Repair: A Sustainable Urbanism Approach to Living in and with Cities—Inspired by Vine Deloria, Jr.’s Agent Ontology of Place. In: Silvern, S.E., Davis, E.H. (eds) Religion, Sustainability, and Place. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-7646-1_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-7646-1_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-15-7645-4
Online ISBN: 978-981-15-7646-1
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)