Mapping the Emergence of Indigenous Fire Ecologies, Sociality, and Self

Indigenous fire ecologies are the ways native communities use fire to shape their natural surroundings and the systems of knowledge, economic strategies, political goals, aesthetic desires, and spiritual pursuits guiding them. In viable indigenous systems, fire flows along human routes and humans adjust their movements to fire’s designs. The interlocking processes of social relationships and disturbance regimes that develop over long periods of time in specific settings are indigenous fire ecologies. Indigenous peoples who live in the homelands of their ancestors draw upon sophisticated knowledge and technical skills as they maneuver in relation to climate, weather, and biomass to affect the cycles of fire and other components of disturbance regimes. In indigenous fire ecologies, native communities echo the rhythms of birth, death, and regrowth characteristic of disturbance regimes. Disturbance regimes similarly reflect the contingencies, ambiguities, fragmentations, and continuities of social life. In this presentation, I use a relational framework to explore the properties of indigenous fire ecology, sociality, and identity that emerge through mapping.