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This paper explores how Indigenous-led research reframes the impacts and response to environmental disasters in the context of acid mine spills in rural communities of the Southwest United States. The collaborative research project addressing the Gold King Mine Spill (GKMS) designed qualitative methodologies that center Indigenous worldviews and contribute to broader understandings of environmental justice. The research team, led by Diné scholars and community leaders, gathered qualitative responses from 123 adult participants in twelve focus groups from three rural communities on the Navajo Nation. The project incorporated fluent Diné speakers and cultural consultants to lead focus groups in a manner consistent with cultural worldviews. The analysis of the focus group data resulted in original findings that reframe previous understandings of environmental harm by broadening the boundaries to include: 1) social relations across time; 2) social relations across space; 3) spiritual relations; and 4) restoring balance. The findings allow for greater insight into the colonial context of disaster on rural and Indigenous lands and confronts colonial-rooted disasters through Indigenous-informed political action. • An Indigenous led research team initiated a new process of framing environmental harm. • Research methods were aligned with the Diné worldview and guided data collection. • Indigenous EJ highlights relationality and the settler colonial context. • Participants desire new forms of healing beyond monetary compensation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emerging theories of Indigenous environmental justice reframe environmental problems and solutions using Indigenous onto-epistemologies, emphasizing the agency of non-human relations and influence of colonialism. The California Indian Basketweavers’ Association (CIBA) embodies this paradigm in its work to expand access to gathering areas, revitalize cultural burning, and stop pesticide use. Through our different positionalities as CIBA members, California Indian basketweavers, and researchers, we construct a case study of Indigenous environmental justice that articulates environmental stewardship as intrinsically linked with cultural and spiritual practice. Through education, information sharing, relationship building, lobbying, and collective action among its membership and land management agencies, CIBA has expanded basketweavers’ access to safe and successful gathering. By sustaining millennia of tradition, CIBA builds Indigenous sovereignty and shifts California’s land management paradigm toward environmental justice and global survival.