I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Urban Design and Planning at the University of Washington in Seattle. My research examines the relationships between Historic Preservation and Environmental Planning within Indigenous contexts (Indigenous Planning). More specifically, I’m interested in how planning for the spatial dimensions of culture, with a special attention to living traditional practices in Indigenous communities. This approach extends to other notions pertinent to planners: collective land ethics, Indigenous cultural revitalization/resurgence, land restoration, and climate change responses.
I view the field of planning as a cultural product that is embedded with certain normative assumptions and cultural values that benefit the United States. Consequently, planning practice facilitates and reproduces these embedded qualities that contribute toward the disenfranchisement of Indigenous peoples (and other communities too), especially as it relates to Indigenous land stewardship and cultural practices.
I want to change that.
I believe that Indigenous communities posses specific sets of responsibilities in relation to lands, waters, kin (of all kinds), and spirits, as part of an Indigenous Land ethic. These sets of responsibilities are fulfilled in a variety of ways through various cultural practices (see Smith’s Uses of Heritage) and I’m interested in planning’s contributions to supporting Indigenous communities’ right to self-determination and sovereignty through heritage planning. I’m particularly interested in how planning can support the intangible aspects of Indigenous cultural practices (language, ceremony, etc.) and the ways through which it can complement existing efforts –in community– to practice living traditions and pass it on to future generations. I hope that through this work that I can address some of the historical (settler) violence forced upon Indigenous peoples and change systems to help support Indigenous lifeways, the land, and the future for us all.
Education
Originally from San Jose, California, I have navigated higher education as a First-Generation college student, earning an Associates Degree in Liberal Arts from De Anza College, a Bachelor’s Degree in Linguistics (& a Minor in Native American Studies) from the University of California, Davis, a Masters of Planning from the University of Southern California, and a Doctor of Philosophy in City and Regional Planning from Cornell University. My research interests have been heavily informed as an urban Native (Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation & Citizen Potawatomi Nation descent) growing up in the Bay Area and I continue to be influenced by the wonderful relationships I’ve been able to create since traveling from home.
Dylan M. Stevenson, Ph.D., AICP 