RuraLead initially planned a public-facing Indigenous Learning Journey during 2020, though due to COVID-19 and its disproportionate impact on the Navajo Nation and Indigenous leaders, and the subsequent need to prioritize crisis response, the scope of this work shifted. RuraLead partner Roanhorse Consulting conducted private interviews with rural Indigenous leaders and leadership development practitioners, primarily in the Southwest region. Rural Indigenous leaders and leadership development practitioners also discussed their path to leadership during RuraLead’s Northwest, Midwest, and Southern Learning Journeys, and participated in the RuraLead Ideas Summit as “Field Builders.”

Given the timing and scope of the initiative, RuraLead only scratched the surface in exploring rural Indigenous leadership, leadership development, and the relationship between Indigenous leaders and their non-Indigenous rural neighbors. RuraLead hopes that connections formed through the initiative will lead to future exploration of this subject with explicit focus. The need for dedicated peer learning spaces for rural Indigenous leaders and practitioners was also emphasized repeatedly through the initiative.

“Something we have known for a long time is that the current systems in the U.S. are not working for Native nations and they are not sustainable. COVID-19 demonstrated this even more. Once the pandemic hit, the majority of our systems collapsed.

This is the perfect time to recreate, remiagine, rebuild a different future for our people and I strongly believe that rural communities and Native nations have a lot to teach each other.”
– Apryl Deel-McKenzie, Program Manager, Native Governance Center, Diné (Navajo Nation)

More collaborative discussions are needed between rural Indigenous communities and non-Indigenous communities, particularly regarding the uniqueness of rural Native Nations and the need to recognize, understand, and incorporate their needs and strengths into rural agendas, policy, and practice related to equitable rural development. This will require an unfettered effort to understand how tribal sovereign nations and surrounding communities and towns engage with one another, which is historically complex. The nuance of the work has been uplifted as a major learning objective for future efforts that should be thoughtfully considered and designed – a general approach is not sufficient to understand the unique challenges our rural Indigenous leaders face. For example, many Indigenous people move regularly between rural, urban, and tribal settings, adding to the complexity of focusing explicitly on rural Indigenous leadership and its development.

“It is important to acknowledge that for Native people, tribal living is not the same as rural living, however, rural living cannot exclude tribal living.”
– Vanessa Roanhorse, Roanhorse Consulting

RuraLead’s exploration of rural Indigenous leadership underscored the need to:

  • Deepen societal understanding of Indigenous history as well as contemporary cultural and political identities
  • Improve the quality and accessibility of Indigenous data
  • Acknowledge that flawed data, coupled with myths and a lack of understanding of Indigenous people, has contributed to inequities of a massive scale.

For example, the lack of general public understanding of Indigenous people requires Indigenous leaders to spend precious time educating others, minimizing their own learnings to build new networks and strategies for themselves and their bodies of work. This happens consistently across all sectors and geographies. Pre-work developing an understanding of Indigenous history and principles of how sovereignty works should be part of the process for non-Indigenous people seeking to bring Indigenous voices to the table. The labor to address the systemic issues must be a community lift and generative for everyone.

What We Heard

Rural Indigenous communities and leaders know their own strengths and needs best. Real change can and must come from within the community.

“Indigenous elders always talk about ‘We are our own medicine.’ Communities can assess their communities and identify people in their communities to create solutions to the issues in their communities.”
– Ted Hibbeler, Tribal Extension Educator, University of Nebraska Extension Division

“There are going to be people telling you that it’s a dream, or you don’t have the skill, or you’re gonna have a hard time finding capital. But if you’re creative, and I think that’s our greatest strength as Indigenous people is creativity, you can get it done. Even though we do have these obstacles on our reservations, or within our communities, there is a way to do it. And if we work together, it’ll be that much easier to get it done.” 

Rural Indigenous leaders often don’t identify with the term “leader,” and practice mutual leadership or leading collectively.

“I don’t consider myself a leader. It feels uncomfortable. There’s something about a westernized system of leadership that I don’t feel comfortable associating myself with.”
– Angel Charley, Laguna Pueblo, Executive Director, Coalition to Stop Violence Against Native Women

“For me it’s learning about Indigenous leadership that it’s not about me. It’s about we. I think that’s the heart and spirit.”
– Henry Jake Foreman (Absentee Shawnee), Program Director, New Mexico Community Capital and Founder of Karuna Colectiva

Centuries of broken promises, unacknowledged broken treaties and genocidal practices require external partners/non-indigenous partners to reframe their notion of time and trust-building approaches.

“With the relocation and the government coming in, and breaking up the land and re-designating what our homelands were…. That means the Navajo people are very territorial. I can see the change in the culture. Where before where we really have to rely on each other to survive now, we’re relying on land. 

It’s hard to talk about because on the surface, we talk about culture and we talk about Hozho, but that’s really if we’re being truthful and honest. Which I think we need to be, because we need to acknowledge that there’s a lot of distrust there amongst each other.” [due to forced relocation/colonization]

For many rural Indigenous leaders, giving back to the community is considered therapeutic and a way to heal from collective trauma.

“You know there’s an archetype they call a Wounded Healer right? Those that have been wounded in the past, but use that pain and turn it into medicine. I feel like that’s probably the connection (he) and I have. It has enabled us to turn some of our past pain and trauma into something that feeds us, something that’s positive.”
– Henry Jake Foreman (Absentee Shawnee), Program Director, New Mexico Community Capital and Founder of Karuna Colectiva

“There’s a philosophy of giving, especially if you experienced trauma. Similar to Navajo, where they talk about Hozho. It’s that balance. So if you’re going through grief, or you suffered a loss or suffered a traumatic event, you’re taught to give.”

State and federal practices deny needed infrastructure and capital in rural tribal places and embed impossible bureaucratic hurdles. Prioritizing access to housing, healthcare, education, and current news is critical.

“We meet a lot of the families and we see their conditions. They’re so strong, but this family with the three kids that are school-aged children and the grandma’s taking them every day to go get WiFi, driving long distances. It shouldn’t be that way. I think that’s the motivator for us.”

“He’s an entrepreneur on the Navajo Nation, and he was telling the story about how he needed to send an application in. But he doesn’t have internet, so he had to go find a computer attached to the internet, and he went to the museum, and their printers were out of ink. So he went to the library, and their computers were down. Then the kicker was, he went to the Department of Economic Development, and they wouldn’t let him use the equipment, because he wasn’t an employee. So what he ended up doing was driving 30 minutes to a Kinkos paying $15 to utilize their services to send this application that should have taken 10 minutes, and ended up taking them two days. I think the entire process was about a week. For me sitting in that chair in that beautiful room and having access to all that opportunity. It literally broke my heart.”

“Because of that sovereignty (they) have their own governance systems and structures and protocols and processes that they follow, in addition to the outside world… It can be a lot of work, just learning how to navigate that system….There’s just a lot of process sometimes that you have to go through in order to get a decision or get through to your end goal. Sometimes that can take months, sometimes that could take years. It’s sometimes it just is a flat out ‘No.’”

Indigenous culture places strong emphasis on respect for the land, which is viewed as communal. It should be remembered and acknowledged that most Indigenous people have been displaced from their ancestral land.

“We can never own the land because we can’t own our grandmother.”
– Ted Hibbeler, Tribal Extension Educator, University of Nebraska Extension Division

Indigenous census data is flawed and is often misconstrued, leading to lower philanthropic and federal funding. Some Indigenous communities are looking to alternative data sources and measures designed with community involvement.

“Tribal communities are trying to set baselines now on food and food production for tribal-sustainability food programs. We are trying for a culturally based assessment – looking for models that were created by First Nations, making sure it is culturally appropriate, which is especially important for baseline data. And an inside-out approach – not someone coming in and making sure we use their measures. We want the leaders to help design the questions. 

It’s important no matter which community: you must understand the cultural make-up of the communities you work with, and that the measures will have meaning for them. The community must be involved in the creation of the surveys and how they will get the surveys out, and involved in the qualitative and quantitative analysis of the results.”
– Ted Hibbeler, Tribal Extension Educator, University of Nebraska Extension Division

More peer learning spaces are needed for rural Indigenous leaders and leadership practitioners. Indigenous community members and leaders repeatedly mentioned burnout, lack of time, and a strong desire to connect with others doing similar work.

“I was able to do more with zero budget 10 years ago that I’m able to do now, and I don’t know why…I guess it’s just the energy, the focus, but it’s amazing. Those are the times that I remember the most… no funding, just pure passion. That’s beautiful, but it burns you out.”
– Henry Jake Foreman (Absentee Shawnee), Program Director, New Mexico Community Capital and Founder of Karuna Colectiva

“(We need) investments in capacity for Native and people of color-led leadership development programs that are culturally grounded; stronger spaces for conversations about history and the need for healing in rural communities for Native people and people of color.” 

Ultimately, while resources and trainings are beneficial for rural Indigenous communities and leaders, systems change is needed.

“Providing training and learning opportunities is great, but it doesn’t always lead to the transformative change that Native nations need. The challenge is in the application of the learning to create systems change.”

RuraLead wants to highlight that while many leaders shared the traumas of how colonization has played out for their communities, many are hopeful and grounded in the work they have in front of them. There is a powerful movement to reclaim the narrative and story of Indigenous people, their history and resilience.

Leading Forward:

Indigenous people are uniquely positioned to caretake and steward the lands we are on. Leadership is one label for that, but many leaders also named that this work is connected to the wisdom of their ancestors. The goal for a mutually-connected relationship with the Earth and leadership work is undeniable:

“Indigenous leadership, to me, is keeping the mindset of everybody that led our people before our lands were settled on.” 

“Most people that we work with, they’re driven by this idea that ‘I want to be helpful to my people.’ And we are trying to figure out how to do that work.” 

“As an Indigenous leader I feel like our language is what will keep us together. It tells a lot of stories – it tells history, you know.” 

Conclusions and Recommendations:

Considerable learning also transpired internally among the RuraLead Partners regarding the field of rural development and the inclusion of Native Nations. A primary lesson for future projects is to solidify the role of an Indigenous field-builder at the creation of the proposal. Given a role in the early stage of proposal development, the Indigenous RuraLead partners could have informed project design early on regarding Indigenous communities and their needs and strengths, constraints, historic oppression, opportunities and aspirations that have not been well understood by federal, state, and local policymakers and practitioners – or the population in general. Having been brought into the project at the proposal development stage would have allowed for a more in-depth understanding of the rural Indigenous context, allowing for stronger outcomes related to project goals and perhaps, the resources and capacity needed to receive input from a broader sweep of rural Indigenous communities across the U.S.

A second recurring takeaway is the need for BIPOC-led rural discussions. So often, in the context of discussions about rural development, the word ‘rural’ is code for white farmers or white communities. Although civil rights activists have been working towards a more equitable and just America since there has been an America, the past 8 years have shown tremendous progress through the Black Lives Matter, Standing Rock, MMIW, Climate Strike, LGBTQ+ rights, #LandBack and #MeToo movements for equity and justice. These movements have in turn shaped progress on many issues, a number of which are largely integral in the rural space, including regenerative agriculture, agroecology, and food sovereignty, among others.

It is imperative that rural funders consider supporting BIPOC-led projects that identify the unique leadership development approaches as considerations within the larger field of rural development. Often, these approaches are steeped in culture and address numerous subject fields simultaneously.

There is also the realization that Indigenous communities largely approach leadership through national institutional organizations (such as Native Governance Center, First Nations Development Institute and the American Indian College Fund, National Congress of American Indians to name a few) versus on a regional or state level.

More importantly, it is important to recognize and capture the informal leadership development that occurs within each Indigenous community through culture and community practice. This work takes time and resources that were not available within the scale of this project.

Resources and References