Session Description
Impact assessment has become increasingly effective at identifying and measuring environmental, social, cultural, health, and economic impacts. Yet communities rarely experience these impacts as separate categories. They experience them as relationships. As a result, important connections among people, place, history, governance, culture, and wellbeing may be overlooked.
This interactive workshop explores how Indigenous perspectives can strengthen impact assessment by bringing relationships to the center of analysis. Drawing on my experience as a enrolled member of the Menominee Nation and scholar working with Tribal Nations, I introduce the Medicine Wheel as one culturally grounded framework for understanding interconnectedness, balance, and responsibility. It is presented not as a universal Indigenous model, but as one example of how relational thinking can broaden professional practice.
Working through their own impact assessment scenario, participants will examine whose knowledge informs decisions, how history shapes present conditions, and what responsibilities continue beyond project approval. Together, they will consider how a relational perspective can strengthen scoping, engagement, analysis, decision-making, and long-term monitoring.
Participants will leave with a practical set of questions they can immediately apply in their own work and a deeper appreciation for how Indigenous perspectives can enrich impact assessment while honoring the diversity, context, and integrity of Indigenous knowledge.
Session Summary
This interactive workshop explores how Indigenous ways of knowing can strengthen impact assessment by focusing on relationships rather than isolated impacts. Using a Native American Medicine Wheel framework, participants will develop an action plan for their own impact assessment practice.
Additional Information
This workshop reflects my experience working in two knowledge systems: as a Menominee scholar and as a university professor. Rather than asking participants to adopt an Indigenous methodology, I invite them to consider what Indigenous perspectives can contribute to impact assessment itself. Participants will leave with a practical relational framework and reflective questions that can be adapted across environmental, social, health, and cultural contexts while respecting the diversity and integrity of Indigenous knowledge.
Session Chair
Annie Jones
University of Wisconsin Madison
United States