Dina Gilio-Whitaker is an American academic, journalist and author, who studies

Native Americans in the United States Native Americans (also called American Indians, First Americans, or Indigenous Americans) are the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Indigenous peoples of the United States, particularly of the Contiguous United States, lower 48 states and A ...

, decolonization and

environmental justice Environmental justice is a social movement that addresses injustice that occurs when poor or marginalized communities are harmed by hazardous waste, resource extraction, and other land uses from which they do not benefit. The movement has gene ...

. She is a member of the Colville Confederated Tribes. In 2019, she published '' As Long as Grass Grows''.

Background

Dina Gilio-Whitaker is a Colville Confederated Tribes member who grew up in

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural List of regions of California, region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Its densely populated coastal reg ...

, moving to North Shore in the Hawaiian Islands in 1980. She returned to California, got married and moved to San Clemente. She is a surfer. As a mature student, Gilio-Whitaker studied at the

University of New Mexico The University of New Mexico (UNM; ) is a public research university in Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States. Founded in 1889 by the New Mexico Territorial Legislature, it is the state's second oldest university, a flagship university in th ...

, initially intending to go into a legal career. Her master's thesis, ''Panhe at the Crossroads: Toward an Indigenized Environmental Justice Discourse'', was on the topic of indigenous American protests against a toll road being built on sacred land that was also a significant surfing location.

Career

In 2016, Gilio-Whitaker co-authored ''"All the Real Indians Died Off" and 20 Other Myths About Native Americans'' with Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz. In 2017, she wrote a chapter of ''The Critical Surfer Reader'' (2017) titled "Appropriating Surfing and the Politics of Indigenous Authenticity". Since 2017, Gilio-Whitaker has lectured in American Indian Studies at

California State University San Marcos California State University, San Marcos (CSUSM or Cal State San Marcos) is a public university in San Marcos, California, United States. It was founded in 1989 as the 21st campus in the California State University (CSU) system. CSUSM offers 43 ...

, commuting from

San Clemente, California San Clemente (; Spanish for " St. Clement" ) is a coastal city in southern Orange County, California, United States. It was named in 1925 after the Spanish colonial island (which was named after a Pope from the first century). Located in the ...

. She was offered the position a year earlier, but declined due to book tour responsibilities. She supports a scholarly framework known as "indigenized

", in which environmentalism would take into account "the history of colonization as a historical process of dispossession of native peoples and their lands in order to understand the way native people are still fighting these battles". In 2019, Gilio-Whitaker published ''As Long as Grass Grows''. The book outlines the effect of American settlers on indigenous Americans since 1492, the modern environmentalism movement and indigenous approaches to environmental stewardship. Gilio-Whitaker is also a senior research associate and policy director at the Center for World Indigenous Studies. She runs the company DGW Consulting. She has also volunteered for the Institute for Women Surfers, Native Like Water and the San Onofre Parks Foundation. She maintains a blog, ''Ruminative''.

Background

Career

Selected works

Books

Journal articles

News articles

References

Further reading