Stories We Tell: Unpacking Extractive Research and Its Legacy of Harm to Lumbee People

Abstract:Extractive research "talks over" Indigenous peoples, silencing our voices by taking both knowledge and materials away from our communities for colonial projects that erase and devalue our identities. Left unanswered, such research can bloom into disinformation that undermines tribal sovereignty. Lumbee people, who are Indigenous to the southeastern United States, have been subjects of extractive research for more than a century. Extractive researchers have subjected Lumbee people to pseudoscientific methods of inquiry and arms-length guesswork, and they have failed to acknowledge expertise held within the Lumbee community about their own origins and collective identity. Here we consider the long history of extractive research conducted on our people, including the implications of this work for the full recognition of Lumbee people as a sovereign Indigenous nation. We share personal stories that converge around a recent example of extractive research that typifies the long pattern of "talking over" Lumbees and other Indigenous peoples.