ORONO — The Senator George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions at the University of Maine plans to host a roundtable discussion on rematriation and Indigenous land concepts in the Land Back movement from 3 to 4 p.m. Monday, Nov. 8, offered both remotely via Zoom and in person at 107 Norman Smith Hall on the UMaine campus in Orono.

Panelists, to include Darren Ranco, Mali Obomsawin and Sherri Mitchell, will discuss the roles that rematriation, Indigenous women and traditional Indigenous land concepts have in the Land Back movement. Panelists will talk about the return of lands to Indigenous peoples across Wabanaki homelands and globally, and how the concept of rematriation defines traditional Indigenous land relations and motivates land return and Indigenous-led land trusts.

Obomsawin of the Odanak Abenaki Nation is founder and executive director of Bomazeen Land Trust, an intertribal Wabanaki initiative dedicated to social and environmental justice in Wabanaki homelands and to protecting and honoring culturally significant spaces through the rematriation of ancestral land.

Mitchell is an attorney, teacher and activist who was raised on the Penobscot Indian reservation. She is founding director of the Land Peace Foundation, an organization dedicated to protecting Indigenous land and water rights and preserving the Indigenous way of life.

Ranco is an associate professor of anthropology and chair of Native American programs at UMaine.

Registration is required to attend remotely via Zoom; to register and receive connection information, see the event webpage at umaine.edu.

All talks in the Mitchell Center’s Sustainability Talks series are free.

Face coverings are required for students, staff, faculty, visitors and others when indoors at a University of Maine System facility. For the latest health and safety guidance, visit umaine.edu/return.

Updates for this event will be posted to the event webpage. To request a reasonable accommodation, contact Ruth Hallsworth at 207-581-3196 or hallsworth@maine.edu.