Professor Clint Carroll
Associate Professor • Associate Chair of Graduate Studies
Native American and Indigenous Studies

Office Location: Ketchum 164

Pronouns: he / him / his

 

Education

Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley - Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, 2011 
B.A., University of Arizona, Tucson - Anthropology, 2003

Research Interests

Native American environmental knowledge, practices, and justice; political ecology; ethnography; Indigenous governance; tribal natural resource management; social-ecological health; Indigenous land education; Cherokee studies

Affiliations

Center for Native American and Indigenous Studies
Graduate Certificate in Environmental Justice 
Institute of Behavioral Science
Center of the American West
CU Geography Department
CU Anthropology Department


Clint Carroll is Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. He received his doctorate from the University of California Berkeley in Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, and his bachelor’s degree from the University of Arizona in Anthropology, with a minor in American Indian Studies. A citizen of the Cherokee Nation, he works closely with Cherokee people in Oklahoma on issues of land conservation and the perpetuation of land-based knowledge and ways of life. His book, Roots of Our Renewal: Ethnobotany and Cherokee Environmental Governance (2015, University of Minnesota Press), explores how tribal natural resource managers navigate the material and structural conditions of settler colonialism, as well as how recent efforts in cultural revitalization are informing such practices through traditional forms of decision-making and local environmental knowledge. 

Dr. Carroll has received fellowships from the Ford Foundation, the Udall Foundation, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the National Science Foundation. He was also a 2014-2016 Fellow of the Native Investigator Development Program, funded by the National Institutes of Health. His work has been published in Ethnohistory, Geoforum, Environmental Research, EcoHealth, and numerous edited collections. He is an active member of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association and the Society for Applied Anthropology. Dr. Carroll currently co-edits the Cambridge University Press series, Elements in Indigenous Environmental Research with Joy Porter (University of Hull) and Dina Gilio-Whitaker (California State University San Marcos). He also serves on the editorial boards for Cultural Anthropology and Environment and Society. He is a board member for Indigenous Education, Inc. (home of the Cobell Scholarship) and was recently elected to the Denver Botanic Gardens Board of Trustees (2022-2025). 


What's New

In my current work, funded by a National Science Foundation Early Career Award, I co-direct with a group of elders and wisdom-keepers a land education program for five Cherokee students; I also serve as Principal Investigator on our study about Cherokee plant gathering access in rural northeastern Oklahoma. Through this integrated education and community-based research project, the elders, students, and I seek to formulate lasting methods for maintaining Cherokee land-based knowledge and to better understand how Cherokee people are negotiating access to land due to complex ownership patterns and the impact of shifting climate conditions. We hope that the results of the research will inform advancements in community-defined and -directed local ecosystem stewardship and tribal land conservation strategies. For more information, visit the Project Blog. [Last updated Nov 2019]

Note for prospective graduate students: If you are interested in working with me, please send me an email well in advance of the application deadline with a statement explaining your goals for graduate study, any relevant skills or research experience, and how you see your interests aligning with my overall research and topical foci. Also be sure to attach a current CV or resume and a brief writing sample.


Selected Publications

Books

Carroll, Clint. 2015. Roots of Our Renewal: Ethnobotany and Cherokee Environmental Governance. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Refereed Articles

Carroll, Clint, Eva Garroutte, Carolyn Noonan, and Dedra Buchwald. 2018. “Using PhotoVoice to Promote Land Conservation and Indigenous Well-Being in Oklahoma.” EcoHealth 15(2): 450-461. PMID: 29582228

Carroll, Clint, Eva Garroutte, Carolyn Noonan, Ana Navas-Acien, Steven Verney, and Dedra Buchwald. 2017. “Low-Level Inorganic Arsenic Exposure and Neuropsychological Functioning in American Indian Elders.” Environmental Research. 156: 74-79. PMID: 28334644

Bussey, John, Mae A. Davenport, Marla R. Emery, and Clint Carroll. 2016. “A Lot of It Comes from the Heart: The Nature and Integration of Ecological Knowledge in Tribal and Non-Tribal Forest Management.” Journal of Forestry. 114(2): 97-107.

Carroll, Clint. 2014. "Native Enclosures: Tribal National Parks and the Progressive Politics of Environmental Stewardship in Indian Country." Geoforum. 53: 31-40. 

Carroll, Clint. 2014. "Shaping New Homelands: Environmental Production, Natural Resource Management, and the Dynamics of Indigenous State Pratice in the Cherokee Nation." Ethnohistory. 61(1): 123 -147. 

Contributions to Edited Collections

Carroll, Clint. 2021: “Fauna and Flux on the Plains' Edge: Animal Kinship, Place Making, and Cherokee Relational Continuity.” Pp. 114-137 in The Greater Plains: Rethinking a Region's Environmental History, edited by Kathleen Brosnan and Brian Frehner. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

Carroll, Clint, and Angelica Lawson. 2017. “New Media, Activism, and Indigenous Environmental Governance: Politics and the Minnesota-Wisconsin Wolf Hunt.” Pp. 199-135 in Ecocriticism and Indigenous Studies: Conversations from Earth to Cosmos, edited by Salma Monani and Joni Adamson. New York: Routledge Press.

Carroll, Clint. 2012. "Articulating Indigenous Statehood: Cherokee State Formation and Implications for the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples." Pp. 143-171 in Indigenous Rights in the Age of the UN Declaration, edited by Elvira Pulitano. Cambridge University Press. 

Book Reviews

Carroll, Clint. 2012. Review of Trust in the Land: New Directions in Tribal Conservation (2011) by Beth Rose Middleton. Studies in American Indian Literature, 24(1): 68-71.

Public Scholarship

Carroll, Clint. 2021. “Indigenous in Academia.” Best Served Podcast 86-86-86 Challenge. Online. [Invited contribution.]

Carroll, Clint. 2020. “Cherokee Relationships to Land: Reflections on a Historic Plant Gathering Agreement between Buffalo National River and the Cherokee Nation.” Parks Stewardship Forum 36(1): 154-158.

Carroll, Clint. 2020. “Kennedy’s remarks reflect CU’s deeper issues.” Boulder Daily Camera. 9/9/2020. [Op-ed condemning the CU President’s use of “Trail of Tears” to describe online education challenges.]

Carroll, Clint. 2019. “Relational Activism and Indigenous Futures.” World Literature Today. Online. [Invited contribution]

Carroll, Clint. 2017. “Commentary: The Environmental Anthropology of Settler Colonialism, Part II.” American Anthropological Association Engagement Blog. Theme: Life on the Frontier: The Environmental Anthropology of Settler Colonialism. [Invited contribution]

Carroll, Clint and the Cherokee Nation Medicine Keepers. 2016. “Cherokee Voices for the Land.” Langscape Magazine [Special Issue: Voices of the Earth, Part II] 5(2): 68-73.

Carroll, Clint. 2013. “Minnesota Wolf Policy Should Include Ojibwe Perspective.” Minnesota Star Tribune. March 13.

Interviews and Forums

Grant, Sonia. 2018. "'Pervasive, yet Fractured': A Roundtable on Centering Indigenous Critiques and Teaching Settler Colonialism." Teaching Tools, Fieldsights.

Schwartz, Lisa H. 2018. “Clint Carroll: Rooting Research in Tribal Partnerships.” Community Engaged Scholar Interview Series, CU Boulder Office for Outreach and Engagement.

Waring, Dabney. 2018. “Reindigenizing Indigenous Governance Structures through Strategic Engagement with State Forms: An Interview with Clint Carroll.” Critical Ethnic Studies Blog, Student Interview Series.

Pasquale, Cynthia. 2018. “Five Questions for Clint Carroll: Stewardship of the Land – and of Cherokee Culture – Lifelong Pursuits for Assistant Professor.” CU Connections.

Publications updated Jan 2022


Professional Associations

Native American and Indigenous Studies Association
Society for Applied Anthropology
American Anthropological Association
American Studies Association
Association of American Geographers