Protecting the Lands of Our Creation: Threats to Ancestral Homelands and the Consequences for Indigenous Culture and Identity

The lands on which Indigenous creation stories take place are centrally connected to Indigenous personhood, identity, and culture. Despite the importance of these lands, non-Indigenous institutions continue to degrade and usurp these spaces. Two studies provide evidence of the cultural and psychological consequences for Indigenous Peoples when access to their ancestral homelands is threatened. In the first study ( N = 341), qualitative analyses revealed that Indigenous individuals who live on their homelands were more likely to report engaging in cultural practices and feeling pride and certainty toward their Indigenous identity than those living away from their homelands. Indigenous individuals living away from their ancestral homelands were more likely to report loss of place-based traditions and feeling uncertainty and insecurity toward their Indigenous identity than those living on their homelands. These results were replicated in a second quantitative study ( N = 398). Indigenous individuals living on their homelands reported greater identity security ( M = 3.39) compared to Indigenous individuals living away from their homelands ( M = 3.17; t [330.54] = 3.11, p = 0.002). Mediation analysis further revealed that this difference was, in part, because Indigenous individuals living on their homelands were more embedded in cultural practices than those who live away from their homelands (β = −0.21, 95% confidence interval [−0.32, −0.11]). To uphold Indigenous Peoples’ rights to self-determination over their culture, personhood, and well-being, these findings suggest that ancestral homelands must be protected from threats posed by environmental exploitation and degradation.