ClintCarroll
- Associate Professor
- NATIVE AMERICAN AND INDIGENOUS STUDIES
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
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,(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 ofthe 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. Dr. Carroll currently co-edits the Cambridge University Press series, 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,Environment and Society, and Native South. He is a board member for Indigenous Education, Inc. (home of the Cobell Scholarship) and is serving a second elected term on the Denver Botanic Gardens Board of Trustees (2025-2028).
What's New
From 2017-2023, I was Principal Investigator of a , through which I co-directed with a group of Elders and knowledge-keepers a land education program for five Cherokee students and studied Cherokee plant gathering access in rural northeastern Oklahoma. This integrated education and community-based research project developed methods for maintaining Cherokee land-based knowledge and investigated how Cherokee people are negotiating access to land due to complex ownership patterns and the impact of shifting climate conditions. The results of the research informed advancements in community-defined and -directed local ecosystem stewardship and tribal land conservation strategies.
More recently, I am co-editor (with Sarah Hunt) of a forthcoming volume titled Indigenous Political Ecology (University of Minnesota Press, expected spring 2027). [Last updated January 2026]
Note forprospective graduate students: If you areinterested 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 (selected)
Carroll, Clint, Andrew Curley, Doreen E. Martinez, Lindsey Schneider, and Johann Strube. 2024. “Indigenous Perspectives on Dismantling the Legacies of Settler Colonialism in Rural Sociology.” Rural Sociology 89: 585-601.
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, andClint 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 (selected)
Carroll, Clint and Dana Powell. 2025. “Indigenous Political Ecologies: Centring Sovereignty and Relationality.” Pp. 75-84 in The New Routledge Handbook of Political Ecology, edited by Ariadne Collins, Elia Apostolopoulou, Jessica Hope. Routledge Press.
Carroll, Clint. 2021: “Fauna and Flux on the Plains' Edge: Animal Kinship, PlaceMaking, and Cherokee Relational Continuity.” Pp. 114-137 in The Greater Plains: Rethinking a Region'sEnvironmental 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 inEcocriticism 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 inIndigenous Rights in the Age of the UN Declaration, edited by Elvira Pulitano. Cambridge University Press.
Book Reviews
Carroll, Clint. 2012. Review ofTrust 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. 2022. “.” Ҵýƽ Place Journal. 7(1). Online. [Invited contribution.]
Carroll, Clint. 2021. “.” Best Served Podcast 86-86-86 Challenge. Online. [Invited contribution.]
Carroll, Clint. 2020. “.” Parks Stewardship Forum 36(1): 154-158.
Carroll, Clint. 2020. “.” 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. “.” World Literature Today. Online. [Invited contribution]
Carroll, Clint. 2017. “.” 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. “.” Langscape Magazine [Special Issue: Voices of the Earth, Part II] 5(2): 68-73.
Carroll, Clint. 2013. “.”Minnesota Star Tribune. March 13.
Interviews and Forums
Grant, Sonia. 2018. "."Teaching Tools, Fieldsights.
Schwartz, Lisa H. 2018. “Clint Carroll: Rooting Research in Tribal Partnerships.” Community Engaged Scholar Interview Series, Ҵýƽ Office for Outreach and Engagement.
Waring, Dabney. 2018. “.” Critical Ethnic Studies Blog, Student Interview Series.
Pasquale, Cynthia. 2018. “.” 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