Fences on the Epistemological Prairie: A Settler Colonial Approach to “Religion and Science”

Abstract

Building on the idea of religion and science as conceptual maps of intellectual territory, I use a settler colonial analysis as a framework for thinking about decolonizing religion and science in a way that moves away from abstraction and towards action; addressing not just the ideas, but the tools of control—the fences—that impose ideas on the territory itself. Comparing the Wyoming prairie with the epistemological prairie, I describe the maps, fences and other tools and technologies of settler colonialism used to appropriate Indigenous Land and knowledge, eventually turning it into private property. It is in this last step—the creation of private property—that fences are most important, because they are tools of ownership that do not merely restrict access to parts of the prairie (land and knowledge), but restrict movement on the prairie itself. I describe patents and intellectual property as examples of fences on the epistemological prairie. Because they are legally and historically connected to technologies of settler colonial appropriation of land—including terra nullius and land patents—they are an excellent example of the connection between land and epistemological territory, and show what epistemological decolonization can look like in practice.

1. Introduction

I live in Wyoming, on the western edge of the Great Plains. Living here means a lot of driving across a vast prairie that was once home to many Indigenous peoples: Apsáalooke (Crow), Hinono’eino (Arapaho), Newe (Shoshone), Tsistsis’tas (Cheyenne), and others. As I drive, I sometimes muse about what it would mean to decolonize the Wyoming prairie, to repatriate Indigenous Land. What would it take to balance the claims of these different Indigenous groups? What about the people who live here now, some of whom are generations removed from those first arrivals from Europe, Latin America, and elsewhere? Add to that the interests of the federal government (half of the state is federal land), tribal governments (3% of the state), and ranchers, thirsty for water. And that’s just for starters. On Wyoming’s prairie, when decolonization is not a metaphor, it is a mess.

What would it take to decolonize the Wyoming prairie? Driving along I-25, the landscape is crisscrossed with fences: barbed-wire, buck and rail, snow fences, and mysteriously placed chain-link enclosures (some with bright red warning signs, others just …. mysterious). Fences are tools of ownership—“Private Property”—and control, restricting the movement—“Keep Out!”—by keeping some things out (wildlife and people) and other things in (pets and livestock). Snow fences even control the snow. Decolonizing this prairie would mean more than returning parcels of fenced land, because the fences have colonized the prairie itself.

What would it take to decolonize the Wyoming prairie? First, we need to deal with the fences.

In this paper I will argue that, as with decolonizing the Wyoming prairie, if we want to decolonize the epistemological prairie, we need to deal with the fences. This claim arises out of the idea of religion and science as conceptual maps of intellectual territory (Harrison 2015; Stenmark and Bauman 2021). Like maps of physical territory, these maps arrange intellectual territory in ways that reflect the worldviews and interests of the mapmakers. There has been considerable work done to show how “religion” and “science” reflect a Western worldview and that these maps are themselves colonial maps (Stenmark 2018, 2021). Decolonizing religion and science will mean paying attention to the ways those maps restrict our thinking, our conversations, and our relationship with the world and each other in ways that reinforce and support colonial ideologies and interests. But maps are conceptual arrangements, and as important as it is to pay attention to those arrangements, focusing only on the maps of religion and science runs the risk of remaining in the realm of abstraction, a settler move to innocence that masks the hard work of decolonization (Tuck and Yang 2012). If “religion” and “science” are colonial maps, we need to pay attention to the fences these maps produced, fences that impose those ideas on the territory itself. Decolonizing the epistemological prairie requires a theory of action that addresses both the ideological dimension of epistemological colonialism and the physical tools of control over epistemological territory (La Paperson 2017).

I will develop this theory of action through the lens of settler colonialism. Settler colonialism involves a particular logic, key ideas, and “moves to innocence that justify the right of settlers to claim property as their own”. But it is more than ideas or stories; it also involves tools and technologies of dispossession, possession, and control of the land itself (see Bhambra et al. 2018; Tuck and Yang 2012; Englert 2022). For religion and science, this would mean that rather than focusing on the extraction of this or that bit of information, or treating colonialism as incidental to our various disciplines, we would look at the ways the maps of religion and science are themselves technologies that have been (and are) used to dispossess Indigenous people from epistemological territory and to claim that territory for the benefit of the settlers. A settler colonial approach also focuses on the material aspects of settler colonialism, the fences, which are the tools of ownership and control on the prairie itself. This discussion will show how the various tools and technologies of settler colonialism that were used to turn Indigenous Land into U.S. Territory (or public land) and then into private property have also been used to control epistemological territory. It is in this last step—the creation of private property—that fences are most important, because they are tools of ownership that do not merely restrict access to parts of the prairie but restrict movement on the territory itself.

This brings up the connection between physical and epistemological territory and between maps of land and epistemological maps.1 Maps of physical and epistemological territory are both conceptual arrangements; knowledge itself is a symbolic representation of our perception of reality (Ben-Ari and Enosh 2020). The relationship between our constructions and what they represent is also a construct, and indeed concern for that relationship is itself Western (Stenmark and Bauman 2021). In regards to mental territory, the distinction between territory and map can be likened to the distinction between ontology and epistemology: ontology is reality or the territory itself, while epistemology is the representation of that reality, or the map (Ben-Ari and Enosh 2020). In Western thought, maps are judged by how “accurately” they represent “reality”, which leads to Walter Mignolo’s observation that a fundamental aspect of the structure of Western epistemology is the belief that ontology precedes epistemology; that reality produces our maps. Because reality is seen as universal, a map describing that reality is also universal. The core of the Enlightenment project was to describe material reality as accurately as possible, typically through the “scientific method”, so that our representations would also be universal. This desire has been extended into representations of non-material reality as well. These universal ideas, developed through access to a universal reality, meant it was possible to think in a way that was not located in a specific place. Mignolo calls this “the hubris of the zero point” an epistemological location in which a privileged knower occupies a detached and neutral point from which he (it is a he) “maps the world and its problems, classifies its people, and projects what is good for them” (Mignolo 2012, p. 118; Stenmark 2022). This severing of mental and physical space was a core of colonial ideologies because it legitimated imposing Western ideas on other cultures.

This is an important distinction between Western and Indigenous thought.2 Unlike the Western view of knowledge as grounded in universal reality, Indigenous knowledge “is keyed to place, fine-tuned by territory”, (Allen 2023, p. 331), so there is a connection between knowledge, place, and a people. From an Indigenous perspective, then, the decolonization of epistemology “cannot be separated from Indigenous sovereignty in the land where the knowledge makes sense” (Allen 2023, p. 324). This distinction between Indigenous and Western epistemologies in terms of the connection between place and ideas is one we will need to take into account as we assess our own epistemological maps.3 But paying attention to the connection between maps of physical and epistemological territory draws attention to how this distinction is a colonial map, one that serves colonial ideologies and interests, facilitating claims to ownership. Emphasizing this relationship is itself a way of challenging colonial ideas and constructions.

Connecting the colonization of land and epistemology can also help us focus on the material dimension of epistemological colonialism. This is in part because there is a direct connection between the ideologies and technologies of settler control of both physical and epistemological territories. This is clear in the discussion of patents. While patenting is associated with the creation of intellectual property (IP), it is historically and legally connected to the legal concept of terra nullius (land belonging to no one) and land patents, which were used to dispossess indigenous peoples from Land. Both land patents and the patenting of ideas have been key technologies for turning land and knowledge into private property. And, like fences on the Wyoming prairie, patents restrict movement on the entire epistemological prairie.

I will begin with a brief discussion of the colonization of the United States—including the vast prairie that covers most of the central continent, including Wyoming—and the use of maps and fences as tools and technologies for settler colonialism. Maps divide land in terms of colonial ideologies and were (are) used to dispossess Indigenous peoples of their Land; fences enforce maps and are tools of possession that do not merely control a single parcel but restrict movement on the entire territory. In the next section, I will turn to the epistemological prairie and the ways that epistemological maps—including the concepts of religion and science—have been used to dispossess Indigenous people of their knowledge, dividing epistemological territory to the benefit of Western settlers. On the epistemological prairie there are also fences that are created by our maps, and I discuss patents as an example of fences. Just like fences on the Wyoming prairie impose ideas of ownership on the land itself, so too do patents transform knowledge into something that can be owned, restricting movement on the entire epistemological prairie. In both cases, Indigenous people are denied access to territories they once inhabited.

2. Fences on the Wyoming Prairie

From a distance—from the top of Laramie Peak, for example—the Wyoming prairie spreads as far as the eye can see. From a distance it is easy to believe you could travel in any direction, virtually unencumbered. In reality, of course, when you leave the mountain, you discover that the prairie is crisscrossed with rivers, ravines, valleys, and hills, so that it is easy to get stuck or lost. To successfully navigate the prairie, you need a map. That map might seem to be a neutral conveyer of information—here’s a river, there’s a crossing—but maps organize territory in ways that reflect the worldviews and interests of the mapmakers. Indigenous people who lived here had maps that connected places to important events, while maps used by Western trappers, traders, and travelers highlighted resources and routes for establishing trade or for getting to the west coast. Colonial maps were also tools of possession, and by mapping a territory and naming its features, the colonial powers claimed ownership of that territory. Maps, working in conjunction with other technologies like treaties and land patents, are thus a crucial technology of settler colonialism, facilitating the appropriation and possession of territory that enable settlers to come and make a home in places where other people already live.

Prior to the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, when the French government sold 828,000 square miles of land—including most of Wyoming—to the United States,4 maps had focused on trade routes and resources with comments like “great quantity of coals in the creek” and “Extensive Meadows full of Buffaloes”,5 but the U.S. government began using maps as a way to claim territory for settlement and nation building. The U.S. government signed numerous treaties with Indigenous Nations as continual pressure and encroachment by settlers led to conflict, with new treaties allotting more and more land to settlers and smaller and smaller portions of traditional ancestral lands to Indigenous peoples. In 1830, President Andrew Jackson pushed through the Indian Removal Act, and Indigenous Nations who agreed to abandon their ancestral homelands altogether were “given” land in newly established “Indian Territory” west of the Mississippi (obtained in the Louisiana Purchase). Pressure continued in the new territory, as here too individual settlers and commercial interests sought access to Indian lands. North of Indian territory, in the place now called Wyoming, increasing numbers of immigrants travelling West were destroying both grassland and game, creating conflict with the Plains Nations. In an attempt to secure rights of passage, the U.S. government called together various Plains Nations, including Apsáalooke (Crow), Hinono’eino (Arapaho), Oceti Sakowin (the Sioux Nations), and Tsistsis’tas (Cheyenne). At Fort Laramie, in 1851, the Plains Nations and the U.S. government signed the Horse Creek Treaty that allowed the U.S. government to build roads and establish military posts in their territories, thus facilitating westward travel. In exchange, the U.S. government promised compensation for damage caused by emigrants (this never happened). Prior to this treaty, the Plains Nations had largely coexisted on the Wyoming prairie, and the boundaries between nations were fluid as people passed through for hunting and trading purposes. While the treaty pledged continued access for hunting and other purposes, it also introduced the idea that land could be exclusively “owned” by a person or a group of people.

Maps did more than chronicle the loss of Indigenous Land; they were used to facilitate and legitimize the transfer of land from Indigenous nations to the U.S. government and, as with the Horse Creek Treaty, presumed the idea of private ownership. These maps “reflected the interest of others in acquiring rights to those lands” (Flatness and Klein 2019) and were used, along with treaties and other technologies, to claim ownership over territories and establish who had the right to use, or just pass through, those territories. Mapping of the prairie was facilitated by the Land Ordinance Act (1785) (Library of Congress 1785), which set up the Public Land Survey System by which most of the continent was eventually divided into 640-acre parcels of land (one square mile). You can see these square parcels from the air, and on the ground you can see the original survey markers. In 1862, in an effort to settle the central United States and connect the East and West Coasts, the U.S. government issued a series of land grants, selling off those square parcels to fund public colleges (The Morrell Act) and the railroad (The Pacific Railway Act (1862) 2021). Other parcels of land were granted directly to settlers (The Homestead Act). Some tribal lands remained, but in 1887 Congress passed the Dawes Act, which allotted tribal lands on some reservations to individual tribal members, selling unassigned lands to non-Indians. Senator Dawes intended that the act would preserve land for Indigenous people and, by emphasizing private ownership, would aid in assimilation (Stenmark 2021).

Through various technologies—treaties, reservations, maps, and surveys—the Indigenous populations of the United States were displaced from their Land, and the Land was turned into U.S. Territory that was used to establish civic spaces, such as townships and schools. Land in the territories was sold, with the monies benefitting settlers in the form of educational opportunities, transportation, communication, and establishing the U.S. presence across the continent, all at the expense of the Indigenous population. Moreover, land grants given by the U.S. government—which transformed the territories into private property—created wealth for settlers, with some accumulating massive amounts of wealth. The Pacific Railroad Act alone transferred more than 175 million acres of public land (almost 10% of the continental United States) to private corporations, while the Dawes Act, which was supposed to preserve lands for Indigenous peoples, resulted in the transfer of more than 2/3 of Indigenous land into the hands of White settlers. But while these technologies are important, they are not sufficient to control territory. A line on the map is only as good as the map, and it is not visible on the ground. Those lines can be missed, misread, or simply ignored when you are on the actual territory. Maps and other technologies require tools of enforcement, including fences. Fences reinforce lines on the map, working in conjunction with other technologies to control movement and reinforce possession of territory.

There is a saying, “barbed wire tamed the American West” and, indeed, barbed wire was arguably one of the most important technologies of ownership and control on the Wyoming prairie. Prior to the development of barbed wire, farmers homesteading the Wyoming prairie were unable to enforce their property rights and thus were unable to protect crops from livestock roaming the open prairie (Hornbeck 2010; Miller n.d.). Barbed wire changed that. It was cheap and effective, and its use resulted in a substantial increase in productivity and property values and a dramatic expansion of the economy of the American West (Hornbeck 2010; Miller n.d.). If treaties and maps transformed Indian Land into U.S. Territory, to the collective benefit of settlers, fences transformed U.S. territories into private property to the benefit of a few individuals. Barbed wire fencing was crucial to the transformation of U.S. territory into private property.

Maps and laws exist on paper, but fences impose rights and restrictions on the land itself. As tools of ownership and control, fences transform parcels of land into private property for the benefit of individuals. But fences do not merely enclose a parcel of land; they restrict movement on the prairie itself. A recent case involving “corner crossing” in Wyoming provides an example. Corner crossing is the practice of stepping from one parcel of public land to another where there is a common corner shared with private property. These corners exist because the U.S. government allocated alternative parcels of land to fund the railroad, creating a checkerboard of public and private lands. There are numerous places where four corners of land come together, and the only way to get from one piece of public land to another is by stepping across a corner. Hunters, hikers, and dirt bikers use maps, GPS, and/or apps like OnX to navigate public and private space and avoid trespassing. But there are numerous places where this checkerboarded private land is fenced off, making it difficult to move from one corner of public land to the next. To circumvent these fences, hunters and others use ladders that are footed in the public land on either side of the corner, making it possible to cross the corner from one parcel of public land to the next without setting foot on private property. In 2021 a landowner had three hunters fined when they crossed his corner, claiming it was a violation of his property rights. He argued that one of the rights of ownership was the right to exclude others from one’s property, and that included airspace. In 2022, a jury found the hunters not guilty of criminal trespass, but the owner has filed a civil suit against the hunters for USD 7 million, alleging that corner crossing was a trespass that diminishes the value of his property (Brulliard 2024; Thuermer 2021, 2022).

This very brief discussion of the Wyoming prairie illustrates the ways that maps and fences have been tools and technologies of dispossession, possession, and accumulation of wealth for some at the expense of others. There are several points to highlight. First, as I observed in the introduction, maps are representations that reflect the worldviews and interests of the mapmakers. The maps of Wyoming made by trappers and traders in the 17th and 18th centuries are different from the maps used by the U.S. government for territorial expansion, which are different from maps used by hunters and hikers today. Maps represent particular ideas about land. Settlers brought with them a Lockean view of land as property, but the Indigenous people saw Land as something that belongs to a people—a belonging that is mutual (Whyte 2018; LaDuke 1999; Kimmerer 2013; see also Whitt 2009). This is not a kind of communal “ownership”, but involves a reciprocal relationship between a particular people and a particular land. To be Tsistsis’tas (Cheyenne) is to be part of a people with a particular relationship to a particular place. Who you are, your culture and knowledge, everything is connected to that place. Peoples might use land, but no one can own it. These different ideas about land were reflected in the maps that people used, with Western maps assigning boundaries of ownership and control, while Indigenous maps connected certain locations to historical events important for the people or to certain uses (Warhus 1997).

The second observation is that neither Western ideas about land nor Western maps accommodated Indigenous understandings of Land. In fact, those differences were exploited for the benefit of settlers. Indigenous Land was declared terra nullius—land belonging to no one—enabling settlers to take land through legal technologies. This method of appropriating Indigenous Land is not unique to the U.S. and is a key feature of settler colonialism, “the great colonizing trick that paves the way for capitalist accumulation” (La Paperson 2017). In parts of Kenya, for example, existing law described clan and community rights in regard to stewardship of land, and the British colonial authorities accepted this because it precluded Africans from claiming land titles. In other areas of Kenya, on the other hand, they ignored custom and declared land terra nullius. Both strategies paved the way for settlers to obtain land titles, turning residents into squatters. Legal technologies differ from place to place, but the results are the same: Indigenous land became settler property.

The third observation is that the various tools and technologies of settler colonialism worked together first to transform Indigenous Lands into U.S. Territory, so that “land belonging to no one” became lands used for the collective benefit of newly arriving settlers. Those territories were then transferred into private hands, again for the benefit of the newly arriving settlers. Fences are vital to this last step: ownership. But they do not merely control individual property, they control the territory itself. Differences in maps can be exploited, but fences enforce that exploitation and impose those differences on the land itself. Barbed wire did not just enclose individual parcels; because of barbed wire, the open prairie itself ceased to exist. Ideas about land change, and maps change with them, but the fences remain. And as long as they do, colonial ideologies of dispossession, possession, and the rights of the few at the expense of the many will remain imprinted on the land itself. Decolonizing the prairie needs more than a critique of ideas or even a redrawing of maps; we need a theory of action to address the structural barriers to change. We need to address the fences.

There are connections between colonizing land and colonizing knowledge and striking parallels between colonizing the Wyoming prairie and the epistemological one. that makes this discussion of the tools and technologies of settler colonialism on the physical prairie helpful in thinking about how epistemological territory has been colonized—including the territories of religion and science—and thus how it might be decolonized. It is to that that I turn in the next section.

3. Fences on an Epistemological Prairie

From a distance—from the top of Point Archimedes, perhaps—the epistemological prairie spreads as far as the eye can see. From a distance, it is easy to believe the mind can travel in any direction, virtually unencumbered. In reality, of course, as we try to make sense of the world, it is easy to get stuck or lost. We need maps to help us navigate our experiences. “Religion” and “science” are two such maps. Like maps of the Wyoming prairie, these maps reflect the worldviews and desires of the mapmakers—their understanding of what knowledge is, who creates it and how, what is knowledge for, and so on. Making this comparison between the physical and epistemological prairies can be helpful for recognizing technologies of epistemological colonization and approaching the decolonization of knowledge in a material may, not merely conceptually or metaphorically. Just as treaties and maps transformed land into territory, and then territory into land, so too do these maps transform epistemological territory into private property. As on the Wyoming prairie, these maps are reinforced through tools of enforcement—fences that restrict movement. One such fence on the epistemological prairie is the system of patents.

Patents have functioned as a key technology of appropriation for the establishment of colonial systems (Hilberg 2022), and they form a direct connection, historically and legally, between the appropriation of Indigenous Land and knowledge. Intellectual property (IP) and patent law have legal and historical connections to the technologies of land ownership. Under the Homestead Act, property was granted to settlers through land patents. In fact, my wife’s great-grandfather received two land patents—one in 1917 (patent number 609241) and another in 1924 (patent number 934454)—for a total of 360 acres of land near Slater, Wyoming.6 The core assumption of land patents, and the patenting of ideas, is that some things are terra nullius, belonging to no one (Hilberg 2022). This stance quite literally imposed a European perspective on the rest of the world, arranging its territories and resources according to a new property system in which the only legitimate interests are those of the owner or bestower/enforcer of patents (p. 126). In patent law, the concept of terra nullius is evidenced in the concept of novelty, so that the person who “discovers” knowledge can claim ownership. Of course, much like the “Discovery of America” involved discovering a place where people already lived, patents often involve the “discovery” of knowledge that people already know, in part because the law privileges only some kinds of the “discoverers”. In terms of genetic patents, for example, “discovering” a genetic code is seen as “an inventive step of creativity” that justifies claims to novelty and, thus, patentability.

Take the example of turmeric. In 1995, when Dr. Raghunath Mashelkar at the Indian Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) discovered that researchers at the University of Mississippi Medical Center had been awarded a patent for the use of turmeric in healing wounds, he was shocked, because turmeric is widely used to heal wounds in India. This knowledge should not have been patentable because it was not novel but was, instead, traditional knowledge (TK), the collective knowledge of a community. Turmeric was just the tip of the iceberg, of course, and in the course of their investigation, the Indian government discovered numerous examples of Indian TK being patented. This is not just a problem for India. The practice of patenting traditional knowledge from around the world was—and is—widespread, not just in the U.S. but in Europe, Australia, and elsewhere. Multinational companies routinely collect Indigenous knowledge from around the world and then patent promising remedies, regardless of whether they plan to develop them, on the chance that they might one day be profitable (Whitt 2009).

The practice of patenting Indigenous knowledge is sometimes associated with extractive biocolonialism, but it is not just about controlling this or that piece of knowledge; it is about legitimating ownership and control of the entire epistemological landscape and using legal technologies to do so. Like the appropriation of Indigenous land, biopiracy exists because our maps devalue and exploit other ways of understanding knowledge and work “to incorporate those knowledges into a new system of ownership” (Hilberg 2022), a system designed to control epistemological territory for the benefit of the settlers, and in particular, a few settlers. This is possible because this part of the epistemological prairie is covered with fences—and other tools of control—that reinforce the ownership of epistemological territory for the profit of some and not others. Knowledge that was communal, like the use of turmeric for healing, was legally appropriated and then fenced off, turning it into private property. Seen from the perspective of the Wyoming prairie, the patenting of turmeric and other Indigenous knowledge begins to look like the epistemological equivalent of land grants and corner crossing.

This brings up several important connections between colonizing land and colonizing knowledge. First, like maps of physical territory, maps of epistemological territory are constructions, tools for navigating epistemological space that reflect particular ideas about knowledge. Western maps have changed over time to reflect changing perceptions (Harrison 2015), and they differ in significant ways from Indigenous maps. As I described in the Introduction, Western conceptual maps reflect a conception of ideal knowledge as existing independently of location and context, bits of information that can be collected and stored. This “storehouse” view of knowledge is quite different from an Indigenous view of knowledge as a way of life, lived within a particular community and in a particular place. As with land, individuals do not possess knowledge, but knowledge exists as part of a particular community and in a particular place.

Second, Western ideas about knowledge and thus Western epistemological maps did not accommodate Indigenous conceptions of knowledge, and, as with physical territory, those differences are instead exploited to claim epistemological territory for settlers, at the expense of Indigenous peoples. Maps of what knowledge can and cannot be owned make this appropriation possible because the distinctions of public and private do not really fit with Indigenous knowledge. It is not public in the Western sense in that it does not belong to “everybody”, but it is also not private in that it does not belong to somebody. It “belongs” to a community, and it defines that community. Just as indigenous understandings of land were rendered legally invisible, knowledge as mutual belonging is treated as terra nullius, able to be owned by a “discoverer” and thus privatized. This privatization has created a checkerboard of public and private knowledge that can be exploited through legal means—like patents—to the benefit of some and not others. Patents function like fences on the epistemological prairie, taking what once was Indigenous territory, or public knowledge, for private use and profit.

This has particular relevance for the science and religion discourse because maps of public and private knowledge align with the boundaries of religion and science. In the Western epistemological map, religious knowledge is public; you cannot own religious truth, and you cannot patent religious rituals; they “belong to everyone”. Scientific knowledge, on the other hand, can be owned and patented.7 Western maps not only define the boundaries of what knowledge is religious/public and science/ownable; they also define what practices belong where, often relegating Indigenous knowledge into the category of religion, which is available to anyone. This makes it possible for white shamans and plastic medicine men to appropriate Indigenous religious beliefs and practices, sometimes for their own profit (Whitt 2009). It also makes it possible for scientists to appropriate Indigenous knowledge. But, unlike religion, because science creates knowledge that can be owned and patented, when a Western corporation or academic runs a gene sequence, what was once available for Indigenous peoples is now fenced off as “science”. At that point, as neatly as building a fence around private land, Indigenous people no longer have access to knowledge they produced.

As with land, the tools and technologies of dispossession and possession work together to transform Indigenous knowledge into private property. The justifications similarly mirror the justifications for taking, and then claiming, ownership of land—”no one owns knowledge”, “knowledge belongs to everyone”, this is for the greater good/can relieve suffering/prevent environmental disaster—all have equivalents in the taking and then privatizing of Indigenous Land. The arguments and justifications are similar, as are the results: Indigenous epistemological territory has been taken by settlers, using maps and technologies that allow for the control and ownership of the few, at the expense of everyone else. And just as fences impose particular ideas about land on the land itself, so too do fences impose ideas about knowledge—what it is, who produces it, etc.—on epistemological territory itself. This is important because these fences are barriers that make it impossible to think in other ways. Colonial fences serve colonial purposes, creating physical and conceptual barriers that reinforce unequal patterns of social relations by controlling the movement on the epistemological prairie in such a way that some people are restricted from knowledge, while others take possession of it and profit from it.

Over time, strategies have emerged to address biopiracy. In India, the government challenged the patent for turmeric and discovered that because the databases patent examiners used to determine whether an idea was novel did not include the Ayurvedic literature, those examiners were unaware of these existing uses for wound healing. After a legal battle in which translations of the relevant literature were presented to the U.S. patent office, the patent was revoked (Fredriksson 2023; Horowitz-Ghazi 2023). The Indian government then decided to collect the remedies and practices embedded in their ancient texts and create a giant searchable database for patent examiners around the world. They started with the Ayurvedic remedies but then expanded the database to include other medical traditions, including texts written in Urdu, Farsi, and Tamil. Initially, the database was intended just for patent examiners, but it is now available to the public (Fredriksson 2023; Horowitz-Ghazi 2023).

This is not the only solution to addressing biopiracy and patenting, and some might observe that this approach does nothing to address privatization, but it does address the fence: not by removing it, but by modifying it from its original purpose. It is important to note that patents are not the only fences on the epistemological prairie. Fences can be anything—laws, rules, bureaucracies, etc.—that facilitate the control and ownership of epistemological territory, and so we need to be flexible in addressing them. The university is filled with fences, including the structure of our disciplines, the control and regulation of knowledge by international bodies, and paywalls that restrict access to information.

The university is full of game wardens, patrolling those fences to make sure that no one violates their airspace. The disciplinary boundary between religion and science allows us to claim territory, and the fences that are tools of enforcement of these maps support those lines. Just as barbed wire “tamed” the American West—meaning that it made it possible for some people to take possession of the territory and to use it for their own benefit—these fences tamed epistemological territory, allowing some people to claim it as their own and to use it for their own benefit.

4. Conclusions

This brief comparison of the colonization of the Wyoming prairie and the epistemological prairie suggests the benefits of a settler colonial analysis for looking at the relationship between religion and science. Just as decolonizing land requires challenging the ideological dimension of settler colonialism and dismantling its technologies and tools of dispossession, ownership, and control, so too does decolonizing epistemological territory. A settler colonial analysis can help us avoid abstractions that mask settler movements to innocence and reinforce the invisible dynamics of settler relations. This is especially relevant for the religion and science discourse, because when “decolonizing” is an abstraction, it is easy to ignore or explain away the appropriation of Indigenous knowledge, or how maps that draw a line between the humanities and the sciences, or between religion and science, can be technologies of dispossession and possession on the epistemological prairie. Decolonizing the epistemological prairie, like decolonizing the Wyoming prairie, means acknowledging and dismantling these technologies and tools.

It may seem odd to suggest that looking for “fences on the epistemological prairie” is a way to avoid abstractions, but it does so by focusing not on ideas but on the tangible tools and technologies that control epistemological territory to the benefit of some and not others. When a call to decolonize epistemology, or religion and science, is material, it unsettles settler innocence in a way that abstract or metaphorical decolonizing cannot. Focusing on fences avoids settler movements to innocence because innocence or guilt are irrelevant; what matters is the impact: who benefits and who pays. In Wyoming, removing fences does not require us to figure out why the fences were built or affix blame to the builders: if they threaten elk or moose, you deal with the fence by removing or modifying it (RMEF 2018). Similarly, if you attend a religion and science event and 95% of the attendees are men, or white (or both; you do not have to imagine too hard), pointing this out to the organizer will get a response such as “We invited people, they wouldn’t come” or “Those people aren’t interested in these issues” (I have had people say both). Focusing on fences avoids this, because it does not look at reasons, just the impact. Once you find the fence, you do not need to worry about the reasons, just deal with it.