Undergraduate Research: An Archive - 2022 Program

Jessica Lambert ’22
ANTHROPOLOGY
Certificate in Environmental Studies; Senior
Thesis Research Funding Awardee
ENVIRONMENTAL
POLICY AND SOCIETY
THESIS TITLE
Defending Our Freedom:
The U.S. Military,
Environmental
Contamination, and
Ongoing Native Land
Theft in the Choctaw
Nation
ADVISERS
Ryo Morimoto,
Assistant Professor of
Anthropology; John
Higgins, Associate
Professor of
Department of
Geosciences
Relatively little is known about environmental
contamination on American Indian reservations
in the United States, yet the problem is
widespread in Indian Country. I used ArcGIS
Online to uncover 1,250 Superfund sites —
sites with uncontrolled hazardous waste — on
or within five miles of 302 Tribal Nations. I
then investigated the environmental health
of a town on the reservation of my Tribe, the
Choctaw Nation, where the United States
military decommissions old bombs through
daily detonations. I evaluated and documented
contamination of Choctaw water, land and air by
testing surface and tap water, as well as installing
and monitoring air sensors. At the same time,
I used anthropological field research and
interviews to explore Choctaw experiences of this
contamination and its adverse health effects. I
argued that these environmental assaults on the
Choctaw Nation are an expression of the ongoing
theft of Native land aided by the politicization of
environmental data and inadequate regulations.
19