Restoring our tomorrow: planning for who we are

Abstract

This article critically engages with the intersections of Indigeneity, decoloniality, and environmental disruption through a critique of the imposition of Bilagáanaa (Western) planning paradigms on the Navajo Nation governmental structures. We examine the Navajo Nation Chapter House Community Land Use Plan and emphasize how community-based processes of knowledge production, like mind maps, challenge and reframe the Navajo Nation Land policies. Historically, architectural and planning consultants produced comprehensive plans that are neither culturally suited to the desires of Diné (Navajo Nation citizens). These externally imposed processes often disregard the distinctive social dynamics, built environments, and community-based economies of Diné life, while simultaneously failing to articulate a sustainable, long-term vision for environmental and economic resilience. In response, we highlight how Diné apply the principles of Sa’ah Naagháí Bik’eh Hózhóón’ (critical Diné Land-based planning praxis).

Keywords

Bilagáanaa planning Community-based processes Diné Land-based planning Indigenous planning Navajo Nation

Introduction

This article re-envisions the Navajo Nation Chapter House’s (Chapter House) Community Land Use Plan’s (CLUP) community-based praxis. This analysis centers on the environmental consequences and the disjuncture between imposed models of economic development and an alternative approach grounded in Diné (Navajo Nation citizens) epistemology. Extractive industries like coal, uranium mining, oil, and forestry have been promoted as viable sources of livelihood based on Western economic logics. These have brought pollution to the Navajo Nation (NN) and little benefit to Diné. As a result, we focus on two frameworks: Indigenous planning to conceptualize practice centering local knowledge systems and Sa’ah Naagháí Bik’eh Hózhóón’ (critical Diné Land-based planning praxis) (SNBH), a Diné epistemology that is the consciousness of living in hózhó (a state of mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual balance in the universe). Our work responds to the paradigms that marginalize Indigenous knowledge systems and priorities, often perpetuating ecological harm while failing to support Indigenous self-determination or sustainable prosperity.

Our entry point into the discourse of decoloniality is through the lens of Indigenous planning and decolonial praxis (Harjo, 2019; Lopez-Huertas, 2025a; Mignolo & Walsh, 2018). To contextualize the significance of planning as a colonial tool, we outline the Bilagáanaa (Western) framework as settler-colonial: municipalities’ utilization of urban planning mechanisms that project future development through regulatory land use, zoning ordinances, and spatial governance. The operating principle in urban planning is achieving the highest and best use of the Land to maximize capital accumulation (Land is in uppercase as an acknowledgment of her agency and relationship with Indigenous People. It is not capitalized when discussed from a Western episteme like land use; see Tuck & McKenzie, 2015). In contrast, we analyze the roles of Chapter House naat’áanii (leadership) and CLUP committees to consider how local knowledge systems are applied to the natural and built environment in their plans. Particularly, we examine how exploratory and imaginary spaces, such as mind maps, allow the practice of SNBH knowledge systems in Diné Land-based planning.

Indigenous planning transforms existing Tribal planning policies and development paradigms and specifically reorients the NN planning processes by centering the values, benefits, and implications of Diné naat’áanii and community protocols through the application of SNBH episteme. We argue that Chapter Houses possess the potential for restorative and transformative Diné Land-based planning models rooted in relationality, self-determination, and culture. Rectifying these planning practices would support healing from the historical and ongoing impacts of Bilagáanaa capitalist and imperialist logics that have shaped environmental and economic development at the expense of Diné futures, spatial self-determination, Land stewardship, and intergenerational justice. Diné Land-based planning models, guided by the principles of SNBH, offer critical interventions into Bilagáanaa planning paradigms by advancing social, political, and economic movements of Indigenous resurgence and spatial justice. By integrating Diné epistemologies into the framework of the Local Governance Act (LGA), this model advances restorative futures grounded in kinship, relational accountability, and Land-based self-determination, offering a pathway toward governance aligned with Diné lifeways.

This article is directed at the Diné, leaders, and allies. Our work recognizes regional knowledge of Diné bizaad (Navajo language) and identities, including Diné—the people. The Diné are among the 574 federally recognized Tribal Nations in the USA. The NN was set up to enter official government-to-government negotiations, facilitating its first oil leases inside the reservation in 1922. Following the development of Federal-Indian Law (for a more elaborate description of the creation of federal-Indian law and the definition of domestic dependent nations, see Royster et al., 2023), the Indian Reorganization Act 1934 (IRA) created a three-branch system modeled after the federal government. Despite the Diné people voting against IRA implementation, later imposed on a constitutional structure with a centralized administration system via their capital, Window Rock in Arizona (Foxworth & Benally, 2024). The Indian Mineral Leasing Act 1938 centralized federal control over resource extraction on Indian reservations, granting the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) authority over leasing contracts. While revenues from natural resource extraction funded some infrastructure in Diné communities, it rendered the Diné tribe as legitimate and legible by the US government, reinforcing settler colonial governance (Curley, 2019, 2022). As the Nation opened and operated sawmills, coal and uranium mining, and oil leases, Diné communities have experienced boom and bust cycles since the 1930s. The NN, like other US Indian reservations, was initially deemed unusable and undervalued Land until the Bilagáanaa settler government detected natural resources to exploit (Curley, 2019, 2022).

Income generation through relational work, such as wool production in the NN, reflects practice rooted in Diné’s culture and responsiveness to the Land (Curley, 2022; Roan, 2024). This form of livelihood sustains a circular economy including grazing, livestock, wool, mutton, and artisan production, grounded in ancestral modes of care. One of the Co-authors engaged in this relationality firsthand during a sheep-shearing event in the northwest region of the NN, where community members discussed local challenges. The rise of inexpensive synthetic yarn has undermined wool’s market value, trading posts often refuse to purchase it or offer negligible compensation, eroding a historically significant and once-viable economic practice (Lee, 2023; Roan, 2024). Prior to COVID-19, wool trade continued to generate income (Yurth, 2021). Diné adaptive strategies in the face of structural economic shifts exemplify SNBH, a framework that maintains health through sustained relationships with the Land and planning for tomorrow (Benally & Benally, 2017; Lee, 2023).

Research positionality and ethical considerations

We write as Indigenous scholars committed to re-centering our peoples’ languages, perspectives, Land-based practices, and collective identities. Grounded in Diné epistemology, our collaborative work follows community protocols shaped by SNBH, a regional knowledge system that guides an individual’s journey toward Old Age or a way of life of the Diné. While building on the widely cited seven generations, the article conceptualizes an eighth generation as an integral part of the Diné cosmology as an essential dimension of the Diné life cycle. In this understanding, ancestors are not distant figures of the past but active agents who connect the newborn with the recently departed, sustaining intergenerational continuity and reaffirming the centrality of SNBH to Diné existence.

One of the authors reflects on her nalí (paternal grandmother), Isabelle Shirley, who is 100, residing in Kin Dah Lichii, Arizona, who continues to be cared for by her family. Isabelle embodies a Diné principle of living into Old Age. As a fluent speaker of Diné bizaad, lifelong sheepherder, and traditional rug weaver, she continues to be a remarkable exemplar through everyday practices of healthy food, life choices, and walking daily. Within Diné cosmology, to live into the Old Age of 102 is to have one’s name followed by sah (old age), a mark of wisdom, conversely, dying prematurely results in the suffix yee’ (passed away), denoting a life cut short. In many Indigenous communities around the world, fewer and fewer elders live into Old Age, like her nalí, due to lower life expectancies related to poor health and living conditions. The morbidity of our elders becomes problematic for the continuance of our Indigenous Land-based practices and Indigenous Knowledge Systems tied to our culture, identity, and language. A premature death of a community member means one less elder as a contributing member of the community and living into Old Age. The author honors her nalí for all she is because she is the bridge to all the ancestors who preceded her and now proceed her granddaughter and the Author’s son, Atlas—her great-grandson.

As co-authors, we write with care and cultural responsibility, particularly in discussing SNBH and its relevance to Indigenous planning. We center the work of Diné scholars and honor the knowledge embedded in mind maps and CLUPs that support Chapter House certification under the LGA. The limited academic literature on Diné planning should not be mistaken for its absence; rather, we emphasize that Indigenous planning practices differ from Bilagáana frameworks and are often transmitted through non-academic, community-based modes.

Literature review

This review discusses the enduring legacy of colonialism in Diné Bikéyah (the People’s Land), particularly planning practices that have entrenched systemic dependence on extractive industries, undermining the health and well-being of Diné communities and the Land. The first section examines how spatial governance and imposed economic structures have constrained Diné autonomy, contributing to long-term socio-ecological harm. In response, the second part expands on the potential for integrating principles of the Indigenous planning framework and interventions. The Chapter House CLUP may benefit by re-centering local values and perspectives on environmental justice and ways to explore a green economy. The final section deepens the discussion on Indigenous planning by conceptualizing Diné Land-based planning rooted in Diné perspectives, life ways, natural and built environment. By centering Diné epistemology, particularly SNBH, and how Diné leaders and communities can operationalize this framework. These claims are essential to intersect Diné customs on community-driven responses concerning the natural and built environment. The review makes a critical case for how Indigenous planning can serve as a transformative mode, one that counters colonial legacies by restoring local knowledge in decision-making structures.

Colonial legacies and Navajo Land

US Indigenous peoples and Tribal Nations share a collective history shaped by settler colonialism, marked by Land dispossession, genocide, epistemic and social erasure, and assimilation into the settler-dominant society (Dorries et al., 2019; Hibbard, 2021; Jojola, 2008; Nichols, 2018). For the NN, historical violations of their ancestral territory have subjugated Diné lifeways (Curley & Lister, 2020; Estes et al., 2021; Lee, 2023; Yazzie, 2018). The Navajo Treaty 1868 significantly shaped the Navajo’s political landscape by transforming tribal governance, the built environment, and imposing Western ideologies. In addition, the Navajo Treaty altered the area’s natural resources, impacting soil, vegetation, wildlife, air, and water. These changes primarily served the US federal government’s and corporate entities’ monetary interests, highlighting the interplay between policy and environmental degradation (Atencio, 2023; Attakai, 2023; Curley & Smith, 2020; Perry, 2023). Indian Boarding Schools were designed to promote the assimilation and socioeconomic development of Diné communities by funneling Diné naat’áanii (leaders) into Bilagáanaa educational systems. There is a growing presence of naat’áanii who can navigate and engage with both frameworks (Curley, 2022; Yazzie, 2018). Concurrently, these institutions also established the groundwork for a land use approach, emphasizing industrial development and single-family housing (Shirley, 2015). Coerced settlements, a colonial tool forcing settlement agreements under duress (Attakai, 2023), and indoctrinated Navajo leaders initiated extractive industrialization, including sawmills, coal and uranium mining, and oil leasing, which, like schools, also spurred proto-town developments.

Since 1923, there has been dependency and reliance on land leasing to corporations for coal mining. Curley (2019) observes a complicated relationship with extractive activities, which unveils a moral economy that responds to collective claims for adequate forms of distribution during economic and political crises. The early assimilating policies and programming in the NN government excluded Diné communal protocols and social dynamics linked with climate change and other negative ecological impacts on Land (Austin, 2017; Curley, 2019; Levy et al., 1989). Oil and uranium extraction and fossil fuel plants cascade to ongoing exposure to unsustainable and hazardous living conditions for communities near extraction sites. Because Land and people are interrelated, these processes also impact the spiritual and cultural well-being of the greater Diné communities (Attakai, 2023; Benally & Benally, 2017; Credo et al., 2019; Foxworth & Benally, 2024; Yazzie, 2018). Following Diné scholars claims (Attakai, 2023; Powell & Curley, 2008; Yazzie, 2018), even after the formation of the NN government as a sovereign Tribal Nation, the US agenda of Navajo Land leasing and the exploitation of natural resources continually reaffirms epistemic coloniality (Maldonado-Torres, 2007; Mignolo & Walsh, 2018).

Bilagáanaa planning and Navajo Nation responses

The US federal land ownership regime limits Indigenous planning on Navajo Land. The NN government holds legal beneficial interests but lacks ownership and decision-making authority over the land trust, constraining its ability to engage in independent planning (Royster et al., 2023). In practice, the BIA exercises regulatory control over land use decisions through leasing mechanisms such as livestock grazing permits (Greyeyes, 2023). From a Diné planning perspective, this system of fragmented authority erodes Diné Land tenure and obstructs the exercise of sovereignty in both policy development and community-based land use strategies (Jojola, 2017; Matunga, 2017; Webster, 2016; Zaferatos, 2015).

The imposition of Bilagáana planning paradigms has led to the internalization and institutionalization of capitalist patriarchy Western governance models within Diné political structures. Institutions such as the Navajo Nation Council and the Chapter House System reflect this legacy, shaping planning processes in ways that often marginalize Diné knowledge systems and relational Land ethics. Two examples of policy initiatives are the 1998 LGA and the Navajo Green Jobs Act 2009 (NGJA), exemplifying significant implications for how Diné communities navigate land-based decision-making, as they often prioritize externally defined metrics of success over Diné values and lifeways (Attakai, 2023; Greyeyes, 2023; Hale, 2018). Thus, any effort to decolonize land use planning within the NN must critically interrogate federal constraints and the internal governance models shaped by settler colonialism.

The LGA outlines the operational framework for Chapter Houses, requiring certification under the Five Management System and development of a CLUP (Hale, 2018; Parrish, 2018). While the CLUP is intended to reflect community visions, its emphasis remains on zoning for residential, commercial, and industrial development. After 26 years, only 45 of 110 Chapters are certified (Parrish, 2018), with most struggling to meet legal and financial requirements. Despite these administrative demands, limited attention is given to planning, and even less to incorporating Diné cultural values into the Plan’s guiding principles (Attakai, 2023; Greyeyes, 2023; Wheeler & Lee, 2023).

The case of the NGJA is a response to the legacy of extractive activities and the claims of Navajo politicians, activists, and environmental movements to develop more sustainable practices within the reservation (Curley, 2019; Hurst-McDonald, 2021; Powell, 2017). While the program failed in its implementation (Curley, 2019), reviewing lessons learned is essential to understanding the transition challenges when green jobs cannot immediately substitute the benefits of an already coal-based economy (Powell, 2017). Although aligned with the overall goals of community planning in LGA to create fair wages, self-sufficiency, and sustainable development, NGJA forced non-Indigenous forms of income generation incompatible with Diné culture (Hurst-McDonald, 2021). For instance, NGJA prioritized business development on green economies such as solar energy or sustainable farming, while not prioritizing Diné livelihoods such as sheep herding, wool production, arts, and handcrafts, as the most relevant practices (Curley, 2019). In some way, NGJA missed the opportunity to recognize and advocate for Diné forms of living and instead focused on creating entrepreneurs responsible for bringing green energy solutions (Powell, 2017). Similar to the LGA, NGJA sought to decentralize power structures while promoting economic development (Parrish, 2018). Still, the NGJA forces a planning agenda by demanding the integration into a global economy that is not culturally sensitive to Diné forms of living such as livestock, farming, arts, and crafts.

Both LGA and NGJA exemplify the dominant Western lack of understanding of Bilagáanaa policies and their impacts in Diné contexts. While LGA operates under a rational planning agenda of zoning and ordinances (Greyeyes, 2023; Hale, 2018), NGJA sought to incentivize entrepreneurs to bring green economies alien to Diné livelihoods (Curley, 2019; Hurst-McDonald, 2021; Powell, 2017). As such, Bilagáanaa paradigms materialize in intergenerational challenges (Attakai, 2023), and as Indigenous planners ourselves, we observe the need to understand and reframe the forms in which planning is performed by respecting and following Diné worldviews (Atencio, 2023; Greyeyes, 2023; Roan, 2024).

Indigenous planning theory

Indigenous planning is an emerging paradigm that employs a culturally responsive and value-based approach to community development (Jojola, 2013; Matunga, 2013). Indigenous planning considers a participatory process predicated on local knowledge principles and centers culture and identity to shape collective outcomes in community development, planning, and architecture within Indigenous communities. Understanding a community’s culture and identity is crucial in bringing to the fore their worldview, their values, the essential elements that make them distinct and connected to a place (Lopez-Huertas, 2025b). During this process, refusing the fictions of Western knowledge is central to how Indigenous Peoples theorize through decoloniality, as observed by Mignolo and Walsh (2018), and develop mechanisms of decolonial praxis to redefine their planning systems (Lopez-Huertas, 2025a). Indigenous worldviews foster the epistemic material that communities practice to establish a holistic plan for the future (Harjo, 2019). Worldviews can also offer and guide a mutual vision by providing parameters for the goals and objectives the community sets for itself (Foxworth & Benally, 2024).

Our framing of Indigenous planning and community vision is through the seven-generation framework, planning for generations ahead, including the past influencing the present, which then shapes the future (Simpson, 2015). Multiple Indigenous Peoples apply this principle as the responsibility to maintain cultural practices that embody the continuity of Indigenous life (McCarthy, 2016). In planning, the seven-generation framework involves modeling the growth and development of the community where the older generations are the keepers of knowledge, the middle generations actualize the knowledge, and the younger generations are those who inherit it (Jojola, 2013). Thus, Indigenous community design and planning processes require that Tribal leadership balance the immediacy of action—short-term, with a comprehensive vision—long-term, and fully intergenerational community engagement is essential to success (Jojola, 2017).

With these principles in mind, we wish for the NN leadership and local Chapter House communities to secure their future and fortify their Land from further exploitation. Becoming more assertive about their autonomy from the federal government’s oversight, the Nation and local Chapter House leaders must develop land use and tenure laws and policies through their CLUP process (Parrish, 2018). Indigenous peoples can shift to anti-capitalistic economic development within these laws and policies (Yazzie, 2018). If there are only extractive capitalist options for the NN and local Chapter House leaders to consider, then being proactive about mitigating adverse environmental impacts to the Land and the people should be in place before, during, and after planning with communities (Wheeler & Lee, 2023).

This raises a fundamental question: What future do we, as Diné, envision for ourselves, beyond the imposed frameworks of settler governance? Rather than continuing to respond reactively to externally defined development agendas, we must articulate our own visions of economic, labor, and educational futures grounded in Diné values and conditions. A self-determined planning process would be temporally and spatially grounded, guided by community consensus, and result in actionable law and policy authored by Diné collective. Such a process constitutes a meaningful exercise of cultural and local political autonomy, enacted through the principles of SNBH, and represents a transformative step toward community governance that reflects the integrity of Diné lifeways.

Research design and methods

Our research employs thematic analysis and produces grounded theory, situated within and guided by Indigenous research methodologies (Kovach, 2021). Our primary data source consisted of mind maps produced through cultural asset mapping, which collectively documented community histories, present conditions, and aspirations for future development. The data collection session was held at the 2014 NN Division of Economic Development Annual Conference at the Twin Arrow Casino and Resort in the spring of 2015. The University of New Mexico’s Indigenous Design and Planning Institute facilitated this cultural asset mapping workshop focused on Diné communities’ eco-tourism and economic development. Despite the data collection year, we observe its ongoing relevance in understanding Bilagáanaa planning impacts and alternatives for the Nation. We coded the mind maps to generate thematic areas of Diné values and utilized Atlas.ti. We generated 117 codes, preliminarily grouped into four themes conceptualizing community planning with Diné and applying the SNBH framework.

Our second data source was 55 NN Community-Based Land Use Plans (CLUPs) downloaded from the Navajo Nation Division of Community Development website. We conducted a content analysis with principles of place in research (Tuck & McKenzie, 2015), focusing on “environment,” “sustainability,” and “climate change” keywords. Both data sources revealed what we see as uniquely Diné perspectives on SNBH, including their visions for the future. The accounts we documented emphasize preserving, protecting, or enhancing cultural assets to boost local tourism for economic development.

Findings and discussion

We draw on the examples of seven Chapter Houses, labeled as Chapters A, B, C, D, E, F, and G, to explain how responses to the community needs in a non-planning environment occur. We paired the seven Chapter House mind maps with their respective CLUP, which supported our analysis of gaps in the perspectives of the local Chapter House representative and the external consultants. The four final themes are (1) “institutions and concerns,” (2) “infrastructure,” (3) “livelihoods and tourism,” and (4) “culture and tomorrow.”

Institutions and concerns

Chapter House representatives express critical stances regarding extractive industries contaminating water, Land, air, people, and animals. For example, the Chapter C mind maps display concerns about gravel pit mining on their Land. Tensions are evident simultaneously, extraction is viewed as a good revenue stream, but destructive like legacy mining. Communities facing the greatest risks from the extractive industries favor green industries and renewable energy alternatives, which tend to contribute to better institutional support. Thus, concerns depicted in the mind maps prioritize local livelihoods, which CLUP, hereafter Plans, address in some capacity. A, B, and E Plans revealed the need for improvements and new facilities, for example: electric home hook-up, water delivery, telephone lines, wastewater, housing, cell phone towers, and livestock water supply. As Parrish (2018) suggests, operationalizing actions within Chapter Houses contributes to better performance within the institutions locally.

A representative from Chapter C also highlights in the mind map a series of values to consider when planning with the community and the Tribal government, including “communication as a medium, coordination of elements, cooperation & synergy, cognizance, and awareness.” These values relate to Diné culture resisting the colonial legacy within the Tribal government (Greyeyes, 2023). In addition, participants advocated for Diné data collection methods when developing policies, plans, and programs for the community. For instance, Chapter E highlights oral history and storytelling to document local practices such as herb collection and the conservation of sacred sites.

Infrastructure and services

Infrastructure representations were drawn through networks of paved and dirt roads, indicating how accessible or limited these communities are in relation to each other and outside the reservation. In Chapters A, B, C, D, E, and G, mind maps highlight the importance of the road network connecting their community to the surrounding region. The Plans responded differently. Chapter B, for example, depicts the challenges of improving roads due to scattered housing patterns, but it does not address Diné lifeways. Chapter C focuses on roads to attract tourism opportunities because of the Chapter’s location near recreational areas. Chapter E emphasizes the intricate system of road jurisdictions that limits economic development for the community. When drawing the roads, participants included images representing essential components of Diné life, including the hooghan (sweat lodge), and natural elements like the sacred mountains, native plants, animals, and crops. These depictions represent a cultural statement on how infrastructure elements, such as roads, align with Diné forms of living, as observed by Wheeler and Lee (2023) when discussing how Diné communities define their development models.

In addition to road widening projects, even though not explicitly discussed, the mind maps refer to the importance of maintaining and providing homes to support the sense of community, particularly in Chapters A, B, C, E, and F. The maps refer to words or images of hooghans or other forms of housing. We observe that mind maps help illustrate the concept that housing transcends mere planning for individual or family benefits, not addressed in any of the Plans. Following the sense of k’é (relationality) (Foxworth & Benally, 2024), the maps display interconnections between homes and communal-public spaces, including professional and recreational services, senior centers, mobile home parks, gift shops, movie theaters, beauty parlors, grocery stores, banks, and laundromats.

Livelihoods and tourism

Bilagáanaa thinking significantly influences the institutionalization within Diné society, overshadowing Diné conservation and tourism practices. The mind maps from Chapters A, B, C, E, and G include versions of the four sacred mountains where the NN is located and emphasize the names, natural sites, and scenic sites to protect cultural livelihoods such as livestock and farming. The Plans respond partially to these concerns by commenting on cultural values without specific actions on how the sacred mountains inform the plan. Instead, they focus mainly on strategic actions for development sites from an economic approach. Regarding tourism, the mind maps from Chapters C, D, E, and G highlight conserving and restoring naturally relevant areas, such as rivers and lakes. The Plans respond to environmental concerns by delegating the work to the Navajo Nation Department of Fish and Wildlife, which follows an institutional Bilagáanaa approach. In this case, the Plans are limited in promoting Diné forms of conservation embedded in aspects such as nahat’á (planning), as Atencio (2023) observed in his community plan proposal.

Chapters emphasize preserving cornfields and other agricultural practices to promote economic development and cultural exchanges. Thinking about the connection with corn unveils the epistemology of the Pollen Path in the SNBH framework (Wheeler & Lee, 2023). For example, the mind maps from Chapters A, B, C, E, F, and G display crops and recommend developing bed and breakfast establishments to build respectful cultural experiences. The Plans respond to some observations by highlighting the promotion of tourist places like trading posts, lakes, archeological sites, forests, and canyons. However, the Plans identify tourism from a business dimension without following the aspects noted by the maps, such as the preservation and conservation of historical and cultural elements.

Culture and tomorrow

Tools like mind maps become an unlimited and imaginary space to plan for Indigenous futures (Harjo, 2019) and go beyond the plan’s 5-year timeline, in our case. Chapters A, D, E, and G, for instance, focus on becoming a stronger Nation, improving waste management, or protecting medicinal plants through healing. The maps describe healing as living in Diné forms, including farming, sweat lodges, learning culture, and respecting Mother Earth. Similarly, Chapters also emphasize Diné epistemology, which entails speaking the language (Chapter A), living within the sacred mountains (Chapters A, C, E, G), protecting wildlife (A, C, G), securing safe places and homes for families to thrive (A, E, F, G). Restoring Diné’s forms of thinking and being through healing practices resonates with the principles of Indigenous planning in diverse geographies (Jojola, 2017; Matunga, 2013; Webster, 2016).

The colonial legacy reflected in Bilagáana land management practices within NN policy reveals that these Plans inadequately address Diné land-based planning systems. Although Diné stories and concepts are included in the text, the Plans fall short in applying Diné epistemologies as the analytics for community planning. In contrast, the mind maps serve as a call to recognize and incorporate the various expressions of Land relationships that community members engage in during their daily lives. For instance, the goals, visions, or outcomes defined under a rational planning approach have fixed configurations regarding data collection, site development proposals, recommendations, and policies. In the case of A and B, they include the Diné mandate of t’áá hwó’ ají t’éego (do for yourself), which promotes some principles of Diné epistemology as an initial framework discussed in the literature (Curley, 2019). However, in both cases, the mandate is not elaborated in the proposals, policies, and recommendations, and does not advance its applicability to the community context. On the other hand, the mind maps center Diné forms of thinking as an essential component for planning with cultural values: education and culture through respect (Chapter A); relationality of physical, mental, spiritual, and social dimensions to bring well-being to the communities (Chapter C); care for preserving nature (Chapter D); and remembering our past to think about the future (Chapter G). As a collection, the mind maps extensively describe how Diné traditions can provide opportunities for cultural restoration, environmental protection, and economic development. Diné values, as observed by Wheeler and Lee (2023), promote the balance of modern lifestyle with spiritual connections to the Holy Ones and the Land, indicating the great value in living a hozhó life.

Recommendation: centering Sa’ah Naagháí Bik’eh Hózóón

The spiral, a migration symbol found across Indigenous landscapes of the Americas, represents a journey of personal and communal transformation (Jojola, 2024). In Diné epistemology, this symbolism is embedded in basketry, architecture, sand paintings, and rug designs, all created from natural elements of Diné Bikéyah. These forms reflect a cyclical worldview rooted in k’é and relational responsibilities to Land and community. This land-based ontology is enacted through ritual, beginning with the burial of a newborn’s placenta in ancestral soil, anchoring identity, belonging, and a lifelong connection to homeland.

As individuals mature, their connection to the land deepens through embodied practices such as ceremony, water stewardship, herding, gathering, and cultivating traditional crops. These acts sustain both livelihood and cultural rituals, reaffirming reciprocal responsibilities to place. Diné clans, inherited matrilineally and patrilineally, carry land-based identities tied to geographic origins and ancestral migrations. These ontologies challenge placeless, bureaucratic Bilagáana planning models, emphasizing the urgency of re-rooting Diné land-based values as a foundation for culturally grounded and place-informed planning.

This section draws on Diné principles, particularly SNBH, to shape a Diné spiral as a living model of land-based planning. As a Diné epistemology, SNBH extends beyond spirituality to encompass governance, ethics, and land relationality (Aronilth, 1992). We highlight four core rituals that embody holistic decision-making and offer a decolonial leadership model grounded in interdependence, spatial justice, and place-based knowledge. The entry point of the SNBH begins with ntsáhakees (the initial spark of an idea, thought, or thinking). This first phase represents a critical space of intellectual and imaginative engagement, where possibilities for re-centering Diné knowledge systems are envisioned. We emphasize the importance of dialogic practices grounded in community-lived experience and spatial memory, or grounded truth, as vital to recovering and honoring the ways in which elders historically enacted SNBH principles in community decision-making prior to colonization. By beginning with ntsáhakees, we reconnect with an epistemological foundation that privileges relationality, spatial storytelling, and local context.

The second phase is nahat’á (planning). This involves the articulation of intentional action through structured planning and the development of a step-by-step relational pathway. Nahat’á represents the translation of thought into deliberate strategy, an epistemological process rooted in purpose and foresight. One of the co-authors recalls how her nalí instilled in her the practice of initiating planning through prayer to Diyin Diné’é (Diné deities), seeking blessings for clarity of purpose and protection in forthcoming endeavors. Her nalí would instruct, “Tell them where you are going, what you are preparing to do, and why. Ask them to consider your intentions and guide you to success, then return home safely.” These prayers, though spiritual in form, functioned as an Indigenous mode of planning, an embodied practice where intention, direction, and ethical accountability were communicated. This reflection illustrates how Diné planning traditions operate outside settler logics of linear development, instead framing project proposals as living, reciprocal relationships between people, Land, and spiritual governance.

The third phase is iiná (life; living up to plans). Iiná signifies the stage in which intentions are actualized through collaborative engagement and the organization of community-based solutions to make informed decisions about tomorrow. At this juncture, planning becomes a lived practice grounded in collective participation and future-oriented decision-making. We conceptualize this process through various methodologies, including long-term community workshops, focus groups, interviews, surveys, co-mapping exercises, and ceremonies, each serving as a forum for listening, learning, and exchanging knowledge, histories, and local protocols tied to the elements of a proposed planning and policy making. These activities are not merely procedural, they reflect a culturally grounded mode of consensus-building that centers relational accountability and shared vision. Iiná marks a shift in power dynamics, away from top-down planning logics and toward a more collective, community-authored agenda. The decisions that emerge are shaped by ground truth, the lived realities and experiences of community members, which are placed in conversation with local assets and existing governance frameworks, such as those outlined in the LGA. In doing so, iiná operationalizes a planning ethic that is both culturally responsive and structurally transformative.

The final phase is sih hasin (spirituality; regenerate life in dormancy). We understand it as the spiritual grounding and regenerative force that emerges through reflection, intentionality, and the cyclical nature of life (Aronilth, 1992). Siih hasin encompasses daily spiritual practices such as sodizin (prayer) and sin (song), both of which originate from a deep, place-based consciousness and are often rooted in localized ceremonial knowledge. These practices are not peripheral but serve as ethical and epistemological foundations for planning, ensuring alignment with Diné values and ecological integrity. Siih hasin, as a phase of critical reflection, fosters accountability through documentation rooted in relationality, not bureaucracy. This process can inform and reform NN planning policies shaped by settler structures. The four phases of SNBH reject extractive models and instead center Indigenous education, spirituality, and land-based relationships, positioning planning as a form of cultural resurgence and ecological stewardship.

Conclusion

Our critique of the imposition of the Bilagaana planning framework within the NN identifies it as an expression of epistemic coloniality that continues to shape land governance structures. We argue for the necessity of redefining, planning, and governance policies that are grounded in Diné values, perspectives, local knowledge, and practices. Drawing from the insights articulated by the community members through mind mapping exercises, our analysis reveals that current Plans are insufficiently addressing local concerns, largely due to its entrenchment in their colonial legacy. As a decolonial approach, we propose the application of the theory and praxis of the Diné Land-based planning, where SNBH is a living planning model, a pathway toward planning practices that are culturally rooted and epistemologically congruent with Diné lifeways and conditions.

Our scholarship highlights the persistence of epistemic coloniality in planning processes, where Bilagáana ideologies marginalize Diné knowledge and perpetuate structural inequalities. We argue that SNBH is a living practice central to Diné self-determination, despite colonial disruption. Reclaiming this Land-based knowledge can transform economic assumptions in current policy frameworks, demanding a shift in how Land, community, and governance are understood. Re-centering SNBH in planning is essential to sustain the Land and people, honoring Diné principles of intergenerational responsibility and relational accountability across eight generations.

The Diné landscape is a living archive of our stories, identity, and place, deeply intertwined with ancestral relationships disrupted by dispossession and colonial land use. Reconnecting with the Land requires revitalizing ecological knowledge, ceremonial practices, and language, acts of survivance and political resurgence rather than nostalgia. We urge our K’é and allies to replant SNBH within institutional frameworks, transforming policies and tribal legislation to center Diné values and cosmologies. This centralization of Diné knowledge offers a governing logic to reshape planning and promote sustainable, just futures grounded in Diné lifeways.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

We honor the Land as the source of knowledge for this paper.

Authors’ note

Nihok’aa Diyin Dine’é Bikéyah is the Land.

Elisha Charley (Navajo Nation), a Nihok’aa Diyin Dine’e (holy surface people), grew up in Dennehotso, AZ, in the northern region of the Navajo Nation. Her relations are Bit’ahnii Diyin Dine’e (folded arms people), Deeshchii’nii yá’chíín (start of the red streak people), Tabaaha dabí’cheii (water edge people), and Táchii’nii dabí’nálí (red running into the water people). Elisha’s research is deeply rooted in Diné place-based knowledge and guided by Indigenous Planning frameworks. She centers dialogic practices that advocate for housing data justice and critically examine land use conditions. Elisha explores Indigenous-led participatory housing development models and incremental approaches to homebuilding within the Navajo Nation. She is currently engaged in her doctoral studies in Urban Planning at Arizona State University’s School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning. Elisha’s research is dedicated to advancing scholarship in Native American housing and land use. She holds an Assistant Professor position at The Design School at ASU in Arizona.

M Joaquin Lopez-Huertas “Am’aj Q’in” is a Mayan K’iche’ scholar from Xelajuj No’j located in the place known as Guatemala. He is a PhD candidate in City & Metropolitan Planning at the University of Utah. With more than 10 years of working with Indigenous communities in regions of Guatemala, Chile, and the USA, Joaquin’s research focuses on Indigenous planning and the intersections with climate change, sustainability, and resilience through decolonial practices. Particularly, he delves into the ways Indigenous Peoples restore relationships with place, foster community organizing, and respond to environmental injustices and colonial legacies of planning. Joaquin received the Fulbright LASPAU scholarship and the GCSC fellowship for his doctoral studies. Before coming to Utah, he was a lecturer at the Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala and an OAS fellow at the Universidad de Valparaíso in Chile.

Michaela Paulette Shirley (Navajo Nation, Diné) (MCRP) belongs to the Water Edge and Bitter Water clans, with connections to the Salt and Coyote Pass clans through her grandfathers. Raised in Kin Dah Lichii on the Navajo reservation, she credits her parents and late nalí Isabelle Shirley Sah for their guidance. With over a decade of experience in Indigenous planning and community development, Michaela has published works on related topics. Currently pursuing a PhD in American Studies at UNM, her research focuses on the relationship between schools and Indigenous communities, particularly examining old Indian boarding schools as brownfield sites. Michaela promotes decolonized, empowering planning in Kin Dah Lichii and beyond. She serves on the Steering Committee for the Planners Network, is a Founding Member of Vital Little Plans, and is a Board Member of the Navajo Townsite Community Development Corporation.

ORCID iDs

Elisha Virginia Charley

M Joaquin Lopez-Huertas

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and publication of this article.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and publication of this article.

Glossary

Bilagáanaa Western

Diné bizaad Navajo language

Diné Navajo Nation citizens

Diné Bikéyah the People’s Land

Diyin Diné’é Diné deities

hooghan sweat lodge

hózhó a state of mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual balance in the universe

iiná life; living up to plans

k’é relationality

naat’áanii leadership, leaders

nahat’á planning

nalí paternal grandmother

ntsáhakees the initial spark of an idea, thought, or thinking

Sa’ah Naagháí Bik’eh Hózhóón’ critical Diné Land-based planning praxis

sah old age

sih hasin spirituality; regenerate life in dormancy

sin song

sodizin prayer

t’áá hwó’ ají t’éego do for yourself

yee’ passed away

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