The Indigenous Community Planning project in DUSP is a multi-disciplinary research and teaching effort that seeks to center Indigeneity within the field of urban planning. Students and faculty within the department engage with Indigenous communities, scholars, leaders, and activists to explore together how to address questions of sovereignty, identity, land-use planning, climate adaptation, natural resource development, and historical land-taking. The research, curriculum development, and practice activities are undertaken in partnership with indigenous communities and seek to highlight lessons and practices from indigenous planning that can be applied more generally.

The project has strengthened connections with local Indigenous communities in Massachusetts, the MIT SOLVE Indigenous Fellows program, and Indigenous student groups at MIT as they seek to add indigenous students, staff and faculty to the MIT community.

The 11.171/11.172 Indigenous Environmental Planning MIT course is an ongoing, adaptive effort to realize the pedagogical goals of the Indigenous Planning Project. The course examines how Indigenous peoples’ relationships to their homelands and local environments have been adversely affected by governmental planning. Participants - faculty, student, and community guests - in the course seek to address current environmental challenges and use participatory action research methods to discover potential solutions to these challenges.