Situating Place‐Based, Community‐Engaged Watershed Research at Xwulqw'selu Sta'lo'

Xwulqw'selu Sta'lo' is a culturally significant and salmon‐bearing river facing significant challenges, which Cowichan Tribes and the British Columbia provincial government are addressing with a first‐of‐its‐kind watershed plan. Our research is deeply situated at Xwulqw'selu Sta'lo' and is grounded in interdisciplinary academic spheres of place‐based research, water monitoring and modeling, cogovernance and systems theory. Our project is an example of developing a deliberate, robust, and responsive community science project designed to engage community, impact decision‐making, and respectfully work together in place, on the land. We describe developing and initiating our project and share a visual representation of how we structure our project as “woven statements.” The five statements give our research project team a shared understanding and motivation and help us plan and make decisions. The statements can be visualized as vertical warps interwoven with research projects, goals, and partnerships as horizontal wefts. The warps and wefts mutually support each other since weaving gains strength where warp and weft meet, connect, and overlap. Key lessons include the importance of taking responsibility for positionality, knowledge, and relationships; the value of intention setting that reflects the context and the priorities of partners and community; and that projects can flourish if structured around the good present in community.