Julian Kunnie is a professor and Student of the Earth Mother and all life. He published his latest book, “The Earth Mother and the Assault of Capitalism: Living Sustainably with All Life” this past summer (July 2025). Julian’s research focuses on a wide range of social justice issues, from youth incarceration to ecological restoration to defending all Indigenous peoples and dispossessed communities against colonization and exploitation.
We talked to Julian about how corporate power threatens our survival, and how we can realign ourselves with the natural world and each other. Julian uses the “we” pronoun as part of the Indigenous tradition to recognize one’s innate connection to the Earth, all living beings, and our ancestors.
How would you describe your role in the social justice movement?
We’ve been an activist with so many others for more than 50 years: conducting presentations, recording films, and teaching students, writing books and articles, doing interviews, talk show programs, and visiting with and defending Indigenous communities worldwide. Focusing on decolonization, we educate our students and everyone about the Indigenous nations and peoples who have been here on Turtle Island (the traditional, Indigenous name for North America since time immemorial, in Africa, Asia, the Pacific, and the Caribbean and the southern part of the continent). We support the process of reclaiming Indigenous languages and cultures, and help people connect with the Earth and our Original Ancestors and the Beginningless and Endless Spiritual Universe.
You are part of the Reading Towards Corporate Accountability group. Why are groups like this important?
Change happens when small groups of people get together and empower each other. This reading group is a part of that. It’s given us the chance to take time to read, reflect, and discuss the roots of these oppressive systems, and these ongoing, violent conflicts that dehumanize people on their own land. This allows us to more fully engage in movements for liberation and decolonization.
What concerns you the most about the role that corporations play in the world?
Corporate power is at the root of many interlocking issues: racism, sexism, and discrimination against people with different abilities, religions, and sexualities. It’s all encapsulated under a system of colonization and control, where corporations claim control over languages, lands, and peoples. Corporations have also turned everything – from people to natural resources – into commodities.
That’s why Corporate Accountability’s work to educate people about corporate abuse and deceit, and to organize strategic actions that affect corporations’ bottom line, is critical.
We are living in a very difficult and unprecedented time. How are you moving through this moment?
It’s important to remind ourselves that the actions of the current administration are designed to confuse people. It’s not just a question of Musk or Trump. It’s about the dysfunctional system that is centered on oppression and exploitation of the vulnerable and colonized for money and driven by war, hence the militarized national security state.
To move through this time, we must stay rooted. Making space to nurture a spiritual foundation is critical for all activists. A few ways that we do that are to get together with other people in our community and pray with the Earth Mother and the Spiritual Universe, so we understand reality and are protected against demonic principalities and entities, all ephemeral comparatively. We also need to observe the rest of nature since we are a part of and are nature, from the birds taking care of each other to the ants collaborating to build massive anthills.
We must remember that our lives are fleeting: We are accountable to the Earth, and one day we will inevitably become dust and return to Her/Them.
