Regeneration has become one of the most commercialized and co-opted terms of the 21st century. It is commonly used to market a plethora of ventures that greenwash extractive and colonial land relations, sell products and settler ways of life, and envision alternatives that may delink from one system but reproduce others.
However, the Spanish term regeneración has been a rebellious political concept, philosophy, and battle cry for over a hundred years. In this context,regeneración developed as a rejection of eugenics that connected movements engaged in anti-racism, abolition of slavery and mass incarceration, and decolonial resistances rooted in Indigenous and fugitive land relations.
The Regeneración Lab is grounded in this older, otherwise meaning of the term that emerged in the late nineteenth century and inspired the 1910 Mexican revolution. Our regenerative work centers community-based research justice, creative-critical practices, and decolonial praxis.
Projects
Reclaiming Homelands: Indigenous North San Diego County
collaborative project with Payómkawichum and Kumeyaay youth to recover the Indigenous place-names of the North San Diego County “Mission Trail”, part of the UC Critical Mission Studies Initiative.
→ View ProjectMuseum of Us Exhibit – O’odham Land Acknowledgement
A response to the impacts of border militarization and deaths of migrants in the Sonoran desert with O’odham perspectives and Indigenous histories of colonial occupation and partition. Up now as part of the exhibit Hostile Terrain ‘94 at the Museum of Us in San Diego, CA.
→ Visit ExhibitResearch Justice
More information about our framework for community-based research praxis featuring a TEDx talk, scholarly publications, and links to resources.
→ Learn MoreO’odham and Yoeme of the Colorado River & Gila River Confluence
A community-based research initiative with the descendants of O’odham, Yoeme, and other lower Colorado River region Indigenous communities.
→ ExploreSafiya Henderson Holmes Black Arts & Radicalism Archive
A research justice and critical archival praxis collaboration with the family of acclaimed Black Arts Movement poet Safiya Henderson Holmes to preserve and digitize her manuscripts, papers, and a wide array of Black feminist, radical movement, and arts ephemera.
→ ExploreIndigenous Border Studies
A popular education platform offering thematic modules, scholarly research, readings, films, and community dialogue centering Indigenous perspectives on borders, sovereignty, and movement.
→ ExploreCollaborations
Water Justice & Technology
A gathering place for research, stories, art, and calls to action that critically confront the ways that technology intersects with water.
→ DiscoverCIEJ: Center for Interdisciplinary Environmental Justice
A collective of scholars, artists, scientists, outdoors practitioners, and parents engaged in feminist decolonial science for climate justice.
→ Learn MoreFinding Ceremony
A descendant community-controlled reparationist process, restoring the lineages of care, reverence and spiritual memory to the work of caring for our dead and decolonizing museums.
→ VisitRecent Updates
2025-2026 Reading Group: Critical Temporalities
Join the Regeneración Lab and the UCSB English Department Lit & Environment research center for an interdisciplinary reading group on time, space, and environment.
2025-2026 Scholar in Residence Announced
We're excited to welcome B.T. Werner as our 2025-2026 scholar in residence! B.T. (they / them) is a subversive physicist conducting transdisciplinary research into the ways that resistance movements affect relationships between societies and the More-Than-Human World.
Indigenous Border Studies – American Quarterly Special Issue Call for Papers
Support Our Work
Regeneración Lab operates through community support and grant funding. Your contribution helps us maintain this platform, support resident scholars, and keep these resources freely accessible.
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