Interwoven Rosewood: Collaborative Ecologies, Colonial Entanglements, and Indigenous Resistance by Julie Velásquez Runk, Wounaan National Congress, and Wounaan Local Congress of Majé (2026)

Interwoven Rosewood is a collaborative exploration of the global rosewood trade and its entanglements with Indigenous lifeways, colonial histories, and environmental crises. Co-authored by Julie Velásquez Runk and members of the Wounaan National Congress and its Local Congress of the Majé community, this book traces the story of cocobolo rosewood from Wounaan lands in Panama to international markets, revealing how centuries of settler colonialism and extractive capitalism continue to shape landscapes, livelihoods, and relationships. At its heart, the book is a meditation on well-being and belonging—how people live in relation to land, each other, and the more-than-human world.

Drawing on more than a decade of community-based research and six collaborative book workshops, the authors weave together first-person narratives, ecological analysis, historical context, and Indigenous knowledge. The result is a richly textured account that challenges dominant narratives of environmental degradation by centering Wounaan experiences of joy, resistance, and conviviality. The book’s structure reflects its method: interwoven chapters authored or spoken by Wounaan colleagues, grounded in consent protocols and shaped by ancestral storytelling traditions.

Accessibly written, Interwoven Rosewood is ideal for courses in environmental conservation, Indigenous studies, anthropology, Latin American studies, and political ecology. With its interdisciplinary reach and classroom-ready discussion questions, the book invites readers to reflect on the global forces behind environmental catastrophe—and the enduring power of Indigenous ways of knowing, being, and becoming.

About the authors:

Julie Velásquez Runk is director, professor, and Weigl Fellow in Environment and Sustainability Studies at Wake Forest University and a research associate at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Trained as an ecologist and an anthropologist and taught by Indigenous Wounaan, she has fostered socioecological research through community-based knowledge co-production for more than thirty years. She mixes social sciences, natural sciences, and the humanities, and authors and co-authors work for academic and nonacademic publics.

The Wounaan Podpa Nʌm Pömaam (Wounaan National Congress) is comprised of all Wounaan in urban and rural areas and the sixteen Wounaan communities in Darien and Panama Provinces of Panama. The Wounaan Podpa Nʌm Pömaam is the highest body of religious, cultural, and political-administrative expression, deliberation, and decision-making of Wounaan in Panama.

The Wir Haigpai Podpa Nʌm Majé (Wounaan Local Congress of Majé) is made up of members of the community of Majé and elected authorities.  It also is part of the Wounaan Podpa Nʌm Pömaam.