Clint is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, and his research explores the intersection of indigenous governance and indigenous environmental perspectives in settler state contexts. He studies the ability of indigenous nations to assert sovereignty over their lands and the extent to which this enables the perpetuation of unique ecological knowledges and practices. This overall outlook situates his long-term research agenda to develop a sovereignty-based political-ecological approach to indigenous environmental issues.
He has been working with Cherokee communities in Oklahoma since the summer of 2004, when he helped launch an applied ethnobotany program in the Cherokee Nation Office of Environmental Services. This ongoing initiative informs his broader research on Cherokee Nation environmental governance, political and environmental history, and traditional ecological knowledge. His book, Roots of Our Renewal: Ethnobotany and Cherokee Environmental Governance (2015, University of Minnesota Press), views these themes through the lens of the Cherokee Nation Medicine Keepers – a group of Cherokee elders and knowledge keepers in northeastern Oklahoma to whom he has served as a facilitator since their formation in 2008.
Future endeavors include research projects on environmental health in Indian Country as it pertains to both human and ecological well being, as well as the well being of the relationships between the two.