“In a time in which climate change is increasingly disrupting our ecosystems—along with food and shelter security in so many communities—we need all knowledge sources available if we are to adapt” ‐R.G. Daniel, (2019)

The compounding societal and environmental crises of the Anthropocene necessitate a more holistic, critical and systems understanding of our relationship to and with the earth surface. We are now aware that every landscape is touched by man, a mosaic of recorded artifacts of historical human activity. These effects emerge from distinct perspectives that require global, local, and complex frameworks of inquiry. In order to address the braided realities of this age, geomorphologists need to embrace diverse ways of knowing, most especially indigenous, local and place-based knowledges of landscapes and our role in shaping them. We need to examine how a singular, objective standpoint in the scientific process privileges determinism over other ways of seeing and being. In this commentary, I argue that the discipline of geomorphology as it is commonly practiced in the Global North is ill-suited to address the crises of the Anthropocene. In order to reorient the discipline towards a more ethical and societally-relevant role, we need to seek and integrate place-based, local and situated perspectives into the scientific work of understanding the landscapes we are working in, particularly as so many of the communities most impacted by these changing landscapes are the least involved in guiding our scientific efforts and outcomes.