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Environmental Education

Home » Environmental Education

Disaster Capitalism, Settler Colonialism, and Indigenous Environmental Justice in the Covid-19 Pandemic

Alexandra Curran (2025)

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic was experienced by nearly every person around the world. However, while the pandemic was borne by everyone, the weight of everyone’s burden was not equal and was heavily influenced by preexisting inequalities and harmful social structures. As they have in the past, Indigenous peoples in Canada, as well as around the world, experienced disproportionate impacts and losses from this most recent crisis. This may be largely connected to the ongoing presence of settler colonial ideologies and structures which, among other issues, resulted in a lack of necessary infrastructure needed to manage the pandemic within First Nations, as well as a patronizing disregard for Indigenous pandemic decision-making. In conjunction, disaster capitalism ensued throughout the pandemic, a practice defined by Naomi Klein as the exploitation of crises by the powerful to further their own agendas, which worked to further compound and hinder Indigenous efforts to ensure community safety and well-being. However, First Nations nonetheless determinedly asserted their self-determination, challenging harmful decision-making and prioritizing community well-being. 

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Bycatch Fish, Indigenous Fisheries And Market Failure In Manitoba

Gerald McKay, Melanie O’Gorman, Steph McLachlan, Alex Keoni Oldroyd and Maya Rad-Spice (forthcoming) (2023)

Book Chapter in ‘Thinking Big about Small-Scale Fisheries in Canada’, TBTI Global Publication Series, St. John’s, NL,Canada.

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Damming Rainy Lake And The Ongoing Production Of Hydrocolonialism In The Us-Canada Boundary Waters

Johann Strube and Kimberley Anh Thomas (2021)

Abstract: Transboundary water governance between the United States and Canada – a historically described as cooperative and harmonious – has been instrumental to Settler colonialism and the dispossession of Indigenous peoples around the Great Lakes. At Rainy Lake, on the border between the American state of Minnesota and the Canadian province of Ontario, transboundary water governance supported a binational, Settler colonial joint venture through which European-descended Settlers established themselves in this area. It allowed for the construction of hydroelectric dams that enabled industrial development but also damaged ecosystems and species on which local Ojibwe and Métis communities depended, particularly the lake’s wild rice (Zizania palustris) stands. We reconceptualise transboundary water governance in the region by expanding the framework of hydro-hegemony to include relations between Canada, the United States, and Indigenous Nations. By recognising Indigenous Nations and Settler colonial states as having equal status in political negotiations around the use of water, our analysis reveals negative hydro-hegemony between the United States and Canada on one side, and Indigenous Nations on the other. We advance hydrocolonialism as a framework for describing these relationships. Hydrocolonialism persists through the ongoing exclusion of Indigenous Nations from nation-to-nation diplomacy; this exclusion is particularly embedded in the functioning of the 1909 Boundary Waters Treaty and the International Joint Commission which it established.

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Land-Based Learning: Building Bridges Between Indigenous Knowledge And Western Science

Tanjina Tahsin (2021)

Abstract: Indigenous communities look for learning opportunities that reflect and build on their cultural traditions, land-based experiences, and worldviews. Western science contrasts with Indigenous ways of learning and knowing since it is more quantitative, analytical and based on experimentation. Yet Indigenous students continue to be underrepresented in the scientific disciplines. One way of addressing such gaps is to bridge the two knowledge systems in ways that simultaneously affirm the importance of both. The research aims to explore how Indigenous knowledge and science might be better integrated and intends to build capacity around both science and traditional culture among Indigenous youth using land-based learning camps. It was combined with participatory action research (PAR) and Indigenous methodology and uses “two-eyed seeing” as a guiding principle in that no one worldview is allowed to dominate over the other. In summer 2019, four camps were conducted across Manitoba (in Brokenhead Ojibway Nation, Keeseekoowenin Ojibway First Nation, Sagkeeng First Nation, and O-Pipon-Na-Piwin Cree Nation) and one in northwestern Ontario (in Couchiching First Nation). The land-based camps prioritized local environmental issues and community engagement by ensuring true and meaningful participation at all stages of the camp and provided Indigenous communities with the opportunity to share the power of knowledge production. Scientists, Elders and knowledge keepers shared their own insights, mostly focusing on local declines in water quality. Camps were generally well received by all host communities. Final reports that provided the outcomes of scientific testing in accessible and impactful ways were especially useful, although they might have better represented Elder teachings. These camps represent a valuable opportunity for communities to build their capacity in the sciences while also affirming the importance of cultural traditions and community aspirations. In so doing, the camps represent an important way of lessening the education gap and of further developing community resilience when it comes to protecting their environments and cultural traditions alike.

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Trends and Prospects for Local Knowledge in Ecological and Conservation Research and Monitoring

Ryan K Brook & Stephane M. McLachlań (2008)

Abstract: Local ecological knowledge (LEK) of those who earn their livelihoods from natural environments has long been recognized as providing far-reaching insights into ecological processes. It is being increasingly used by ecologists to address diverse questions that often focus on applied conservation issues and may incorporate local knowledge with biological data from more conventional research and monitoring. We characterize how LEK has been used in the ecological and conservation literature over the last 25 years by broadly examining 360 journals and by evaluating 12 prominent ecological and conservation journals in greater detail. Over this period, the use of LEK has increased considerably, although only 0.01% of papers in the broad and 0.42% of those in the more detailed evaluation incorporated LEK. Despite this increase, LEK-based publications remain nearly absent from the more established theoretical literature and are largely restricted to more recent and arguably less prestigious applied and interdisciplinary journals. Most LEK studies used interviews, but generally failed to actively include community members in the research process. Changes to the research and publishing process that include local people and address these shortcomings and the broader issues of power and influence in the sciences are critical to the successful utilization of LEK. These changes are necessary for the appropriate depiction of these knowledge systems and to ensure that local knowledge holders will continue participating in ecological research aimed at conservation.

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Transformative Research as Knowledge Mobilization- Transmedia, Bridges, and Layers

Colin R. Anderson & Stephane M. McLachlań

Abstract: Mainstream knowledge production and communication in the academy generally reflect the tenets of positivist research and predominantly embody hierarchical processes of knowledge transfer. In contrast, a transformative research paradigm is rooted in knowledge mobilization processes involving close collaboration between researchers and community actors as co-enquirers as a part of a broader agenda for progressive social change. They also involve strategic communication strategies that mobilize knowledge beyond those directly involved in the research process. We illustrate the cyclical pattern and transgressive potential of knowledge mobilization processes through a reflective case study of a participatory action research program in the Canadian Prairies. Based on this work, we present three key knowledge mobilization strategies. These include: using transmedia to exchange knowledge across a range of communication media; building bridges to invite communication amongst diverse knowledge communities; and layering to communicate knowledge at varying levels of detail.We critically examine our own practice as a contested and partial process in tension with the institutional and cultural durability of the more linear knowledge transfer paradigm. Knowledge mobilization strategies provide a framework to implement research methods, communication processes, and outcomes that are high in impact and relevant in struggles for a more just and resilient society.

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