Indigenous Sustainability & Environmental Justice
Indigenous peoples are among the major architects of environmental movements focusing on sustainability and environmental justice. But whereas many environmentalists focus on restoring or conserving historic ecosystems, Indigenous peoples inhabit landscapes largely altered by different forms of colonialism and the capitalist exploitation of natural resources. For Indigenous peoples, environmental justice, climate change resilience, food sovereignty, and ecological restoration take on different meanings than traditionally have been priorities in other environmental movements and sciences. This course seeks to understand, from Indigenous perspectives, how many Indigenous movements, Indigenous sciences and knowledge systems, and the projects of Indigenous organizations and governments seek to achieve environmental justice and sustainability, including the challenges they face and the lessons they have learned. The course covers topics within domains of Indigenous sciences and knowledge systems, Indigenous environmental activism and decolonial philosophies, Indigenous research, Indigenous ecologies, and Indigenous legal orders and issues in law and policy.