Decolonizing Sustainability Speaker Series
The Decolonizing Sustainability Speaker Series is intended to highlight and unpack intersections of settler colonialism, white supremacy, and systems of power/privilege/oppression within the discourse and rhetoric of contemporary sustainability, environmental, and climate change movements.
Learn more about this semester’s speaker series below. We hope to see you there!
Details of this semester’s talks are below. All talks will be held in person at the Native American Forum (BSS 162) from 5 - 6:30 PM.
February 29th: Dr. Aaron Gregory (Cal Poly Humboldt)
Future-Primitive: The High Stakes of Lithium Power
Thursday, February 29th, 5 - 6:30 PM, Native American Forum (BSS 162)
Bio: Dr. Aaron Gregory is a scholar of Science & Technology Studies (STS) and Assistant Professor with Native American Studies (NAS), conducting critical research situated at the nexus of energy, ecology and Indigeneity. Dr. Gregory received his Ph.D. from UC Berkeley with a focus on STS, Critical Infrastructure Studies and Critical Indigenous Studies. His current scholarship attends to the 'white gold rush' associated with lithium and the renewable energy revolution, exploring the agency, ontology and politics of kinship with lithium among state, technoscientific and Indigenous actors.
March 28th: Dr. Andrew Curley (Navajo Nation, University of Arizona)
Carbon Sovereignty: Exploring the Energy Transition in Native North America
Thursday, March 28th, 5 - 6:30 PM, Native American Forum (BSS 162)
Bio: Andrew Curley (Diné) is an Assistant Professor in the School of Geography, Development & Environment at the University of Arizona. Curley focuses on the everyday incorporation of Indigenous nations into colonial economies. Building on ethnographic research, his publications speak to how Indigenous communities understand coal, energy, land, water, infrastructure, and development in an era of energy transition and climate change.
April 25th: Dr. Wendy Makoons Geniusz (Cree and Métis, York University)
Decolonization is healing, and we all have a role to play
Thursday, April 25th, 5 - 6:30 PM, Native American Forum (BSS 162)
Bio: Dr. Wendy Makoons Geniusz is Professor of Decolonization and Indigeneity in the Sociology Department at York University. She is an Indigenous scholar, of Cree and Métis descent, raised with Ojibwe language in culture. Her mother’s family comes from Opaskwayak, the Pas, a reserve in Northern Manitoba and her father’s family is Polish. She is the author of Our Knowledge is Not Primitive: Decolonizing Anishinaabe Botanical Knowledge and the editor of Plants Have so Much to Give Us, All We Have To Do is Ask: Anishinaabe Botanical Teachings.
If you are unable to attend in person, we invite you to join these talks on Zoom at tinyurl.com/DSSSspring24.
Recordings of previous events in the Decolonizing Sustainability Speaker Series can be found here:
