Weekly Round-Up, January 7, 2023
January 7, 2023
A lot has been happening lately across Turtle Island. We know it can be hard to keep up, so we’ve compiled a list of news, events, and big stories related to Indigeneity and the climate crisis.
Opportunities
Writer, The Circle
Deadline: January 16, 2023
The Circle on Philanthropy recently launched a new project that’s the first of its kind: The Feast House. The Feast House is a place to celebrate Indigenous abundance and uplift Indigenous authority and sovereignty. The Circle is looking for a writer to work with our kin and develop 20 organizational profiles, including photos, to add to the Feast House, amplifying the vision and value of Indigenous-led organizations across the lands called canada.
Events + Training
Decolonizing the Human: an Introduction to Sylvia Wynter
Monday, 6:30-9:30 pm ET | January 30 — February 20, 2023
In this course, we will survey Wynter’s complex body of work, with special attention to what she calls the “sociogenic principle,” borrowed from Fanon’s insight that all phenomena must be approached as socially produced, not ontologically given. How does Wynter analyze the racial and religious demarcation of humanness historically, and how does she understand the importance of myth-making and story-telling in a vital reconfiguration of it?
News + Announcements
"What is Regeneration?" - a short film from Damon Gameau, Nick Maher and the "2040" team
"What is Regeneration?" is a 5-minute short film and a rousing call to action to join a global movement of Regenerators who are working to heal our ecosystems. The film features climate action leaders: Jeff Bridges, Damon Gameau, Christiana Figueres, Paul Hawken, Kate Raworth, George Monbiot, Aliya Flores, Joseph Sikulu, Tishiko King, Hannah Diviney, Yasmin Honeychurch, Juma Xipaia, Isaias Hernandez, Kristy Drutman, Arshak Makichyan, Daniel Appiah, Adenike Oladosu, Anna Kernahan, Hannah Dines, Chhaya Bhanti, Pattie Gonia, AY Young, Clover Hogan, Anjali Sharma, Eli Bramborova, Tomas Brambora, Neel Tamhane, Eriel Tchekwie Deranger, Kevin Ossah & Isabella Villanueva-García.
Here are 3 places to watch the Land Back movement unfold in 2023
January 7, 2023
"To us, it's an international symbol of white supremacy because each one of those men on there were responsible for the persecution, the murder, the genocide of Indigenous people and ultimately the stealing of our lands," said Nick Tilsen in an interview with Unreserved's Rosanna Deerchild in which she spoke with four leaders within the Indigenous-led Land Back movement — from northern Manitoba to Hawaii to the Black Hills of South Dakota. The movement, which has gained momentum in recent years, calls for the acknowledgement and return of Indigenous sovereignty over traditional territories.
Research collaborative prioritizes Indigenous knowledge to better protect wild rice
January 2, 2023
Joe Graveen with the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa has been harvesting wild rice for nearly 35 years in northern Wisconsin.
Once collected, Graveen, the tribe’s wild rice program manager, said he and his family begin the process of "dancing" the rice. A hole is made in the ground, sometimes lined with canvas along with a wooden barrel. The rice is then placed inside and the barrel is used as a frame for family members to grasp while dancing the hulls from the rice. Weather permitting, his family later sets the rice on canvas to dry in the sun for a day or two before using red pine stumps to parch or roast it.
First Nations University of Canada using Indigenous knowledge for new high school science lessons
January 2, 2023
A new science teaching resource developed by the First Nations University of Canada (FNUniv) is bringing together Indigenous knowledge and modern science. It's called the National Science Laboratory Video Lessons for Indigenous Youth. The material includes interviews with elders and knowledge keepers, laboratory manuals and videos for high school biology, chemistry and physics classes.
'This is Ktunaxa' Indigenous elder and Order of Canada recipient Sophie Pierre on a lifetime of leadership and change in B.C.‘s Kootenays.
December 31, 2022
When Sophie Pierre was growing up, she says Indigenous people were referred to in the past tense. Today, the Ktunaxa flag flies proudly over her community. Pierre herself is, first and foremost, Ktunaxa. She was born and raised in Ktunaxa near Cranbrook, B.C., and has lived there all her life. She’s a mother and grandmother, a daughter and an elder.
Something Shared with the Future: Indigenous Land Defenders at COP15
December 29, 2022
Nii Lax Aks, Denzel Sutherland-Wilson (Gitxsan) is one of a group of west coast Indigenous youth who travelled to the COP15 meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity. They went to speak about their land reoccupation work, and how Indigenous sovereignty protects biodiversity. He prepared for the trip in the forest, gathering cedar to make smudge sticks.
'Our language is still here': Revitalizing Indigenous languages in the North
December 29, 2022
From legislative chambers to classrooms, and on the radio and TV, Indigenous languages are spoken and heard every day across the North thanks to dedicated elders, teachers, translators and broadcasters.
Jeela Palluq-Cloutier, who has long worked as an Inuktitut teacher and translator in Nunavut, said she learned the language from her unilingual parents while growing up in Igloolik.
“Keekagin, the thing you look for to steer when you are lost”: Healing and Building at Barriere Lake
December 27, 2022
For the third and final instalment of In the Postcolony, a three-year thematic series facilitated through the CCA Master’s Students Program, we undertook a collaborative research project with community members of the Algonquins of Barriere Lake First Nation and Shiri Pasternak, ally of Barriere Lake and a faculty member in Criminology at Toronto Metropolitan University. The research responds to the community’s current initiative to build a multipurpose healing centre on their territory. The community lives on a fifty-nine-acre reserve roughly three hours north of Ottawa, in what is now known as the Outaouais region of Quebec, though their traditional territories extend for seventeen thousand square kilometres.
Can we stop the sixth extinction?
December 22, 2022
The words of United Nations Secretary General António Guterres couldn’t have been starker:
“We are waging a war on nature. Ecosystems have become playthings of profit. Human activities are laying waste to once-thriving forests, jungles, farmland, oceans, rivers, seas and lakes. Our land, water and air are poisoned by chemicals and pesticides, and choked with plastics. The addiction to fossil fuels has thrown our climate into chaos. Unsustainable production and monstrous consumption habits are degrading our world. Humanity has become a weapon of mass extinction … with a million species at risk of disappearing forever.”
Major U.N. Biodiversity Deal Recognizes Indigenous Rights But Lacks Critical Enforcement Measures
December 21, 2022
More than 190 countries agreed Monday on a plan to preserve 30% of the planet's lands and waters by 2030 in order to protect biodiversity, which is rapidly declining due to human activity. The agreement was reached at a United Nations biodiversity conference in Montreal, Canada, known as COP15. The United States did not formally participate in negotiations because it is not a signatory to the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity. The landmark agreement seeks to halt the Earth's sixth major mass extinction event, and Indigenous communities will have an increased role in protecting wildlife as part of the deal. For more on the historic agreement, we speak with Leila Salazar-López of Amazon Watch and Eriel Tchekwie Deranger with Indigenous Climate Action.