A video of this talk is available here!
The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s effort to block the Dakota Access Pipeline is among the most recent Indigenous-led movements connected to climate justice. Dr. Whyte provides an overview of the many different Indigenous-led efforts to achieve climate justice. Indigenous efforts have ranged from direct confrontations against extractive industries to policy work at international and national levels to knowledge networks seeking to reform climate science to innovations at the level of local practical planning processes designed to use traditional knowledge systems as strategies for adaptation and vulnerability assessment. Dr. Whyte also explores some of the more theoretical aspects of Indigenous contributions to climate justice relevant to people working in Indigenous studies, climate science, decolonial theory and research, and environmental studies.
Dr. Kyle Whyte (Potawatomi) holds the Timnick Chair in the Humanities at Michigan State University. He is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Community Sustainability, a faculty member of the Environmental Philosophy & Ethics graduate concentration, and a faculty affiliate of the American Indian Studies and Environmental Science & Policy programs. His primary research addresses moral and political issues concerning climate policy and Indigenous peoples and the ethics of cooperative relationships between Indigenous peoples and climate science organizations.
