Indigenous Climate Knowledges and Data Sovereignty

02/22/21 • 88 min

In this episode of Warm Regards, we talk to two Indigenous scientists about traditional ecological knowledges and their relationship with climate and environmental data. In talking with James Rattling Leaf, Sr. and Krystal Tsosie, Jacquelyn and Ramesh discuss how these ideas can challenge Western notions of relationality and ownership, how they have been subject to the long history of extraction and exploitation of Indigenous communities (practices which continue today), but also how Indigenous scientists and activists link sovereignty over data created by and for Indigenous people to larger sovereignty demands. You can find a transcript of this episode on our Medium page: https://ourwarmregards.medium.com/indigenous-climate-knowledges-and-data-sovereignty-4fc756b9476e James Rattling Leaf, Sr. North Central Climate Adaptation Science Center https://nccasc.colorado.edu Rising Voices: https://risingvoices.ucar.edu GEO Indigenous Alliance https://earthobservations.org/indigenoussummit2020.php Oceti Sakowin http://aktalakota.stjo.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=8309 https://americanindian.si.edu/nk360/plains-belonging-nation/oceti-sakowin Tribal Climate Leaders Program: https://cires.colorado.edu/news/tribal-climate-leaders-program Krystal Tsosie You can follow her on Twitter: https://twitter.com/kstsosie Native BioData Consortium https://nativebio.org United States Indigenous Data Sovereignty Network https://usindigenousdata.org CARE Principle for Indigenous Data Governance https://datascience.codata.org/articles/10.5334/dsj-2020-043/ Finally, you can listen to Good Fire at their website or wherever you get your podcasts: https://yourforestpodcast.com/good-fire-podcast Further reading: Several of Kyle Whyte’s papers informed out team’s understanding as we prepared this episode: Indigenous Climate Change Studies: Indigenous Futures, Decolonizing the Anthropocene https://kylewhyte.marcom.cal.msu.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2018/07/IndigenousClimateChangeStudies.pdf Indigenous Lessons About Sustainability Are Not Just “For All Humanity” https://kylewhyte.marcom.cal.msu.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2018/07/IndigenousInsightsintoSustainabilityarenotforAllHumanity.pdf Too late for indigenous climate justice: Ecological and relational tipping points https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/wcc.603 Dominique M. David-Chavez and Michael C. Gavin, A global assessment of Indigenous community engagement in climate research. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aaf300/meta Eve Tuck & Wayne Wang 2012, Decolonization is not a metaphor https://clas.osu.edu/sites/clas.osu.edu/files/Tuck%20and%20Yang%202012%20Decolonization%20is%20not%20a%20metaphor.pdf For more on how climate change impacts Shishmaref, see Elizabeth Marino’s book, Fierce Climate Sacred Ground: https://www.alaska.edu/uapress/browse/detail/index.xml?id=528 Scott Kalafatis et al., Ensuring climate services serve society: examining tribes’ collaborations with climate scientists using a capability approach: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-019-02429-2 Institute for Tribal Environmental Professionals http://www7.nau.edu/itep/main This Teen Vogue article is a nice introduction to land acknowledgements https://www.teenvogue.com/story/indigenous-land-acknowledgement-explained For more on the Land Back movement: https://landback.org/ This Flash Forward episode (with lots of links for further reading) https://www.flashforwardpod.com/2020/11/10/land-back/ The 2Land2Furious project by the Métis in Space podcast creators https://briarpatchmagazine.com/articles/view/back-2-the-land-2land-2furious http://www.metisinspace.com Jacquelyn would especially like to thank Katherine Crocker, who has deeply influenced her own thinking about Indigenous sovereignty and ethical partnerships. Check out her essay, Cricket Egg Stories: http://carte-blanche.org/hiyoge-owisisi-tanga-ita-cricket-egg-stories/

Previous Episode

Adapting and Moving in a Warming World, with Beth Gibbons and Dr. Jola Ajibade

This episode of Warm Regards focuses on two more facets of decision making based on data about how the climate is changing. We first talk to Beth Gibbons, the Executive Director of the American Society of Adaptation Professionals. Beth talks to us about the different ways that people working in the field of climate adaptation use climate data to plan for present and future climate conditions, including the different consequences of climate change (sea level rise, water shortages, stronger storms, and more). We also discuss how adaptation efforts can respond to and work to alleviate historical inequalities that make climate change worse for marginalized communities. Next, Jacquelyn and Ramesh talk with Dr. Jola Ajibade, an Assistant Professor of Geography at Portland State University. Dr. Ajibade’s work looks at not just the importance of how we talk about different forms of climate migration (such as planned retreat, managed retreat, and others) but also how it has taken different forms around the world, with uneven levels of success and equity for the individuals and communities moving due to climate change. You can find a transcript of this episode on our Medium page: https://ourwarmregards.medium.com/adapting-and-moving-in-a-warming-world-with-elizabeth-gibbons-and-dr-jola-ajibade-f889dbffcbd1 What is climate adaptation, and how has it been neglected? https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2019/12/what-is-climate-change-adaptation-and-why-does-it-matter/ For more on how adaptation has been neglected: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/10/adaptation-is-the-poor-cousin-of-climate-change-policy Adaptation isn’t surrender, it’s survival: https://www.wired.com/story/climate-adaptation-isnt-surrender-its-survival/ What is climate resilience? https://www.c2es.org/site/assets/uploads/2019/04/what-is-climate-resilience.pdf The case for managed retreat: https://www.politico.com/news/agenda/2020/07/14/climate-change-managed-retreat-341753 Equitable retreat: the need for fairness in coastal communities: https://e360.yale.edu/features/equitable-retreat-the-need-for-fairness-in-relocating-coastal-communities Climate migration on NHPR’s Outside/In Radio: http://outsideinradio.org/shows/climate-migration Beth Gibbons is the Executive DIrector of the American Society of Adaptation Professionals. https://adaptationprofessionals.org You can follow Beth on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ehgibb?lang=en You can also follow ASAP on Twitter: https://twitter.com/adaptpros Jola Ajibade is an Assistant Professor of Geography at Portland State University. You can learn more about her work at her website: https://sites.google.com/pdx.edu/idowu-ajibade/about And follow her on Twitter: @JolaAdapts Please consider becoming a patron on Patreon to help us pay our producer, Justin Schell, our transcriber, Joe Stormer, and our social media coordinator, Katherine Peinhardt, who are all working as volunteers. Your support helps us not only to stay sustainable, but also to grow. www.patreon.com/warmregards Find Warm Regards on the web and on social media: Web: www.WarmRegardsPodcast.com Twitter: @ourwarmregards Facebook: www.facebook.com/WarmRegardsPodcast

Next Episode

Building our Climate Futures Through Storytelling (Part 1), w/Eric Holthaus + Kim Stanley Robinson

In the first episode of our two-part finale of our season on climate data, we’re going to focus on fiction, not facts: specifically, on the world-building, future-crafting writers who tell stories to warn us, teach us, inspire us, and motivate us to work for the future of our choosing. In speaking with authors Eric Holthaus and Kim Stanley Robinson, they discuss how hope, empathy, and, of course, climate science and climate data, informed their most recent work, Eric’s The Future Earth and Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future. You can find a link to a full transcript of this episode on our Medium page: https://ourwarmregards.medium.com/building-our-climate-futures-through-storytelling-part-1-feat-5b2a8077e4b1 You can follow Eric Holthaus on Twitter: https://twitter.com/EricHolthaus You can read more about and purchase his book, The Future Earth, here: https://bookshop.org/books/the-future-earth-a-radical-vision-for-what-s-possible-in-the-age-of-warming/9780062883162 Finally, you can subscribe to Eric’s newsletter, The Phoenix, here: https://thephoenix.substack.com Kim Stanley (Stan) Robinson: You can read more about and purchase his book, The Ministry for the Future, here: https://bookshop.org/books/the-ministry-for-the-future/9780316300131 A comprehensive, though unofficial, website dedicated to Stan’s work: http://www.kimstanleyrobinson.info On the power of speculative and science fiction: ‘We’ve already survived an apocalypse’: Indigenous writers are changing Sci-Fi: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/14/books/indigenous-native-american-sci-fi-horror.html Afrofuturism, Africanfuturism, and the language of Black speculative literature: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/afrofuturism-africanfuturism-and-the-language-of-black-speculative-literature/ On climate fiction: Climate fiction: Can books save the planet? https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/08/climate-fiction-margaret-atwood-literature/400112/ The influence of climate fiction: an empirical survey of readers: https://read.dukeupress.edu/environmental-humanities/article/10/2/473/136689/The-Influence-of-Climate-FictionAn-Empirical The rise of apocalyptic novels: https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20210108-the-rise-of-apocalyptic-novels With the world on fire, climate fiction no longer looks like a fantasy: https://grist.org/climate/with-the-world-on-fire-climate-fiction-no-longer-looks-like-fantasy/ Amy Brady’s “Burning Worlds” column for the Chicago Review of Books: https://chireviewofbooks.com/category/burning-worlds/ On futurology: Smithsonian will celebrate 175 years with an exhibit about the future: https://www.npr.org/2021/03/01/972409626/smithsonian-will-celebrate-175-years-with-an-exhibit-about-the-future 10 ways science fiction predicted the future: https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/live-lessons/10-ways-science-fiction-predicted-future/z6dynrd Please consider becoming a patron on Patreon to help us pay our producer, Justin Schell, our transcriber, Jo Stormer, and our social media coordinator, Katherine Peinhardt, who are all working as volunteers. Your support helps us not only to stay sustainable, but also to grow. www.patreon.com/warmregards Find Warm Regards on the web and on social media: Web: www.WarmRegardsPodcast.com Twitter: @ourwarmregards Facebook: www.facebook.com/WarmRegardsPodcast