Alternative Perspectives on Sustainability: Indigenous Knowledge and Methodologies

Indigenous knowledge (IK) is now recognized as being critical to the development of effective, equitable and meaningful strategies to address socio-ecological crises. However efforts to integrate IK and Western science frequently encounter difficulties due to different systems of knowledge production and underlying worldviews. New approaches are needed so that sustainability can progress on the terms that matter the most for the people involved. In this paper we discuss a case study from Aotearoa New Zealand where an indigenous community is in the process of renegotiating and enacting new indigenous-led approaches to address coupled socio-ecological crises. We reflect on novel methodological approaches that highlight the ways in which projects/knowledge are co-produced by a multiplicity of human and non-human actors. To this end we draw on conceptualizations of environmental ethics offered by indigenous scholars and propose alternative bodies of thought, methods, and practices that can support the wider sustainability agenda

Alternative Perspectives on Sustainability: Indigenous Knowledge and Methodologies

Indigenous knowledge (IK) is now recognized as being critical to the development of effective, equitable and meaningful strategies to address socio-ecological crises. However efforts to integrate IK and Western science frequently encounter difficulties due to different systems of knowledge production and underlying worldviews. New approaches are needed so that sustainability can progress on the terms that matter the most for the people involved. In this paper we discuss a case study from Aotearoa New Zealand where an indigenous community is in the process of renegotiating and enacting new indigenous-led approaches to address coupled socio-ecological crises. We reflect on novel methodological approaches that highlight the ways in which projects/knowledge are co-produced by a multiplicity of human and non-human actors. To this end we draw on conceptualizations of environmental ethics offered by indigenous scholars and propose alternative bodies of thought, methods, and practices that can support the wider sustainability agenda

Decolonising Blue Spaces in the Anthropocene

This open access book crosses disciplinary boundaries to connect theories of environmental justice with Indigenous people’s experiences of freshwater management and governance. It traces the history of one freshwater crisis – the degradation of Aotearoa New Zealand’s Waipā River– to the settler-colonial acts of ecological dispossession resulting in intergenerational injustices for Indigenous Māori iwi (tribes). The authors draw on a rich empirical base to document the negative consequences of imposing Western knowledge, worldviews, laws, governance and management approaches onto Māori and their ancestral landscapes and waterscapes. Importantly, this book demonstrates how degraded freshwater systems can and are being addressed by Māori seeking to reassert their knowledge, authority, and practices of kaitiakitanga (environmental guardianship). Co-governance and co-management agreements between iwi and the New Zealand Government, over the Waipā River, highlight how Māori are envisioning and enacting more sustainable freshwater management and governance, thus seeking to achieve Indigenous environmental justice (IEJ). The book provides an accessible way for readers coming from a diversity of different backgrounds, be they academics, students, practitioners or decision-makers, to develop an understanding of IEJ and its applicability to freshwater management and governance in the context of changing socio-economic, political, and environmental conditions that characterise the Anthropocene

Human Dimensions of the Frederick City Watershed

Final project for CONS670 Conservation Biology (Fall 2014). Sustainable Development and Conservation Biology, University of Maryland, College Park.The Frederick City Watershed is a multi-use property with the primary function of providing clean water for The City of Frederick, but also provides many opportunities for recreation. Our research focused on analyzing the historical and current human dimensions of the Frederick City Watershed to inform management decisions. To better understand the makeup of recreational user groups and their impact on the watershed, both interviews and surveys were conducted. Interviews with Frederick City Watershed stakeholders provided historical context related to land use activities, forest cover, wetland modification, native species distribution, and management decisions. The surveys of recreational users imparted a better understanding of use and perceptions of the Frederick City Watershed. From the surveys and interviews, eight main topics of interest were identified for further discussion: user group demographics, environmental concerns, trail signage, trail conditions, garbage and illegal dumping, invasive species, forest purpose, and safety. Public perception on each of these topics is expanded through quantitative survey data and user comments within the report. We recommend creating a Recreation Management Plan for the Frederick City Watershed geared toward the multi-user group community. Besides the watershed’s primary function as a source of high quality water, survey responses and user comments can be used to pinpoint the areas of greatest concern to the majority of users and help narrow the focus of the Recreation Management Plan to the most pressing issues facing the Frederick City Watershed.The City of Frederic

The Grizzly, November 6, 2003

Ursinus to Take its Place in the Future • Sticks and Stones: Hate Speech on Campus • Students Bug Out after Insect Invasion • Election Day: Mud Slinging and Politics • Look Back at October: Breast Cancer Month • Opinions: OCD: Harmless Passions or Medical Disorder?; Struggling with OCD, the Disorder; Finding Ways to Cope with the Parting of a Pet; Rush Limbaugh: Another Conservative Hypocrite; Pot Smoking Equals Lower Stamina?; Registering Online: An Extreme Inconvenience • Poet Comes to U.C. • Careers in Criminology and Investigation • Meet Dr. Kozusko: The New Shakespeare Professor • Perceptions of Greeks in the Media, UC • Greek Life Fifty Years Ago • Rushing: Is it for You? • Despite Loss, UC Football Team Remains Hopeful • UC XC Competes in Centennial Conference Championship • UC XC Holds 18th Annual Bear Pack Run 5K • Athletic Profile: Katie Dougherty • Women\u27s Rugby Team Makes History • UC Soccer Updateshttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/grizzlynews/1547/thumbnail.jp

Decolonising Flooding and Risk Management: Indigenous Peoples, Settler Colonialism, and Memories of Environmental Injustices

This paper examines the history of settler-colonialism and how settler-colonial-led policies and projects to remake the landscapes and waterscapes of Aotearoa New Zealand resulted in the production of Indigenous environmental injustices. Underpinned by theorising on ecological justice and decolonisation, we draw on archival sources and oral histories of Māori and Pākehā (European) individuals living in a single river catchment—the Waipā River—to trace how actions to remove native vegetation, drain wetlands, introduce exotic biota, and re-engineer waterways contributed to intensifying incidence of floods. While Pākehā settlers interpreted environmental transformation as inherently positive, Indigenous Māori perceived it as profoundly negative, a form of ecological dispossession. We demonstrate that while Pākehā narrated floods as disaster events, Māori viewed colonisation as the true disaster, with floods and fires merely products of settlers’ mistreatment of the environment. Moreover, the colonial government’s efforts to control floods resulted in Māori being further alienated from and losing access to their rohe (ancestral lands and waters) and witnessing the destruction of their taonga (treasures including forests, wetlands, and sacred sites). For Māori of the Waipā catchment, flood risk management regimes were far more destructive (socially, economically and spiritually) than flood events

Current Issues with Cataloging Printed Music: Challenges Facing Staff and Systems

This paper explores the challenges currently faced by music cataloguers, with particular regard to their training and the systems they work with. It asks whether music catalogers feel they have enough support and training to do their work; it investigates the skills they require, and how they might be taught. It also examines whether systems need to be adapted to suit printed music. The project focuses on staff responsible for cataloging printed music at music libraries in the UK (public, academic, legal deposit and specialist). Here, the term “cataloger” refers to any member of staff who catalogs printed music

Decolonising Blue Spaces in the Anthropocene

This open access book crosses disciplinary boundaries to connect theories of environmental justice with Indigenous people’s experiences of freshwater management and governance. It traces the history of one freshwater crisis – the degradation of Aotearoa New Zealand’s Waipā River– to the settler-colonial acts of ecological dispossession resulting in intergenerational injustices for Indigenous Māori iwi (tribes). The authors draw on a rich empirical base to document the negative consequences of imposing Western knowledge, worldviews, laws, governance and management approaches onto Māori and their ancestral landscapes and waterscapes. Importantly, this book demonstrates how degraded freshwater systems can and are being addressed by Māori seeking to reassert their knowledge, authority, and practices of kaitiakitanga (environmental guardianship). Co-governance and co-management agreements between iwi and the New Zealand Government, over the Waipā River, highlight how Māori are envisioning and enacting more sustainable freshwater management and governance, thus seeking to achieve Indigenous environmental justice (IEJ). The book provides an accessible way for readers coming from a diversity of different backgrounds, be they academics, students, practitioners or decision-makers, to develop an understanding of IEJ and its applicability to freshwater management and governance in the context of changing socio-economic, political, and environmental conditions that characterise the Anthropocene

Diversifying Indigenous Vulnerability and Adaptation: An Intersectional Reading of Māori Women’s Experiences of Health, Wellbeing, and Climate Change

Despite evidence that Indigenous peoples’ multiple subjectivities engender diverse lived experiences both between and within Indigenous groups, the influence of multiple subjectivities on Indigenous peoples’ vulnerability and adaptation to climate change is largely un-explored. Drawing on ethnographic research with Indigenous Māori women in Aotearoa New Zealand, this paper provides empirical evidence that subjectivity-mediated power dynamics operating within Indigenous societies (at the individual and household scale) are important determinants of vulnerability and adaptation which should be considered in both scholarship and policy. Using an intersectional framework, I demonstrate how different Māori women and their whānau (families) live, cope with, and adapt to the embodied physical and emotional health effects of climate change in radically different ways because of their subject positionings, even though they belong to the same community, hapū (sub-tribe), or iwi (tribe). In underlining these heterogenous experiences, I provide an avenue for reconsidering how climate adaptation scholarship, policies, and practices might better engage with the complex, amorphous realities within Māori and other Indigenous communities. I argue it is possible to develop more inclusive, tailored, and sustainable adaptation that considers divergent vulnerabilities and adaptive capacities within Indigenous communities, groups, and societies and supports customised vulnerability-reduction strategies