Environmental dispossession

I am currently taking a course through Coursera from Western University in Canada. The course is Connecting for Climate Change. It uses a two-eyed seeing approach to view climate change through Western and Indigenous science lenses. I think if you are new to this idea and want to learn more about both climate change and how Western and Indigenous perspectives can be different from each other and also support each other it is a good course. Anyway, the topic of environmental dispossession came up and thought it was worth spending a post discussing.

First, my positionality is as a white settler woman in what is known as Canada. I am very connected to the natural environment and believe that concepts like reciprocity and the rights of the Earth need to be part of how we interact with the world.

Environmental dispossession is “the processes through which Aboriginal peoples access to the resources of their traditional environments is reduced” (Richmond and Ross, as cited by Tobias and Richmond, 2014). This has happened through physically moving Indigenous peoples off of their traditional lands through things like Treaties and reserves. It also happens through environmental contamination, forced assimilation (like residential schools), and resource extraction.

In the study by Tobias and Richmond (2014) they interviewed Elders in two Anishinaabe communities in Ontario, Canada. What they found was that the Elders talked about changes in health and well-being that were related to reduced access to traditional foods and the difficulty of participating in cultural practices including land-based practices. This resulted in emotional and spiritual harm, eroded cultural pride, and made it difficult to transfer Indigenous knowledge to younger generations.

However, the Elders emphasized their past and ongoing resilience. Resistance and resilience to the ongoing efforts by industry and government to dispossess them of their lands. But they are working to maintain and encourage ceremony, language revitalization, community and land connection, and traditional food collection. They emphasized that these practices and efforts are rooted in the land.

This requires a shift from a western view of resilience. Often resilience is framed as something that is within an individual. But these Elders emphasize the importance of community and land for resilience. This speaks to the impact of environmental dispossession. But it also speaks to resilience, that in the face of this dispossession, the fact that they have remained resilience speaks to the strength of the connection.

I admit, the idea that resilience doesn’t have to come solely from within me is attractive, encouraging, and seems more honest. Spending time with the land when I’m having a rough day is powerful. Perhaps, this is just one more thing that we would benefit in learning from as settlers.