Indigenous Bodies of Evidence and Counter-Mapping in the "Green" Nuclear Archive

Jul 14, 2021  12:30PM

(GMT -7:00) Pacific Time

Event URL:  https://sppga.ubc.ca/events/event/indigenous-bodies-of-evidence-and-counter-mapping-in-the-green-nuclear-archive/?mc_cid=79c9c33
Cost:  Free

UBC Presents: Join us for this public event with Dr. ann-elise lewallen, Associate Professor, University of Victoria, Pacific and Asian Studies on Indigenous bodies of evidence and counter-mapping in the “green” nuclear archive.

How does our imagination of a climate-friendly future hinge on rebranding or even erasing our toxic past? What bodies of evidence are enrolled as “proof” to create archives of sustainable (i.e. health affirming) or toxic (i.e. health denying) energy choices?  Some environmentalists have touted the climate-cleansing benefits of “carbon neutral” solutions such as nuclear energy (James Hansen, for example). These claims often ignore the actual costs of nuclear fuel production, waste disposal, plant decommissioning, and troublingly, nuclear accidents. What’s more, rarely are the social, environmental, and human toll on Indigenous and minoritized peoples, their livelihoods and cultural dependence on local landscapes and more-than-human relatives, included in these calculations. Many Indigenous communities continue to grapple with a rash of debilitating public health impacts ranging from genetic and developmental concerns to chronic kidney and respiratory diseases, related to current or previous uranium mining. After discussing some of the evidence about these, I will explore recent Indigenous strategies to counter the “green energy” archive enlisted to promote nuclear energy.

Through invoking the framework of critical environmental justice and settler colonial studies, I explain how Indigenous communities, such as the Navajo and Pueblo Nations, deploy citizen science techniques (such as counter-mapping and counter empiricism) and Traditional  Ecological Knowledge (TEK). As I document, they use these tools to counter official archives and spatial erasure of their kin, both human and animal. Marshalling bodies of evidence from their own bodily knowledge, experiences, and memories of the land, Indigenous scientists are documenting communal knowledges and management practices in the land. They also digitally and physically demarcate the drilling and destruction of ancestral landscapes and waterways through counter-maps, as I document, therein denouncing settler energy colonialism and demanding reparations from public and private stakeholders alike.