2020-2021 Meetings and Events

Indigenous Development and Environmental Justice

Building on our investigation of Indigenous development in the previous academic year, we focus this year on the connections between development and environmental justice. There are many understandings of Indigenous development – sovereignty, autonomy, self-determination, the fulfillment of obligations to community and the non-human beings in it, or even the creation and maintenance of life-worlds based on their values. Central to each of these ideas of Indigenous futures is a notion of relationship with the earth. But what do these ideas of development mean in a contemporary world where capitalism, extractivism, and industrialization are hegemonic? What do just relations with the environment entail? How are Indigenous communities negotiating, resisting, and harnessing capitalism to create their futures?