Air, Water, Land
Native/Indigenous, Black, and Afro-Descendent Relationalities and Activism
November 4, 2021
This symposium will feature three remote panels that explore connections and intersections in activism through air, land, and water, a keynote conversation, and a final discussion and demonstration of sustainable food systems. This event is organized by the Center for Latino/a and Latin American Studies (CLLAS), Native American and Indigenous Studies, Anthropology, Black Studies, the Global Justice Initiative, and the Common Reading program of the University of Oregon.
Climate change, environmental racism, settler colonialism, white supremacy, patriarchy, north/south divides, and unequal access to basic environmental resources by communities of color have inspired ongoing environmental justice activism in the Americas.
This symposium will center Indigenous and Black voices, leverage the campus residencies of Maya activist and teacher Irma Alicia Velasquez Nimatuj (in residence through the Global Justice Initiative and the Department of Anthropology) and Muskogee/Creek artist and activist Amber Starks (in residence through the UO Common Reading program) and focus on environmental justice and sustainable food systems. Designed to foster critical conversations from Indigenous and Black/Afro-descendant communities across the Americas, this event is organized around themes of air, land, and water, with a committed focus to issues impacting local communities.
The University of Oregon is located on Kalapuya ilihi, the traditional indigenous homeland of the Kalapuya people.
Following treaties between 1851 and 1855, Kalapuya people were dispossessed of their indigenous homeland by the United States government and forcibly removed to the Coast Reservation in Western Oregon.
Today, Kalapuya descendants are primarily citizens of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde and the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians, and they continue to make important contributions to their communities, to the UO, to Oregon, and to the world.
Symposium Description in Spanish