Sovereignty First: Tackling the White Possessive in an Era of ‘Collaboration’
Equity + Justice, 2024, Indigenous Voices, Uphold Truth and Reconciliation
Euro-Western academia, politics, governance, science, art, literature, and law claim to be uplifting and celebrating Indigenous peoples and ideas more than ever, yet some reconciliatory and recognition-based frameworks still undermine Indigenous sovereignty and global Indigenous solidarities. This event will unpack this harmful contradiction, which Goenpul scholar Aileen Moreton-Robinson calls the ‘possessive logics of patriarchal white sovereignty’.
Drawing on their work, five dynamic panelists will explore ways to disrupt, dismantle, and transform the pervasive reach of this ‘white possessive’ as it cloaks itself in new robes to maintain its control over Indigenous lands, relations, and existence.
11:00am-12:30pm
Online Event
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Jennifer Brown is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Alaska Native Studies at the University of Alaska-Southeast in Ketchikan, Alaska, and is pursuing her Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania. In the past, she worked as a tribal health researcher for Southcentral Foundation in Anchorage, Alaska. She is a member of the Kaigani Haida and the Ketchikan Indian community in Ketchikan, Alaska. Her research draws on science and technology studies (STS), environmental studies, and indigenous critical theory to examine human responses to climate change in Southeast Alaska.
Candis Callison is the Canada Research Chair in Indigenous journalism, media, and public discourse and an Associate Professor at the University of British Columbia, jointly appointed in the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs and the Institute for Critical Indigenous Studies. She is the author of How Climate Change Comes to Matter: The Communal Life of Facts (Duke U Press, 2014) and the co-author of Reckoning: Journalism’s Limits and Possibilities (Oxford U Press, 2020). Candis is currently working on a long-term research project about the role of journalism and media in Arctic and northern regions. She is a member of the Tahltan Nation and a regular contributor to the podcast, Media Indigena.
Noah Collins (White Mountain Apache Tribe/Cherokee Nation) is a graduate student in Anthropology at Princeton University. His research interests broadly concern Indigenous health disparities. He has worked extensively in genomics, bioethics, and community based participatory research in multiple domestic and international Indigenous peoples groups. His most recent research has been to identify globally rare gene variants for use in creating therapeutics to treat areas of unmet medical need. Noah’s research Indigenizes western processes to empower Indigenous people to establish systems that uphold their individual belief systems. At Princeton, Noah wants to explore the natures of engagement and sovereignty in global Indigenous communities beginning their interactions with biomedical research
Olga Ulturgasheva is an Associate Professor/Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Manchester, UK. She is an Indigenous scholar and a member of the Siberian Eveny. Over the last fifteen years she has been engaged in a number of anthropological and cross-disciplinary studies exploring human and non-human personhood, Indigenous childhood and youth, climate change, resilience and adaptation patterns in Siberia and American Arctic. She is an author of Narrating the Future in Siberia: Childhood, Adolescence and Autobiography among the Eveny (Berghahn Books 2012) and co-editor of Animism in Rainforest and Tundra: Personhood, Animals, Plants and Things in Contemporary Amazonia and Siberia (Berghahn 2012). Her latest book is a co-edited volume Risky Futures: Climate, Geopolitics and Local Realities in the Uncertain Circumpolar North (Berghahn Book 2022) focusing on the latest implications of climate change for our understanding of environmental risk, human-non-human adaptations, co-production of knowledge and collaboration. Currently, she serves as a Principal Investigator of a large international, collaborative research project funded the European Research Council (ERC).
Kim TallBear (Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate) is Professor and Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Peoples, Technoscience, and Society, Faculty of Native Studies, University of Alberta. She is the author of Native American DNA: Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic Science. In addition to studying genome science disruptions to Indigenous self-definitions, Dr. TallBear studies colonial disruptions to Indigenous sexual relations. She is a regular panelist on the Media Indigena podcast. She is also a regular media commentator on topics including Indigenous peoples, science, and technology; and Indigenous sexualities. You can also follow her Substack newsletter, Unsettle: Indigenous affairs, cultural politics & (de)colonization.
Zoe Todd (Canada Research Chair, Tier 2, Indigenous Governance and Freshwater Fish Futures) is a Red River Métis fish philosopher, artist, and activist-scholar from Alberta working towards establishing better ways to honour collective human obligations to fish in the prairies.
Closed captioning in English will be available through the online event.
Technology requirements
Online attendees will need a computer (laptop or desktop), tablet or smartphone, with speakers or headphones. A microphone and/or a webcam are recommended if you would like to fully participate in the interactive portions of this event.
We recommend that you use a computer for the best experience of this event. Some interactivity and accessibility features are not available when using a smartphone or tablet.
Protecting your privacy
This event will be recorded, but only the speakers will be visible in the published recording. The recording will be shared with all registrants and published on SFU Public Square’s website, YouTube and social media channels.
To ensure that we are using online event technology in a privacy-conscious way, we are following best practices for this online event:
- We will only circulate the event link to those who are registered for the event
- We will password-protect the event
- We will enable end-to-end encryption
- We will not use attention tracking
To protect your own privacy:
- We remind you that whatever you say during the event is public, so please do not share sensitive information about yourself or others, and do not say anything you do not wish to enter the public domain.
To protect the privacy of others:
- Please do not record or photograph yourself, other participants, or the hosts during the event, unless permission is requested and given.
Our community guidelines are intended to ensure the safety of all guest speakers and event participants, and to foster honest, socially accountable dialogue at our events. Thank you for respecting our community guidelines!
- Above all, there will be zero tolerance for those who promote violence or discrimination against others on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, or disability. Anyone who incites harm towards other participants (whether through chat, video, audio or otherwise) will be removed at the discretion of our technical team and moderator.
- Don’t assume pronouns/gender/knowledge based on someone’s name or appearance. Please refer to people using the usernames and/or pronouns they provide.
- Recognize that we are all here to learn. Approach the event with an open-mind and respect.