A RoundTable Discussion: Navigating Indigenous knowledge and decolonial constructs in academic science

Colloquium
Danielle Ignace (UBC) , Tabitha Robin Martens (UBC) , Andrea Reid (IOF and CIF)
Thursday, March 10, 2022 · 4:00 pm
ESB 5104-06 and https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81170428556?pwd=ZkRRZ08wMzJWNC9FTVFGa0pRNnBzdz09
Hosted by
Shandin Pete

Roundtable Guiding Questions:

 

  • What are Indigenous Knowledges? (Each panelist - 5 min) (15 minutes)
    • Open Questions to audience (10 minutes)
    • Response (10 minutes)

 

  • What does “decolonization” look like in academic science? (Each panelist - 5 min) (15 minutes)
    • Open Questions to audience (10 minutes)
    • Response (10 minutes)

 

  • What are examples of emerging decolonial constructs that rely on Indigenous knowledge in your specific discipline that may inform other science disciplinary efforts to engage indigenous communities? (Open conversation, 15 minutes)
Speaker's Bio: 

Dr. Danielle Ignace, Assistant Professor, Indigenous Natural Science (UBC-Department of Forest and Conservation Science): Amplifying Indigenous voices and community-driven solutions in climate change research

 

Dr. Danielle Ignace is an enrolled member of the Coeur d’Alene tribe and a broadly trained ecophysiologist with a passion for science communication. From desert systems to temperate forests, she studies how global change (climate change, landscape disturbance, and non-native species invasions) impacts ecosystem function and Indigenous communities. She was recently selected as a Science for Social Equity Fellow (funded by Fair Count) to create community-driven solutions to climate change and pollution in Houston, Texas. Dr. Ignace is also a Research Associate at Harvard Forest and serves as Associate Editor for the journal, Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene. Always seeking new ways to be an advocate for underrepresented groups in STEM, she joined the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee for the American Society of Plant Biology. Fostering distinctive collaborations with faculty and students to understand and communicate pressing global change problems is the hallmark of her research, teaching, YouTube channel, and ArtSci projects. As an Indigenous woman in STEM, Dr. Ignace is deeply committed to developing Indigenous curriculum and her unique perspective bridges Indigenous communities, people of color, and scientists.

 

 

Dr. Tabitha Robin Martens, Assistant Professor (UBC-Faculty of Land and Food Systems, Applied Biology Program): Indigenous research paradigms & Indigenous food system revitalization

 

Dr. Tabitha Robin Martens is a mixed ancestry Cree and Métis researcher, educator, and writer. She has her BSc in Environmental Studies from the University of Winnipeg and MEnv from the University of Manitoba, where she looked at dozens of Indigenous food sovereignty initiatives in Western Canada. At home, she spends much of her time on the land and with Elders, learning about traditional food practices. She is also the co-founder of Ininiwikistayikewin, an Indigenous seed library in Treaty One and Homeland of the Red River Métis.

 

She earned her PhD in Interdisciplinary Studies from the University of Manitoba studying how Cree Elders incorporate food into their helping and healing practices. Her current research focuses on how food as a discipline can operationalize the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 Calls to Action, and the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Inquiry Report’s 231 Calls to Justice; how Indigenous knowledges can be used as food literacy; and the reclamation of Indigenous seed knowledges.

 

Dr. Andrea Reid; Assistant Professor and Principal Investigator (Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries & Center for Indigenous Fisheries): Indigenous management of landscapes

 

Dr. Andrea Reid is a citizen of the Nisga’a Nation centering her work as an Indigenous fisheries scientist who employs community-based approaches and Indigenous research methodologies in her study of culturally significant fish and fisheries. Her freshwater and coastal research creates space for fishers, knowledge keepers, youth, and other community members to be full partners in the research process. Together, they investigate: (i) leading threats to aquatic ecosystems and their interactive effects for fish, people and place; (ii) consequences of fisheries-related stressors for fish and methods to ameliorate survival; (iii) Two-Eyed Seeing approaches to assessing aquatic ecosystem and fish health and evaluating associated changes through time and space; and (iv) Indigenous understandings and methodologies for effectively stewarding fish and waterways.