Indigenous Peoples

SCANZ 2013: Wananga-Symposium

This post comes to you from Cultura21

Developing the culture to create a sustainable civilization

SCANZ2013LogoWebGraphic1-300x102Feb 1st–3rd, 2013 – New Plymouth, New Zealand

SCANZ (Solar Circuit Aotearoa New Zealand) is New Zealand´s premier art, technology, culture and ecology event and involves a symposium, creative residency, and public events and exhibitions. Occurring biennially, it has typically involved a mix of Aotearoa New Zealand and international artists, producers, theorists and curators. SCANZ 2013: 3rd nature will be the fourth event and will be organized by Ian Clothier, Trudy Lane, and Nina Czegledy of Intercreate, in partnership with aligned organizations within the arts and sciences and with tangata whenua.

SCANZ 2013 3rd nature seeks to develop a fresh space, carrying memes from previous SCANZ events (which have all had an emphasis on environment) and other Intercreate projects that have involved scientists, indigenous peoples and artists working together. The aim is to build new knowledge and establish legacies around this work, unencumbered by old perspectives and now distant categories.

We ignore the environmental crisis at our peril. Integrating the indigenous perspective, creative, environmental and scientific views on the environment is essential for continued human habitation of the planet. From these trajectories, it is possible to conceive of a fresh hybrid space, composed of overlapping elements.

For the symposium schedule, a list of selected abstracts and to register, click here

Cultura21 is a transversal, translocal network, constituted of an international level grounded in several Cultura21 organizations around the world.

Cultura21′s international network, launched in April 2007, offers the online and offline platform for exchanges and mutual learning among its members.

The activities of Cultura21 at the international level are coordinated by a team representing the different Cultura21 organizations worldwide, and currently constituted of:

– Sacha Kagan (based in Lüneburg, Germany) and Rana Öztürk (based in Berlin, Germany)
– Oleg Koefoed and Kajsa Paludan (both based in Copenhagen, Denmark)
– Hans Dieleman (based in Mexico-City, Mexico)
– Francesca Cozzolino and David Knaute (both based in Paris, France)

Cultura21 is not only an informal network. Its strength and vitality relies upon the activities of several organizations around the world which are sharing the vision and mission of Cultura21

Go to Cultura21

Powered by WPeMatico

No Longer the Miner’s Canary

This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

We need to learn to adapt to the environmental crises we have created.

Zoltán Grossman’s article No Longer the Miner’s Canary: Indigenous Nations’ Response to Climate Change published on Terrain.org argues that there are significant lessons to learn from indigenous peoples.  These lessons focus on community building and sharing knowledge amongst communities, thus empowering people.  Experts are responsible to inform and engage with communities.  The article focuses on the value of work at the scale between the disempowered individual and the ineffective federal government – that is the scale of towns and cities, bioregions and tribal landscapes.

ecoartscotland is a resource focused on art and ecology for artists, curators, critics, commissioners as well as scientists and policy makers. It includes ecoartscotland papers, a mix of discussions of works by artists and critical theoretical texts, and serves as a curatorial platform.

It has been established by Chris Fremantle, producer and research associate with On The Edge Research, Gray’s School of Art, The Robert Gordon University. Fremantle is a member of a number of international networks of artists, curators and others focused on art and ecology.
Go to EcoArtScotland

Powered by WPeMatico

What does an Ice-Free Arctic mean?

This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

Stephen Leahy’s article (published by the Inter Press Service) on the “uncharted territory” of an ice-free arctic makes interesting reading.  It’s not just a problem for the indigenous peoples of the circumpolar region.  It’s not just a problem for polar bears, although they are faced with extinction as a result.  And in that context talking about it being a problem for us because it’ll change our weather seems facile.

What is interesting is reading it having just been reading Farley Mowat’s Canada North Now: The Great Betrayal.  The Second Edition was published in 1976, and whilst the impact of extraction industries on the landscape and culture of the North was foremost in the author’s mind, at that time the Arctic Sea Ice was a given.  There is no sense in this book of the Polar Ice Cap changing.  In 36 years we’ve gone from assuming that it’s a given, a permanent feature of the world, to a point where one summer it’ll be gone and the news will cover the first ship at the North Pole.  It’s quite a change.  The speed of change is what we seem to be unable to grasp.

ecoartscotland is a resource focused on art and ecology for artists, curators, critics, commissioners as well as scientists and policy makers. It includes ecoartscotland papers, a mix of discussions of works by artists and critical theoretical texts, and serves as a curatorial platform.

It has been established by Chris Fremantle, producer and research associate with On The Edge Research, Gray’s School of Art, The Robert Gordon University. Fremantle is a member of a number of international networks of artists, curators and others focused on art and ecology.
Go to EcoArtScotland

Powered by WPeMatico

Key Issues Guide on Indigenous knowledge and climate change

This post comes to you from Cultura21

Indigenous communities have long been recognised as being particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change due to the close connection between their livelihoods, culture, spirituality and social systems and their environment. At the same time, however, this deep and long-established relationship with the natural environment affords many indigenous peoples with knowledge that they have long used to adapt to environmental change, and are now using to respond to the impacts of climate change.

The potential of indigenous knowledge for informing observations of, and responses to climate change is an area of growing interest. The United Nations University published a compendium, available online, which presents a wide-ranging overview of more than 400 projects, case studies and research activities specifically related to climate change and Indigenous Peoples (IP).

That  publication, as well as other resources, can be  found on the website of the Institute of Development Studies at University of Sussex (UK): Click here

Cultura21 is a transversal, translocal network, constituted of an international level grounded in several Cultura21 organizations around the world.

Cultura21′s international network, launched in April 2007, offers the online and offline platform for exchanges and mutual learning among its members.

The activities of Cultura21 at the international level are coordinated by a team representing the different Cultura21 organizations worldwide, and currently constituted of:

– Sacha Kagan (based in Lüneburg, Germany) and Rana Öztürk (based in Berlin, Germany)
– Oleg Koefoed and Kajsa Paludan (both based in Copenhagen, Denmark)
– Hans Dieleman (based in Mexico-City, Mexico)
– Francesca Cozzolino and David Knaute (both based in Paris, France)

Cultura21 is not only an informal network. Its strength and vitality relies upon the activities of several organizations around the world which are sharing the vision and mission of Cultura21

Go to Cultura21

International Conference on Degrowth in the Americas

This post comes to you from Cultura21

Montreal, Quebec, Canada

May 14th-20th, 2012

“This conference will focus on the particular situations and dynamics of the Americas. What does degrowth mean for our Hemisphere with its rich geographical, cultural, social and economic diversity? How can degrowth models apply to different contexts from the Arctic to Tierra del Fuego? What does degrowth mean for the indigenous peoples of the Americas and their aspirations for their lands and peoples? How can degrowth concepts be made audible, understandable and acceptable to rich North Americans?

This gathering will bring together academics, activists, environmentalists and indigenous peoples to discuss our needs and hopes for diverse and more equitable societies in the Americas, on a post-growth healing earth.”

more information:  http://montreal.degrowth.org

Cultura21 is a transversal, translocal network, constituted of an international level grounded in several Cultura21 organizations around the world.

Cultura21′s international network, launched in April 2007, offers the online and offline platform for exchanges and mutual learning among its members.

The activities of Cultura21 at the international level are coordinated by a team representing the different Cultura21 organizations worldwide, and currently constituted of:

– Sacha Kagan (based in Lüneburg, Germany) and Rana Öztürk (based in Berlin, Germany)
– Oleg Koefoed and Kajsa Paludan (both based in Copenhagen, Denmark)
– Hans Dieleman (based in Mexico-City, Mexico)
– Francesca Cozzolino and David Knaute (both based in Paris, France)

Cultura21 is not only an informal network. Its strength and vitality relies upon the activities of several organizations around the world which are sharing the vision and mission of Cultura21

Go to Cultura21

Avatar; indigenous peoples, carbon credits and the rainforest

I’m loving the commentaries that have evolved around Avatar’s themes of exploitation of natural resources, imperialism and biological diversity.

Libertarian blogger Stephen Kinsella argues here that it underscores his viewpoint that the movie demonstrates that property rights are the only way to protect the environment. Interestingly this is the logic of the UN’s REDD carbon trading scheme or to give it its long name, the United Nations Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries. This is based – in theory at least – of forests having assigned carbon values and of local people having property rights over those resources. The “owners” are then rewarded for not chopping down trees.

Such solutions aren’t without their problems though. Aside for the more obvious problems of carbon credits – that they allow the industralised world to delay reducing their own emissions -  Global Witness point out in this report [PDF] that was published last October, this is an untested scheme that may well benefit Africa and South America’s kleptocrat rulers more than it does the environment, or the locals to whom this property has been assigned. Assigning property rights, suggests Global Witness, is part of the process of moving from an environment protected from logging, to a “sustainably managed” forest which allows logging to go ahead.

Go to RSA Arts & Ecology