Indigenous Environmental Justice: Anti-Colonial Action Through Kinship

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Whyte, K. 2020. Indigenous Environmental Justice: Anti-Colonial Action Through Kinship. Environmental Justice: Key Issues. Edited by B. Coolsaet, 266-278. Taylor Francis.

Missing bibliographic reference on page 274: McGregor, D., and S. Whitaker. 2001. Water quality in the province of Ontario: An aboriginal knowledge perspective. Toronto: Chiefs of Ontario

Book available at https://www.routledge.com/Environmental-Justice-Key- Issues/Coolsaet/p/book/9780367139933

1. Introduction, Brendan Coolsaet 2. A History of Environmental Justice: Foundations, Narratives, and Perspectives, Esme G. Murdock Part I: Defining and conceptualizing environmental justice 3. Distributive Environmental Justice, Alice Kaswan 4. Procedural Justice Matters: Power, Representation, and Participation in Environmental Governance, Kimberly R. Marion Suiseeya 5. Recognition and Environmental Justice, Brendan Coolsaet and Pierre-Yves Néron 6. Capabilities, Well-Being, and Environmental Justice, Breena Holland 7. Latin American Decolonial Environmental Justice Approach, Iokiñe Rodriguez 8. Degrowth and Environmental Justice: An alliance between two movements? Julien-Francois Gerber, Bengi Akbulut, Federico Demaria and Joan Martínez Alier 9. Sustainability and Environmental Justice: Parallel Tracks or at the Crossroads? Julie Sze Part II: Issues of environmental justice 10. Toxic Legacies and Environmental Justice, Alice Mah 11. Biodiversity: Crisis, Conflict and Justice, Adrian Martin 12. Climate Justice, Gareth A.S. Edwards 13. Energy Justice, Rosie Day 14. Food, Agriculture, and Environmental Justice: Perspectives on Scholarship and Activism in the Field, Kristin Reynolds 15. Urbanisation: Towns and cities as sites of environmental (in)justice, Jason Byrne 16. Water Justice: Blatant grabbing practices, subtle recognition politics, and the struggles for fair water worlds, Rutgerd Boelens Part III: Actors and subjects of environmental justice 17. Racial Minorities in the United States: Race, Migration, and Reimagining Environmental Justice, Lisa Sun- Hee Park and Stevie Ruiz 18. Gender Matters in Environmental Justice, Sherilyn MacGregor 19. Labour Unions and Environmental Justice: The Trajectory and Promise of Just Transition, Dimitris Stevis 20. Indigenous Environmental Justice: Anti-Colonial Action through Kinship, Kyle Whyte 21. Justice Beyond Humanity, Steve Cooke Part IV: Future directions of environmental justice 22. Critical Environmental Justic Studies, David Pellow 23. Sustainable Materialism and Environmental Justice, David Schlosberg 24. Mobilizing ‘Intersectionality’ in Environmental Justice Research and Action in a Time of Crisis, Giovanna Di Chiro

20 Indigenous environmental justiceKyle WhyteIndigenous environmental justice Anti-colonial action through kinship

Kyle Whyte

Learning outcomes • Indigenous peoples have ancient traditions of kinship that are relevant to understanding environmental justice. • Indigenous environmental justice struggles are anti-colonial . • Kinship is one way of understanding solutions to environmental injustice.

Introduction Nearly four hundred million Indigenous peoples live on 22 percent of the world’s land sur- face. These lands are tied to about 80 percent of the planet’s biodiversity (Sobrevila, 2008, p. xii). The term Indigenous peoples refers to a particular social situation in which some populations of the world live. Societies defi ne themselves specifi cally as Indigenous peoples to express the fact that they exercise their own political and cultural self-determination on homelands of their own ( International Labour Organization, 1989 , Manuel, 1974 , Sanders, 1977 , Tauli-Corpuz and Mander, 2006 ). Self-determination refers to a society’s capacity to pursue freely its own plans in ways that support the aspirations and needs of its members ( United Nations General Assembly, 2007). Yet, at some point in recent history, one or more other societies colonized the lands of Indigenous peoples. These colonizing societies now claim—often under the guise of a nation-state like Canada or Australia—to be the dominant governance authority. The colonization process, whether several hundred years ago or more recently, typically involves warfare, forced assimilation, land dispossession, asset seizure, fi nancial deprivation, work- force discrimination, sexual and gendered violence, and food and health insecurities. Today, Indigenous peoples work tirelessly to overcome the impacts of colonialism and to affi rm their self-determination (Anaya, 2004, Sanders, 1977, Tauli-Corpuz and Mander, 2006 ). Consider my own background as an example. I am Potawatomi, which is an Anishinaabe/ Neshnabé group, and a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. The Citizen Potawatomi are an Indigenous people living within the borders of what is currently called the United States. The U.S. is a nation-state which colonized us and numerous other Indigenous peoples in order to acquire the land base it presently claims to exercise sovereignty over. Yet Potawatomi peoples continue, despite the dominance of the U.S. Today, one way the

15031-3782d-1pass-r03.indd 266 4/24/2020 4:49:38 PM Indigenous environmental justice 267 Citizen Potawatomi Nation expresses self-determination is through having its own government. Our self-governance started generations prior to the year the U.S. was established in 1776. In fact, the U.S. signed treaties with our ancestors. Treaties are political instruments reserved for legal agreements between self-governing societies. So, as a nation, we have governed ourselves over the course of generations. Our contemporary self-governance is apparent through our managing health and environmental programs, holding political elec- tions, and investing in economic growth opportunities, among other governance activities. We have our own culture, which stems from our homelands in the Great Lakes region. Our culture includes linguistic, artistic, ceremonial, religious, and philosophical traditions. It is a culture that is distinct from the other cultures of populations in the U.S., though, like all cultures, ours is internally diverse, having multiple variations and embracing persons with wide-ranging beliefs and lifestyles. Part of our culture stems from traditions tied to maintaining woodland ecosystems with meadow-like openings for plants and animals to fl ourish, planting corn, and protecting freshwater and wetlands for fi sh, wild rice, and medicinal plants. We have a website today that shows examples of our culture and self- governance for persons who are unfamiliar with Indigenous peoples: www.potawatomi.org . U.S. colonialism poses great harms to our self-governance and culture. Our original homelands in the Great Lakes region, including the woodlands, openings, and wetlands, were largely destroyed to make way for U.S. and Canadian agricultural, recreational, and industrial zones. U.S. settlers created boarding schools to strip our children of their culture. In the 19th century, the U.S. forced the people who now are members of the Citizen Pota- watomi Nation to relocate over a thousand miles away to lands in the Plains region that had little ecological resemblance to the Great Lakes. Today I (personally) live in what is currently called Michigan, which is a location in our original homelands. Yet, the nation I am part of as an enrolled member is in Oklahoma, with the headquarters of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation being the city of Shawnee, Oklahoma. Potawatomi people still live in the Great Lakes region, with four different Potawatomi nations in what is currently called Michigan who exercise self-government, and even more nations and communities in what are currently called Ontario and Wisconsin. Given this context in which I work as a Potawatomi relative, advocate, and scholar, I want to introduce the readers of this chapter to a particular dialogue that Indigenous peoples have with each other about environmental justice. As someone involved, both locally and globally, with Indigenous environmental justice advocacy, I hope to convey some of how we Indigenous persons dialogue together regarding environmental justice, seek solidarity with one another, and share knowledge. I hope to refer both to traditions and knowledge stemming from Potawatomi society, but also connect that with the traditions and knowledge systems of others. One such Indigenous tradition of environmental justice I wish to convey in this chapter is kinship . Kinship is a large topic, and I so will focus here on just one aspect of it: reciprocity. In general, kinship refers to qualities of the relationships we have with others—whether others are humans, plants, animals, fi shes, insects, rocks, waterways, or forests. Indigenous peoples with kinship traditions are unique cultures that have their own distinct ways of naming and relating to beings and entities in the world. Holders of these traditions talk quite a bit with each other about some of the different ways they have come to understand kinship (for example, see TallBear, 2019 , Todd, 2017 , Napoleon, 2013, Borrows, 1997 ). Indigenous traditions focus on the details of how our bonds with others really work. Kin relations are like ideal family or friendship bonds, and are composed of types of relationships and qualities of relationships. In a good friendship, the friends may be mutually responsible, for

15031-3782d-1pass-r03.indd 267 4/24/2020 4:49:38 PM 268 Kyle Whyte example, to support each other’s wellbeing. Mutual responsibility is a type of relationship— that is, a general category of a relationship. But what makes this relationship truly a kinship relationship is if the mutual responsibility has certain inherent qualities. Qualities are dimensions of relationships like trust, consensuality, transparency, reciprocity, and accountability. For example, just because two people declare themselves to be mutually responsible for each other does not mean they are genuine friends. Without qualities like trust or accountability in the bond, it will not be possible for either of the persons to really take responsibility for each other’s wellbeing. While I certainly have a responsibility for the wellbeing of anyone I interact with, what makes a friend a friend is that our bond together is laden with the aforementioned qualities, like trust and accountability. These qualities take time to develop and nurture. But when they are inherent in a relationship, that relationship is critically important to us. We depend on friends and family for our wellbeing psychologically, culturally, socially, existentially, economically, and politi- cally. In times of crisis, it is our friends and family who can act quickly on our behalf and provide the support we need. For we know, having spent years building our relationships with them, that they are trustworthy, respect our consent, are transparent with us, will genuinely try to do what’s best for us, and behave accountably. Reciprocity is an important kinship quality. A bond has the quality of reciprocity when each relative (or friend) believes the others to be in a long-term gift-receiving and gift- giving relationship. In other words, each relative respects the gifts that they can give to others in the kinship group to support their wellbeing. With that respect comes the expectation that they will be intrinsically motivated to give gifts of their own (Kimmerer, 2013). To be in a reciprocal bond with one another is to take to heart that one is committed to honoring gift givers and devoted to taking actions that support the wellbeing of the givers (i.e., giving back). Reciprocity is a kinship quality and, whenever it is present in a relationship, the relatives or friends in the relationship are in a better position to live interdependently. As I will show in this very introductory chapter, this idea of kinship and reciprocity is one facet of how some Indigenous peoples understand their connections to non-humans and the environment. In this chapter, reciprocity is often invoked using the language of gift giving or interdependency. Though my examples here concern humans, I could have easily discussed the exact same quality of reciprocity with respect to bonds between humans and ﬁ sh, or between birds and mountains.

Ecosystems and reciprocity A key aspect of Indigenous peoples’ cultural and political self-determination is that they have their own sciences for protecting ecosystems that matter to their societies’ health, economy, and cultural vitality ( Shilling and Nelson, 2018 ). Ecosystem is a term that has one of its origins in the ﬁ eld of ecology. The term often refers to a community of relationships of organisms that are connected through their sharing of nutrients and energy. Indig- enous peoples have sought to articulate their own traditions about ecosystems to create dialogue with ecologists (Kimmerer, 2002 , Ford and Martinez, 2000). Indigenous peoples often emphasize that the community of relationships can be understood through kinship. The sharing of nutrients and energy is like mutual responsibility whereby the members of an ecosystem are interdependent and, in a way, are reciprocally giving and receiving gifts. The quality of reciprocity across members of an ecosystem is vital. Dennis Martinez writes that “the health of the land is an important requisite for the survival of the people, and the community wellbeing of the people is an important requisite for the

15031-3782d-1pass-r03.indd 268 4/24/2020 4:49:38 PM Indigenous environmental justice 269 survival and restoration of the ecosystems. It is a totally reciprocal relationship” (Martinez, 2008 , p. 5). Consider some different reciprocal relationships that Indigenous peoples have discussed themselves or shared with others. For Potawatomi people, we have longstanding traditions of relationships to corn. We have traditions of growing diverse varieties and see corn as related to other plants, such as beans and squash, to create sustainable ecosystems (Citizen Potawatomi Information Offi ce, 2019 ). Quechua peoples in the Andes region, such as the Paru Paru, Chawaytiri, Sacaca, Pampallacta, Amaru, and Kuyo Grande communities, have created the Potato Park, a biodiversity conservation zone protecting more than 900 varieties of native potato (Argumedo, 2008 , Huambachano, 2018 ). In the Arctic region, Sámi peoples have practices for maintaining sustainable relationships with reindeer through stewarding grazing pasture and protecting the health of herds living in dynamic landscapes (Ahrén, 2004 , Labba, 2015). The relationships between these Indigenous peoples with corn, potatoes, and reindeer are among the critical dimensions of each society’s maintaining its own independent sources of food, having access to good nutrition, or being involved in healthy physical activity required to steward and harvest plants and animals. At a deeper level, Potawatomi, Quechua, and Sámi peoples understand that they are in relationships of reciprocity with the animals, plants, insects, and ecosystems where they live. Robin Kimmerer, speaking of ecosystems as “the living world,” says that “the living world is understood, not as a collection of exploit- able resources, but as a set of relationships and responsibilities. We inhabit a landscape of gifts peopled by nonhuman relatives, the sovereign beings who sustain us, including the plants” ( Kimmerer, 2018 , p. 27). Reciprocity is focal. One Potawatomi heritage seed garden, called gtegemen (we grow it), involves bringing together humans with a plant combination called the three sisters (corn, beans, squash), whereby each being involved is considered as a relative ( DeerInWater, 2019 , Citizen Potawatomi Information Offi ce, 2019). The relatives are deemed to express their independent contributions when they are in relations of interdependence or, as Robin Kim- merer calls it, a covenant of reciprocity (Kimmerer, 2017). Kaya DeerInWater says that human relationships to corn gift to people nutrition and stress reducing exercise (to care for corn). DeerInWater says “Those seeds are our relatives and ancestors, and you don’t want to be an absent relative. It’s a responsibility to plant the heritage seeds, and not taking care of that responsibility is not showing those seeds respect” (CPN Information Offi ce, 2019). The relationship of papa arariwa , for some Quechua peoples, means that humans are guardians of potatoes, which supports human and potato interdependence by engender- ing motivation in humans to care for potato habitat reciprocally ( Stephenson, 2012 ). The conservation system of the Potato Park is importantly based on the ayllu system of conservation, which seeks to attain wellbeing of all members of an ecosystem. Argumedo and Wong interpret wellbeing, or sumaq kawsay , as “[being] in equilibrium with one’s natural and social surroundings and to maintain reciprocity between all beings” (Argumedo and Wong, 2010, p. 84; see also Huambachano, 2018 ). For Sámi, reindeer herders maintain particular family groupings with one another called siida, including sibling relationships and other familiar bonds. Siida allow them to combine and separate herds and change locations in order to avoid overgrazing pastures. It is a kin- based system of mutual responsibility and involves multiple levels of collective interaction, including individuals, households, groups of households, and recognized leaders ( Labba, 2015 ). Kristina Labba writes that “Sami reindeer herding is characterized by a close connec- tion with nature; the herding represents a complex coupled system of interchange among animals, ecology and reindeer herds” (Labba, 2015 , p. 142).

15031-3782d-1pass-r03.indd 269 4/24/2020 4:49:39 PM 270 Kyle Whyte For Potawatomi, Quechua, and Sámi peoples, gtegemen , papa arariwa, and siida are kinship relationships that serve as ethical systems that motivate humans to be responsible for protecting the environment. That is, they are relationships with qualities of reciprocity. Dialogue across Indigenous peoples on reciprocity is a global conversation that we have with each other. Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, speaking of Igorot people of the Philippines, describes the practice of ug-ugbo during planting and harvesting of rice. She says that:

we practiced, a traditional form of mutual labor exchange [and] collectively planted or harvested one fi eld, moving on to other fi elds until the sun set. In the evening we all gathered to celebrate fi nishing the work. Our cultural rituals are linked with the phases of the agricultural cycle and the life cycle (birth, weddings, and deaths). ( Tauli-Corpuz, 2001 )

For Tauli-Corpuz, this traditional practice of mutual labor exchange involves reciprocity with the gifts of the land. She says that “The Igorots do not consider themselves the owners but the stewards or trustees of ancestral lands” (Tauli-Corpuz, 2001 ). Workinah Kelbessa, in a paper on African environmental ethics , writes that for a number of African peoples there are beliefs and practices of “kinship . . . with different animals, plants, or a piece of land” (Kelbessa, 2014 , p. 400). In Kelbessa’s research, he describes how the ukama system of Shona people in Zimbabwe “embraces cosmological or ecological relationality as inseparable to what it means to be human” (p. 400). He cites the work of Munyaradzi Felix Mulrove, who discusses ukama is an “ethic of the interdependence of individuals,” as it means “relatedness.” “Human well-being” is considered to be “indispensable from our dependence on, and interdependence with, all that exists and particularly with the immediate environment on which all humanity depends” ( Kelbessa, 2014 , p. 400, citing Murove, 2009 , p. 315). Concepts of dependence and interdependence resonate strongly with reciprocity. These brief examples of Indigenous kinship traditions, if taken in their own right and in their unique contexts, are very different on kinship and reciprocity. What I am trying to highlight is that, in addition to respecting our differences, we also have broader conversa- tions with one another about how our traditions may be related. These kin-making traditions involve a particular orientation toward environmental justice, which I will take up now.

Kinship and anti-colonial action Kinship is an important way to understand environmental justice. For hundreds of years, invasion, exploitation, and colonization have greatly harmed Indigenous peoples (see Chap- ter 7 ). These acts of violence and oppression are sponsored by nation-states, corporations, non-proﬁ t entities, and discriminatory persons in their daily behavior. One way of understanding environmental injustice is as an assault on kinship relationships. Reciprocity is one of the kinship relationships that has been threatened most in cases of environmental injustice against Indigenous peoples. In the work of Marama Muru-Lanning, she describes the signiﬁ cance of the Waikato River for MƗori peoples, especially the Waikato-Tainui people. In genealogical terms, she explains: “The river is my ancestor, my Tupuna Aawa. For hapǌ (clans) and iwi of the lands that border its 425-kilometre length, the Waikato River is an ancestor, a taonga (treasure)

15031-3782d-1pass-r03.indd 270 4/24/2020 4:49:39 PM Indigenous environmental justice 271 and a source of mauri (life-essence)” ( Muru-Lanning, 2018 ). Muru-Lanning’s writing emphasizes the reciprocal exchange between people and the river. She describes one of the goals of the Waikato MƗori is to “[emphasize their] duty to ‘care for their ancestor’ ” and “the reciprocal relationship that Waikato- MƗori have with the river” ( Muru-Lanning, 2016, p. 161). Her work goes on to document how in the middle of the 19th century, the New Zealand colonial government seized the river from MƗori peoples (Muru-Lanning, 2016). Today the relationship between MƗori and the river is disrupted by nearby farming that relies on fer- tilizer, wastewater due to the development of urban areas in the region, eight hydroelectric power stations, and a thermal power station that warms the water to be pumped into irrigat- ing streams. She writes that “For MƗori, another major desecration of the river occurs when its waters are diverted and mixed with waters from other sources so that it may be drunk by people living in Auckland” ( Muru-Lanning, 2016, p. 42). Muru-Lanning’s work describes environmental injustice that is an affront to genealogical relationships—whereby genealogy relates to what I am calling kinship. The land use change imposed on MƗori people by the New Zealand settlers undermines kinship. The undermin- ing of kinship is exercised through the destruction of self-determination and reciprocity. The environmental injustice described by Muru-Lanning is a form of colonialism, in that the New Zealand settlers seek to dispossess MƗori of their ancestral lands—where ancestral refers to generations of established reciprocal relationships—to make way for economic, cultural, social, and political systems that support New Zealand’s self-determination. At the same time, the Waikato-Tanui people have engaged in negotiations with New Zealand to establish co-management of the river. Many of the projects associated with this work involve actions aimed at protecting the river and restoring respect for its ancestral signifi cance. While the river is facing so many issues that threaten MƗori culture and health, the Waikato-Tanui are undaunted in their efforts to exercise self-determination and affi rm kinship ties to the river ( Muru-Lanning, 2016 ). Their website describes actions they are taking to create sustainable fi shing practices, support traditional MƗori relationships to the river, protect sacred places, and generate opportunities for MƗori to have environmental- related employment ( www.waikatotanui.com/services/taiao ). In a different place, The Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation and the Ahousaht First Nation are Nuu-chah-nulth peoples who have always lived in what is currently called the Clayoquot Sound region in British Colombia, Canada. Nuu-chah-nulth peoples have generations of reciprocal relationships with whales, salmon, and numerous other trees, animals, fi sh, and insects of the marine and forest environment. Nuu-chah-nulth peoples developed complex philosophies of reciprocal governance, including hishuk ish ts’awalk (oneness between humans and the environment) and hahuulhi (a responsibility- and family-based land tenure system) (Atleo, 2006 , p. 2). Marlene Atleo has shown that the land tenure system operated by ensuring that people understood their responsibilities to each other and non-humans (Atleo, 2006). There is a great emphasis on respect for equality. Richard Atleo writes that in the Nuu-chah-nulth governance system there is a “discourse” that people are “encouraged to see other species, as well as other peoples, as equals.” He writes that this discourse is exemplifi ed in “protocols such as the ceremony to acknowledge the fi rst salmon of the season, or the ceremony to take down a great cedar for a great canoe.” Atleo claims that “one of these demands is not to be disrespectful toward any part of creation” (Atleo, 2002, p. 200). While the Nuu-chah-nulth governance system emphasized a respect for reciprocity, Richard Atleo writes that “Then came the discourse of colonialization.” For Atleo, “The nature of this discourse is unilateral, evolutionary, linear, hierarchical, and presumptuous. It

15031-3782d-1pass-r03.indd 271 4/24/2020 4:49:39 PM 272 Kyle Whyte completely overshadowed and ignored the fi rst discourse” (Atleo, 2002, p. 200). Indeed, the increase in direct settlement after 1850 ushered in disrespect for Nuu-chah-nulth kinship to land. Non-Indigenous investors began fl ooding the region in the 1980s and 1990s to profi t from logging the forests. Indigenous persons, and numerous allies and environmentalists, fought against logging using blockades and other direct-action tactics, leading to global media attention being paid to the arrest of approximately 900 land protectors. In response, a mediation process was set up (Tindall et al., 2013). A scientifi c panel was put together. The Forests Minister of British Columbia accepted the 127 recommendations of the panel, leading to commitments to “ecologically sound” logging and opportunities for First Nations to invest in major portions of the industry and take leadership in the regional decision-making. In 1994, an Interim Measures Agreement for Clayoquot Sound was developed between the province and the fi ve Nuu-chah-nulth peoples (Tindall et al., 2013). Due importantly to Indigenous environmental justice advocacy, in 2000, the region became a Biosphere Reserve under the auspices of the United Nations Educational, Scientifi c and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The First Nations have their own Tribal parks, for biodiversity conservation and recreation, such as the “The Haa’uukimun Tribal Park” (Carroll, 2014). A review of the public materials on any of these parks demonstrates how the park managers seek to provide experiences for visitors to understand reciprocity (see, for example, https://youtu.be/Sw4BToE48Ew ).

Kinship and anti-colonial action Refl ecting on the work of the Waikato-Tanui and Nuu-chah-nulth peoples discussed in the previous section, environmental injustice can be understood through the idea of kinship relationships. Environmental injustice can be defi ned abstractly by thinking about how different societies treat each other in colonialism . Environmental injustice involves at least one society, a colonizing society, moving in somehow and disrupting the kinship relationships that matter to the sustainability of the societies whose homelands are being colonized. That is, environmental injustice occurs when at least one society dominates one or more other societies by disturbing their kinship relationships. The agents that carry out injustice for the colonizing society are the military, businesses and corporations, educational institutions, religious organizations, and private citizens. They engage in acts of terror and discrimination or take leadership in manipulating and managing people to support colonial goals. The Great Lakes region in North America has been, and continues to be, a major site of environmental injustices against Indigenous peoples, especially related to mining and access to fi sh and plant harvesting. This is the region where I work. Anishinaabe, Oneida, Dakota, Menominee, and other peoples of the northern Great Lakes region have longstanding ancestral kinship traditions. Species like walleye, deer, wolves, and wild rice, among others, are integral to ecosystems, as well as entities and fl ows like water, lakes, forests, and prairies. In this section, I will review a number of examples that readers may or may not be familiar with. While briefl y covered here, I hope readers will follow up on these cases on their own to learn more about them. In many of the cultures of the region, people see themselves as relatives of non-humans. They have special kinship relationships with them, including ties of reciprocity. For these species, entities, and fl ows provide many gifts to humans in terms of supplies, food, clean water, forest health, and cultural identity. Indigenous persons feel compelled to honor these gifts and take actions that, in turn, give gifts back to these species in terms of habitat protection. The Anishinaabe water ceremony is one example. The water ceremony involves

15031-3782d-1pass-r03.indd 272 4/24/2020 4:49:39 PM Indigenous environmental justice 273 people sharing and drinking water, and engaging in practices, such as singing, that honor the gifts of life and health that water provides. The ceremony also solidiﬁ es humans’ gifts back, as water protectors. Elder Josephine Mandamin, in an interview, says that “That’s our responsibility, our role, and our duty, to pass on the knowledge and understanding of water, to all people, not just Anishinaabe people, but people of all colors” ( Indigenous Environ- mental Network, 2014). Indigenous peoples of the Great Lakes region have longstanding traditions of treaty- making across societies to create kinship bonds of reciprocity. The Dish with One Spoon Treaty between Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee peoples in the Great Lakes region is an example. Leanne Simpson writes that:

Gdoo-naaganinaa [the dish] acknowledged that both the Nishnaabeg and the Haudeno- saunee were eating out of the same dish through shared hunting territory and the ecological connections between their territories . . . both parties were to be responsible for taking care of the dish. . . . All of the nations involved had particular responsibilities to live up to in order to enjoy the rights of the agreement. Part of those responsibilities was taking care of the dish. ( Simpson, 2008 , p. 37)

This treaty is an early example of how environmental justice was established through forg- ing kinship bonds. When faced with the threat of colonization, Indigenous peoples of the Great Lakes attempted to forge bonds of kinship with European, American, and Canadian societies ( Witgen, 2011 , Lytwyn, 1997 ). Heidi Stark, speaking of treaties of Anishinaabe peoples with the U.S. and Canada, claims that “Anishinaabe saw the treaties as vehicles for building relationships vested in reciprocal responsibilities” (Stark, 2010, p. 153). Susan Hill, speaking of treaties and agreements of Haudenosaunee people and colonists, writes that the:

relationship was to be as two vessels travelling down a river—the river of life—side by side, never crossing paths, never interfering in the other’s internal matters. However, the path between them, symbolized by three rows of white wampum beads in the treaty belt, was to be a constant of respect, trust, and friendship. . . . Without those three principles, the two vessels could drift apart and potentially be washed onto the bank (or crash into the rocks). ( Hill, 2008 )

Hill’s description of this treaty tradition, called the Kaswentha , emphasizes reciprocity as interdependence. Despite Indigenous peoples’ intentions to maintain kinship relationships through treaties, their treaty rights have been repeatedly violated. Treaty violations have threatened Great Lakes fi sh, wild rice, and wolves—disrupting the gift-giving and gift-receiving relationships that furnish the basis of interdependence. For example, in the 1980s and 1990s, in places currently known as Wisconsin and Michigan, some treaty Tribes had to fi ght to protect their responsibilities to fi sh. By treaty Tribes, I mean Indigenous peoples who have signed treaties with the U.S. that protect their responsibilities to kin, like the aforementioned plants, animals, and fi shes. They were harassed by white fi shers and offi cials of the two states, experiencing both direct violence and the use of racial epithets. States like Michigan have entertained recreational and other types of wolf killing after wolf populations rebounded in

15031-3782d-1pass-r03.indd 273 4/24/2020 4:49:39 PM 274 Kyle Whyte the region that would interfere with Indigenous practices of relating to wolves. Commercial rice production, mining, dams, and genetic research have all threatened wild rice populations. Dams and logging have had deleterious impacts on anadromous fi sh, like sturgeon. Industrial pollution has for decades affected the capacity of Haudenosaunee people to harvest fi sh and medicinal plants that are safe to eat and use (Nesper, 2002, Andow et al., 2009, Fletcher and Reo, 2013, Holtgren, 2013 , Arquette et al., 2002). Zoltan Grossman has documented numerous struggles of Anishinaabe people against a threat to many non-human relatives: mines. A coalition of Potawatomi, Ojibwe, and Menominee peoples worked for years to stop the water pollution risks of the proposed Crandon zinc and copper mine in northeast Wisconsin, a mine seeking to boost the settler economy at the expense of Indigenous peoples’ health and ways of life, including impact- ing fi shing and wild rice. The Lac Courte Oreilles Tribes fought the Ladysmith copper- gold mine, and the Lac du Flambeau Tribe opposed Noranda’s proposed zinc-silver mine in Oneida County (Wisconsin) (Grossman, 2005). Recently, the Back 40 zinc-copper mine is threatening Menominee ancestral territories. If built, the mine will affect the environmental quality of areas central to the Menominee’s origin story (Reiter, 2017). For decades, the Prairie Island Indian Community (Minnesota) has struggled with its reservation lands being lost to make way for a nuclear power plant and an Army Corps of Engineers dam system, both of which are meant to support settler energy and commercial transportation systems. The dam, for example, causes fl ooding, which recently forced children to cancel their maple sugar harvesting—a major tradition for them. The Tribe is now having to acquire new land farther away to mitigate the risks ( Richert, 2019 ). Or, in cases where wilderness areas have been established by the U.S., Indigenous peoples have been excluded from culturally based and economically critical harvesting activities, such as fi shing. The Boundary Waters Canoe Area, in what is currently Minnesota, excluded all motor- boats from entering, which limited the access of nearby Anishinaabe peoples, especially the Boise Forte Band of Chippewa, who have treaty rights to continue their subsistence and other relationships to the area (Freedman, 2002 ). A brief glance at the news will show that Anishinaabe peoples in the Great Lakes continue to struggle against pipelines and mines. The Enbridge Line 5 pipeline carries oil and gas through an area of Lake Michigan that is signifi cant for biodiversity for fi ve tribes. The Tribes, including the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians, have treaty rights that guarantee high water quality for fi sh harvesting and religious practices (Balaskovitz, 2018). Another aging pipeline, Enbridge Line 3 (fi nished in 1960), threatens wild ricing areas across Min- nesota and Wisconsin. In what is currently Ontario, the Eabamatoong First Nation declared a state of emergency due to bad drinking water. Anishinaabe people have been widely affected by Canada’s negligent drinking-water policies (McKenna, 2018; McLaughlin, 2019). Anishinaabe peoples’ anti-colonial action emphasizes kinship relationships as the solu- tion to environmental justice, whether threats from mines and pipelines or from other prob- lems referenced earlier in this section. Josephine Mandamin began the Mother Earth Water Walk to motivate people to take responsibility for clean water in the Great Lakes, honoring water’s role as a sacred life-giver. Deborah McGregor, speaking of ceremony, writes that “We have a responsibility to take care of the water and this ceremony reminds us to do it” AuQ17 (McGregor and Whitaker, 2001, p. 24). In terms of the issue of wolf hunting, The White Earth Land Recovery Project, in Minne- sota, quotes elder Joe Rose, who says “We see the wolf as a predictor of our future. And what happens to wolf happens to Anishinaabe . . . whether other people see it or not, the same will happen to them” (White Earth Land Recovery Project, 2019). Regarding sturgeon, Jay Sam refers to it as “The grandfather fi sh,” and explains how it would “sacrifi ce” itself “so the

15031-3782d-1pass-r03.indd 274 4/24/2020 4:49:40 PM Indigenous environmental justice 275 people would have food until the other crops were available” (Holtgren et al., 2014). In an Anishinaabe white paper on wild rice and treaty rights requested by the White Earth Nation chairwoman, Dr. Erma Vizenor, the authors state that:

[wild rice] is a sacred plant. Manoomin is a living entity that has its own unique spirit. Anishinaabeg have a responsibility to respect that spirit and to care for it. . . . ‘We consider it to be sacred, because it’s a gift from the creator,’ said White Earth elder Earl Hoaglund. ( Andow et al., 2009 , p. 2)

Given how many issues Anishinaabe continue to face, they nonetheless emphasize the importance of reciprocity in terms of solutions, whether they express this through discussing spiritual relationships or treaty rights. Environmental justice is about kinship and is anti- colonial, for environmental injustice is about the disruption of kinship. At least, this is one way of understanding justice and injustice from the perspectives of Anishinaabe and related peoples of the Great Lakes.

Indigenous environmental justice advocacy through kinship Indigenous peoples’ environmental justice movements emphasize different conceptions of kinship in humans’ abilities to live respectfully within diverse ecosystems. Again, I am understanding kinship ethics as an approach that emphasizes moral bonds like reciprocity. Outside of the contexts of Indigenous people that I am most familiar with, I am sometimes struck by a particular division. The division is as follows. The activity of loving the environment, and therefore seeking to conserve nature, is separate from the activity of tackling environmental injustice. Through kinship ethics, Indigenous peoples show that these activities are not separate, for loving the environment occurs through establishing and honoring kin relationships. And environmental injustice is precisely an affront against kinship. In this way, realizing more reciprocal bonds with ecosystems and the plants, animals, insects, and humans who dwell in them is a precise way to express environmental justice . In the Indigenous environmental justice movement, then, kinship with the environment cannot ever exclude responsibilities for humans to be in solidarity with each other toward stopping harms and the threats they face. Indigenous treaty-making is an example of this. There is no such thing as reciprocity with non-human relatives in the environment that would not, at the same time, entail human kinship across societies. Indigenous environmental justice provides a trenchant critique of capitalism, colonialism, and industrialization as disruptions of kinship. At the same time, Indigenous peoples offer solutions, whether for clean energy, conservation zones, or rigorous science, among many others. But Indigenous intellectual traditions often propose that these solutions cannot be exercised at the expense of kinship bonds. Indeed, they can only be considered solutions if they support kinship relations moving into the future (Whyte, 2020).

Follow-up questions • What would it mean to approach your actions as an environmentalist through kinship? • What are the different ways in which reciprocal relationships support interdependence?

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• Are there similarities or differences between the environmental justice struggles of Indigenous peoples, communities of color in industrial countries, and people of the global south?

References for further reading Dhillon, J. 2018. Introduction: Indigenous Resurgence, Decolonization, and Movements for Environ- mental Justice. Environment and Society , 9, 1–5. Estes, N. 2019. Our History is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance . Verso. Kimmerer, R. 2017. The Covenant of Reciprocity. In: Hart, J. (ed.), The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Religion and Ecology . New York, NY, USA: John Wiley and Sons. Yazzie, M. K. & Baldy, C. R. 2018. Introduction: Indigenous Peoples and the Politics of Water. Decolo- nization: Indigeneity, Education, and Society .

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