Indigenous, Gendered Approaches to Sustainability
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IN DEEPER WATERS: INDIGENOUS, GENDERED APPROACHES TO SUSTAINABILITY LAURA HALL A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY GRADUATE PROGRAM IN ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES YORK UNIVERSITY TORONTO, ONTARIO SEPTEMBER, 2017 © Laura Hall, 2017 ii Abstract This work presents a decolonizing methodology toward understanding sustainability in time and place. Methods discussed are experiential and grounded in my own positionality. Therefore, I introduce an intersectional approach, with consideration given to the gendered nature of colonialism, and the centrality of Indigenous women within the struggle—not as an essentialist turn but as an acknowledgement of the links between life’s cycles, Indigenous belonging in place and time, and the ongoing renewal of Indigenous pathways. Specifically, I look at the worldview of the Haudenosaunee, my mother’s roots, and attempt to illustrate the depths of Haudenosaunee knowledge in addressing sustainable relationality to place and deep time. I describe some of the ways that understanding sustainability through an Indigenous lens had to be done experientially, with brief discussion of methods including ceremony and drumming and a final chapter dedicated to research and community planning grounded in an Indigenous worldview. iii Dedication This work is for my mother, whose seeds and gardens and thanksgiving fires keep this work growing. I also dedicate this to my family at Seven Directions, and to Urpi Edite Valer Pine for helping me at the beginning of this project right through to the end. iv Contents Abstract.............................................................................................................................................ii Dedication........................................................................................................................................iii Introduction......................................................................................................................................1 Notes on Terminology......................................................................................................................................2 Sustainability Contextualized..........................................................................................................7 Purpose............................................................................................................................................9 Rationale..........................................................................................................................................12 Outline.............................................................................................................................................13 Chapter 1..........................................................................................................................................15 Decolonizing Methodologies: Gardening Knowledge Toward Sustainability...............................15 Situating Self...................................................................................................................................23 Methods..........................................................................................................................................25 On the Land Learning....................................................................................................................29 Fasting and Sweat Lodge Ceremony..............................................................................................31 Limitations......................................................................................................................................31 Framework......................................................................................................................................38 Chapter 2.........................................................................................................................................41 Haudenosaunee Worldview and Sustainability.............................................................................41 Ohén:ton Karihwatèhkwen, The Words That Come Before All Else.............................................55 Chapter 3.........................................................................................................................................69 Temporality, Sustainability and Creation......................................................................................69 The Gaiwi:yo (Good News) teachings of Sganyadai:yoh (Handsome Lake).................................82 Ceremony.......................................................................................................................................83 Treaties...........................................................................................................................................84 Chapter 4........................................................................................................................................89 Space, Time, and Indigenous Belonging.......................................................................................89 Spatiality and Place........................................................................................................................98 Temporality...................................................................................................................................101 Indigenous Gendering...................................................................................................................104 Chapter 5........................................................................................................................................117 Gifting, Gardening and Collaborations Toward Sustainable Livelihoods....................................117 Seven Directions Education Centre..............................................................................................136 Future Steps: Gardening for Wellbeing.......................................................................................138 Conclusion....................................................................................................................................141 Bibliography.................................................................................................................................146 Appendix.......................................................................................................................................163 1 Introduction A Decolonizing and Gendered Approach to Sustainability Learning The trajectory (tragedy) of the colonial system has placed human and more-than- human life on a path of destruction that Indigenous Peoples understand all too well. The costs of colonial excess—a death culture—is tangled in memory loss and the subsuming (rather than disappearance) of traditional Indigenous Knowledge. Rectifying these losses requires deeper understanding than Eurocentric environmental theories have been able to provide. It is evident that the temporal and spatial requirements of belonging, understood and enacted by Indigenous Peoples, need to be supported and revitalized in order to create a context of truly sustainable lifeways in the Americas. The origins of environmental thought, its birthing moment, is, according to Evernden (1992), rooted in the work of Rachel Carson. However, this linear and Eurocentric timeline erases Indigenous origin stories and reveals a temporal and spatial failure of language and meaning. As Evernden writes, a rereading of Silent Spring leaves one with the feeling that little has changed but the names of the poisons. Even the much-lauded ‘sustainable development’ sounds suspiciously like the system of environmental management that Gifford Pinchot advocated ninety years ago under the label ‘conservation.’ (p. 4) The replacement of Indigenous creation/birthing with Eurocentric origin stories is the root of sustainability’s failings. Indigenous women’s stories and practices are especially necessary at a time when we need environmental and human wellbeing to center our work. Simpson (2004) articulates the problem, whereby Indigenous Knowledge (IK) and Traditional Ecological Knowledge have been “poorly understood, or entirely 2 misunderstood” as “settler governments have expressed an interest in learning IK to suit their agendas (climate change, for instance), and have sought to do so on their terms” (p. 75). Further, Simpson’s work along with many other Indigenous scholars, shows us the ways that we have to be reflexive as we revitalize Indigenous Knowledge in our own lives. This work necessarily includes recentering the words and stories of those who have been most targeted. A gendered as well as decolonizing approach reveals the importance, once again, of Indigenous origin stories and truths. As a young learner, without the rootedness of language and ceremony, I see the work ahead as learning to learn—to reframe the questions of sustainability and create a methodology and pedagogy that attends to the intersections of colonialism and its undoing. Notes on Terminology My positionality as the daughter of a Mohawk woman and English-Canadian man, is complicated by the state-colonial schooling systems that interrupted Indigenous language transmission in my family. A qualification around language is in order as this dissertation is entirely written in English with the acknowledgement