Critical Investigations of Resilience: - 麻省理工学院人工智能研究专业

Critical Investigations of Resilience:
A Brief Introduction to Indigenous
Environmental Studies & 科学

Kyle Whyte

抽象的: Indigenous peoples are among the most active environmentalists in the world, working through
宣传, educational programs, and research. The emerging field of Indigenous Environmental Studies
and Sciences (IESS) is distinctive, investigating social resilience to environmental change through the re-
search lens of how moral relationships are organized in societies. Examples of IESS research across three
moral relationships are discussed here: responsibility, spirituality, and justice. IESS develops insights on resil-
ience that can support Indigenous peoples’ struggles with environmental justice and political reconciliation;
makes significant contributions to global discussions about the relationship between human behavior and
环境; and speaks directly to Indigenous liberation as well as justice issues impacting everyone.

One telling of Anishinaabe/Neshnabé (Ojibwe,

Odawa, Potawatomi) history emphasizes how our
peoples have always found ways to adapt to the dy-
namics of ecosystems.1 Our ancient migration sto-
ry describes our ancestors moving from the Atlantic
Coastal region to the Great Lakes, learning how to
adjust to the diverse ecosystems along the route, 我-
morializing these places through stories, and keep-
ing lessons learned for future generations. 诺尔-
edge Keeper and Grandmother Sherry Copenace de-
scribes one dimension of the concept of bimaadiziwin
(the good life) as a society’s or nation’s capacity to
respond best to the challenges it faces.2 Academic
environmental studies and sciences have recently
developed the related idea of social resilience: a so-
ciety’s capacity to learn from and adapt to the dy-
namics of ecosystems in ways that avoid prevent-
able harms, promote the flourishing of all human
and nonhuman lives, and generate wisdom to sus-
tain future generations.

kyle whyte is the Timnick
Chair in the Humanities, Associ-
ate Professor of Philosophy, 和
Associate Professor of Communi-
ty Sustainability at Michigan State
大学. His research addresses
moral and political issues concern-
ing climate policy and Indigenous
peoples, the ethics of cooperative
relationships between Indigenous
peoples and science organizations,
and problems of Indigenous justice
in public and academic discussions
of food sovereignty, environmen-
tal justice, and the anthropocene.
He is an enrolled member of the
Citizen Potawatomi Nation.

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A well-known set of Anishinaabe sto-
ries tells about one of the stopping points
of the migration: a land where food grows
on water, and a place where the people en-
countered wild rice for the first time (嘛-
noomin/mnomen, translated as the good
berry). Waterfowl showed the people that
wild rice is edible and guided them to hab-
itats of low-lying waters where wild rice
grows best and different plants, 动物,
and insects flourish. The people studied
wild rice habitats as webs of interdepen-
dent responsibilities. Ecologically, 荒野
rice is responsible for feeding humans,
birds, and animals; for providing protec-
tive cover for fish and birds; for supply-
ing material for muskrat lodges; 并为
supporting clean water. Water is respon-
sible for giving life to wild rice. The people
then developed their own responsibilities
to harvest in ways that leave enough wild
rice for nonhumans and to work out dip-
lomatic protocols for sharing or respecting
the wild rice beds needed by other human
社区, thereby securing justice for
all beings. They delegated special respon-
sibilities to women and certain clans to de-
velop expert knowledge of water quality
and wild rice habitats and to provide lead-
ership to guide harvesting and habitat con-
servation.3 The people created ceremonies
that honor wild rice as a spiritual being be-
cause of its significance within ecological
webs of interdependent responsibilities.
Anishinaabe storytelling on migration
and wild rice tell us how the people adapted
to new environments by developing moral
关系, including responsibility, spir-
ituality, and justice, which are at the heart of
how we understand resilience. The massive
environmental changes imposed on Indig-
enous peoples by U.S. and Canadian colo-
nization and settlement include deforesta-
的, draining wetlands, damming, rec-
reation, 矿业, commercial agriculture,
shipping, petrochemical and industrial
manufacturing, and burning fossil fuels.

Settlement affects ecosystems, 包括
hydrological systems and wetlands that
support wild rice, that are crucial to Anishi-
naabe peoples for exercising moral relation-
船舶. From nineteenth-century testimo-
人们, we know that some of our ancestors
were particularly concerned that settlement
was inflicting rapid and harmful environ-
mental changes on our peoples, which off-
set the flourishing moral relationships that
supported Anishinaabe resilience. The his-
tory of Canadian and U.S. colonialism can
be read as the establishment of the con-
ditions for their own resilience in North
America at the expense of Indigenous peo-
ples’ resilience.

今天, Anishinaabe peoples are leaders of
environmental movements that advocate
for the continuance and renewal of moral
relationships of responsibility, spirituali-
蒂, and justice. Anishinaabe grandmother
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 sa-
cred life-giver. 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 seek-
ing to boost the settler economy at the ex-
pense of Indigenous peoples’ health and
ways of life, including fishing and wild ric-
英. Five Odawa and Ojibwe tribes in Mich-
igan successfully resecured U.S. respect for
the rights that their ancestors stipulated in
这 1836 Treaty of Washington to protect
future generations’ capacity to exercise
moral relationships with fish, 植物, 和
animals living off-reservation. The Shoal
Lake 40 Ojibwe Nation, through the leader-
ship of community members such as Daryl
Redsky, have worked to mitigate the im-
pacts of Canadian settlers sacrificing its wa-
ter quality and land base for the sake of ex-
tracting clean water for the city of Winni-
peg. Anishinaabe nations, from the Citizen

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147 (2) Spring 2018Kyle Whyte

Potawatomi Nation to the Sault Ste. Marie
Tribe of Chippewa Indians, are frontrun-
ners in experimenting with renewable en-
ergy, such as geothermal power, and green
building standards. Diverse scholars, 在-
cluding Megan Bang, Leanne Simpson, Pat-
ty Loew, Melissa Nelson, and Deborah Mc-
Gregor, have increased the awareness and
practice of Anishinaabe pedagogical philos-
ophies, environmental values, histories, 和
knowledge systems in the spheres of sci-
恩斯, 教育, public policy, and media.
全球范围, nearly four hundred million In-
digenous peoples live on 22 的百分比
world’s land surface, interacting with 80
percent of the planet’s biodiversity.4 And
they lead some of the most significant en-
vironmental movements, educational pro-
克, and research that seek to protect hu-
mans’ abilities to live respectfully within
these diverse ecosystems. The Whanganui
Iwi (Aotearoa), 例如, succeeded in
getting the New Zealand government to
confer legal personhood on the Whanganui
River, which is ancestrally, spiritually, nu-
tritionally, and economically significant to
the Iwi members. The College of Menom-
inee Nation founded its own Sustainable
Development Institute in 1994, 基于
the idea that sustainability has always
been part of Menominee life, 包括
values such as “respect for the land, 水,
and air; partnership with other creatures
of earth; and a way of living and working
that achieves a balance between use and
replenishment of all resources.”5 Quech-
ua peoples of the Andes region, specifical-
ly the Paru Paru, Chawaytiri, Sacaca, Pam-
pallacta, Amaru, and Kuyo Grande com-
社区, have created the Potato Park, A
biodiversity conservation zone protecting
over nine hundred varieties of native po-
tato. The North American Standing Rock
Sioux Tribe recently energized one of the
largest Indigenous mass movements to
stop the oil-transporting Dakota Access
Pipeline, publicizing their Mni Wiconi (wa-

ter is life) philosophy as the ground of their
resistance. Indigenous scholars and activ-
主义者, like lawyer and professor Sarah Deer,
are calling attention to the continued abus-
es Indigenous peoples face, such as the ex-
ploitation of women and children through
sex trafficking at oil and gas industry work-
er camps in the Bakken region of the Unit-
ed States at the hands of the extractive in-
dustries that also contribute to pollution
and climate change. And the leaders of In-
digenous environmental movements have
sometimes paid the ultimate sacrifice. 在
2016, Berta Cáceres, a leader in the Lenca
people’s movement to protect themselves
from the risks of the Agua Zarca Dam, 曾是
murdered in Honduras.

今天, resilience is on everyone’s mind.
Vulnerability to climate change, extreme
weather events, biodiversity loss, and food
insecurity raise pressing concerns about the
well-being of human and nonhuman lives.
The World Health Organization estimates
之间的那个 2030 和 2050, an addition-
阿尔 250,000 annual human deaths will be
caused by climate change.6 Thousands of
species are either extinct or are in danger of
extinction from habitat destruction.7 The
Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network es-
timates that 19 percent of the world’s cor-
al reefs are already lost.8 These are press-
ing challenges, but many human societies
–like the Anishinaabe peoples–have long-
standing sciences, collective practices (这样的
as agriculture and ceremonies), 艺术, 和
philosophies that seek to maintain moral
relationships with ever-changing environ-
ments that lessen harms and risks to hu-
mans and nonhumans alike.

Indigenous Environmental Studies and
科学 (iess) is an emerging field that
centers Indigenous historical heritages,
living intellectual traditions, research ap-
proaches, education practices, and politi-
cal advocacy to investigate how humans
can live respectfully within dynamic eco-
systems.9 While environmental studies

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代达罗斯, 美国艺术学院学报 & SciencesA Brief Introduction to Indigenous Environmental Studies & 科学

and sciences involve diverse scholarly
communities studying every imaginable
话题, iess, 尤其, investigates how
moral relationships–including responsi-
能力, spirituality, and justice–within a so-
ciety yield empirical and humanistic in-
sights about resilience.

Iess research centers on Indigenous peo-

ples’ historical heritages and living intel-
lectual traditions as starting points for in-
vestigating the topic of resilience. Yet iess
investigations do not seek to mine Indig-
enous histories for lessons about the suc-
cess of certain harvesting techniques or
技术, like fish traps. Nor are many
iess scholars concerned about establishing
whether it is, 实际上, true that Indigenous
peoples lived sustainably. 相当, iess cen-
ters on Indigenous heritages and traditions
for the sake of understanding how the mor-
al fabric of a society is related (或不) to its
capacity to adjust to various ecosystems.

In diverse studies of Nuu-chah-nulth
and related Northwest Coast peoples, 在-
digenous studies scholars Ronald Trosper,
Marlene Atleo, and Richard Atleo focus on
moral relationships of responsibility that
connect humans to salmon, 鲸鱼, 和
many other animals, 植物, and habitats.
Speaking on responsibility, Richard Atleo
has described how, for the Nuu-chah-nulth,
“The salmon does not give its life, 但拉斯-
是, in an act of transformation, is prepared
to give and share its ‘cloak’ in endless cy-
克莱斯, provided the necessary protocols are
observed, which indicate mutual recogni-
的, mutual respect, mutual responsibil-
性, and mutual accountability.”10 For At-
leo, the relationship between humans and
salmon, which can be critical to human nu-
trition, is a moral relationship of mutual re-
sponsibility. Salmon will carry out their re-
sponsibilities through reincarnation if hu-
mans carry out their responsibilities to the
salmon, especially tending salmon habi-
tats. The spiritual responsibility associat-

ed with salmon’s reincarnation motivates
humans to take care of salmon, or else the
fish may not return to take care of humans.
Human/salmon responsibilities perme-
ate the fabric of society, operating at many
级别. In Trosper’s historical studies, title-
持有者, or leaders of houses (the polities
governing particular watersheds), were re-
sponsible for ensuring adequate abundance
of salmon in their territories. To become
accepted as a titleholder, one had to orga-
nize a feast, often called a potlatch ceremo-
这. At the feast, titleholders not only paid
respect ceremonially to salmon’s value to
人类, but they also gave away abundant
wealth in the form of gifts, including boun-
tiful salmon harvests, to the guests. 尽管
hereditary lineage was often one criteri-
on for titleholder candidates, their candi-
dacy was also judged publically and criti-
cally through the potlatch ceremonies. Ti-
tleholders’ ability to give salmon as gifts
proved their knowledge and skills at stew-
arding salmon habitats. During times of
salmon shortage in particular areas, mutu-
al responsibility meant houses with plen-
ty helped suffering houses; houses receiv-
ing aid were responsible to reciprocate aid
when needed. If a person trespassed in an-
other house’s territory and was killed, 这
punishing house was responsible for orga-
nizing a feast to stop trespassing and killing
for the sake of future generations.

Nuu-chah-nulth peoples have long-
standing traditions of making places sa-
cred by endowing them with moral sig-
nificance. Marlene Atleo has written that
“Sacred sites are ‘natural’ places in which
the spiritual work of hahuulhi (social fab-
ric) roles intersect with the environment
of the territory and have been carried out
there for millennia, a place where the past,
present and future crystallizes for a partic-
ular position and role.”11 She has described
places where young women learn to cut
salmon for the winter. In addition to ac-
quiring the skills and scientific knowledge,

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147 (2) Spring 2018Kyle Whyte

they tell stories at these places about salm-
on and the sacred responsibilities between
salmon and humans across many gener-
ations. Learners come to see themselves
as endowed with sacred responsibilities
connecting them to past and future gen-
erations and the continued flourishing of
their peoples. Making places sacred serves
as a powerful motivator for people to con-
tinue to observe and take seriously their
responsibilities to salmon and other hu-
mans and to maintain and pass on lessons.
The moral relationships of responsibili-
ty are not trivial. They facilitated peoples’
capacity to adjust to the dynamics of eco-
systems to avoid preventable harms. Ron-
ald Trosper argues that responsibilities
were organized to “buffer, self-organize,
and learn in response to environmental is-
sues.”12 Critically, this research teaches us
more than just the idea that there are some
responsibility-based practices that sup-
port resilience that occur now or occurred
at some time in history. We learn to see the
fabric of society as including responsible
practices and the necessary moral quali-
ties for carrying them out: 相信, consent,
and reciprocity. 例如, leaders and
knowledge keepers must pass vetting pro-
cesses and ceremonies that vouch for their
trustworthiness as stewards of salmon hab-
itats. Ceremonies serve as public occasions
to secure consent. Reciprocity, the moral
quality of being accountable for returning
what one has been given, is expected to help
cope with shortages, restore social relation-
ships damaged by trespass, and ensure, 在一个
spiritual sense, the salmon’s reincarnation.
Salmon is just one species within a web of
responsibilities knit together by trust, 骗局-
发送, and reciprocity. Salmon is not consid-
ered a “species,” but as a people or nation
who honor their responsibilities to humans.
Moral qualities of responsibility facil-
itate resilience. High levels of trust, 骗局-
发送, and reciprocity allow us to rely on
each other transparently and productive-

ly when faced with environmental chang-
英语. Food and water shortages, 例如,
can spark conflicts within and across so-
受苦, especially as people challenge the
trustworthiness and legitimacy of lead-
呃, 科学家, and those vested with au-
托里蒂. Spiritual relationships with non-
人类, the cultivation of places as sacred
(或不), and social rules that commit peo-
ple to help one another and repair fraught
relationships motivate us to see ourselves
as bound to a “covenant of reciprocity.”13
Environmental scientist Robin Kimmerer
defines this covenant as the complex mu-
tual responsibility–connecting human
and nonhuman beings–to be conscien-
tious gift givers and gracious gift receivers.
The environmental dimensions of re-
silience are just as much issues of genu-
ine moral responsibility–trust, consent,
reciprocity, and more–as they are issues
of biology and ecology. Morality and re-
silience are key topics in environmen-
tal studies and science fields, 包括
adaptive management, religion and ecol-
奥吉, and environmental ethics. iess fur-
nishes curricula, 研究, and programs
that arise from and center the historical
heritages and living intellectual traditions
of numerous Indigenous peoples. 这些
heritages and traditions, which continue
to be tied to Indigenous peoples’ current
practices and identities, treat moral rela-
tionships as complex systems working to
promote adaptive capacity, not stagnancy.

The term spirituality is often reserved for

beliefs that are not grounded in evidence.
Many scientists are suspicious of the role
of spirituality or religion in a “rigorous”
empirical study of an environmental top-
ic such as resilience. Some iess scientists,
然而, explicitly assert that scientific re-
search must always be spiritual. 对于很多
Indigenous peoples, spirituality refers to
moral relationships, especially account-
能力, that are tied to the pursuit of sci-

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代达罗斯, 美国艺术学院学报 & SciencesA Brief Introduction to Indigenous Environmental Studies & 科学

entific knowledge. In iess, the connection
between spirituality and science reveals
how empirical inquiry provides informa-
tion about resilience; and how spiritual-
ly oriented processes of empirical inqui-
ry promote accountability within societies
and respect for our interdependence with
nonhumans and the environment.

Yupiaq scientist Oscar Kawagley discuss-
es how the field of ecology is “closest to Yu-
piaq science,” however, ecology often ig-
nores “spirit” and hence “ignores the inter-
action and needs of societies and cultures
within ecosystems.” Kawagley has written
那, “[Indigenous] scientific knowledge is
not segregated from other aspects of daily
life and it is not subdivided into different
fields of science.” He has claimed that, “to
design a fish trap . . . one must know how
the river behaves, how the salmon behave,
and how the split-willow of which the trap
is made behaves (i.e. one must understand
物理, 生物学, 和工程).” Spiri-
tuality fosters accountability between hu-
mans and the environment, what Kawagley
has described as the “incorporation of spir-
it in the Yupiaq worldview [哪个] 结果-
ed in an awareness of the interdependence
of humanity with the environment, a rev-
erence for and a sense of responsibility for
protecting the environment.”14 This way of
thinking about science privileges empirical
inquiry that is designed to achieve goals be-
yond the production of information. Sci-
ence must be part of moral relationships,
increasing human accountability to non-
humans and the environment. 科学
must also be interdisciplinary and include
diverse sources of knowledge. And inves-
tigating systems of interdependence must
be rooted in and applicable to the practi-
cal activities of everyday environmental
stewardship and subsistence, like design-
ing a fish trap!

A powerful example of Indigenous sci-
ence as a process of coupled spiritual and
empirical inquiry can be found in the Great

Lakes, where research about sturgeon biol-
ogy and habitat is designed to recover abun-
dant sturgeon populations. For the Odawa,
Ojibwe, Potawatomi, and Menominee,
sturgeon populations provided nourish-
ment as people emerged from winter with
nearly exhausted food supplies. The stur-
geon habitat was so important that some
peoples had sturgeon clans, which were re-
sponsible for protecting the environmental
conditions necessary to support the fish’s
anadromous life cycle. Some of these clans
continue to honor their responsibilities to-
天, and the sturgeon is still referred to as
a “grandparent” by some Anishinaabe be-
cause sturgeon can outlive humans and
possess incredible wisdom. These anadro-
mous fish remember the exact streams in
which they were born, returning to them
for spawning. Tragically, sturgeon popula-
tions have plummeted due to the U.S. colo-
nial impacts of overfishing, dam construc-
的, industrial pollution, and recreation ac-
tivities such as sportfishing. In Michigan,
例如, by the early 2000s, well under
one hundred fish per year came to spawn in
the Manistee rivershed.15

Historic studies show that Indigenous
peoples across the U.S. and Canadian sides
of the Great Lakes sustained abundant stur-
geon yields. Seasonal knowledge of stur-
geon fisheries includes watching for “pink
[荒野] rose buds to come out or the [荒野]
plum trees bloom,” which signaled the on-
set of spawning, a prime time for fishing.16
Ancient place names, such as Sturgeon
Lake, Sturgeon River, and Sturgeon Falls,
indicate historic or still current sturgeon
abundance. Indigenous peoples who seek
to rekindle sturgeon populations, 然而,
have goals that exceed the recovery of his-
toric knowledge of sturgeon. They are dedi-
cated to returning the fish to abundance and
using the process to renew humans’ own
sense of accountability for the relationships
of ecological interdependence they are part
of but often ignore.

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147 (2) Spring 2018Kyle Whyte

The Little River Band of Odawa Indians
in Michigan has engaged in extensive stur-
geon recovery. Jimmie Mitchell, a program
founder, has described sturgeon recovery
as providing a “connection between spirit-
world and our own. . . . The spirit that is con-
nected to our belief system guides the An-
ishinaabek to our respective responsibili-
领带 [to the environment].”17 Tribal biol-
ogist Marty Holtgren describes how the
scientific research was designed by a com-
munity-based committee of elders, 科学-
奶嘴, and tribal members. For Holtgren, 这
Cultural Context Committee facilitated a
voice that “was an amalgamation of cultur-
阿尔, 生物, 政治的, and social elements,
all being important and often indistinguish-
able.” Their meetings were punctuated by
ceremonies and feasts. Holtgren has dis-
cussed how the tribe worked to develop a
process to “restore the harmony and con-
nectivity between [Lake Sturgeon] 和
Anishinaabek and bring them both back to
the river.”18 Here, the goal of scientifical-
ly investigating sturgeon biology and hab-
itat for the sake of population recovery in-
cludes restoring human accountability to
sturgeon and rekindling the philosophies
of ancient moral relationships that link
humans and sturgeon in an interdepen-
dent ecosystem. The involvement of non-
scientists on the committee exemplifies ac-
countable science: the idea that empirical
inquiry should be designed so that commu-
nities can trust and consent to the research
设计, the implementation of its methods,
and its outcomes.

Bringing people back to the river built
awareness of and human accountability for
the major environmental factors degrading
sturgeon habitats, especially dams and pol-
溶液. Important components of the sci-
ence of sturgeon recovery included learning
about historic relationships of accountabil-
ity between humans and sturgeon and re-
newing that accountability today. The Lit-
tle River Band, Menominee, White Earth

Ojibwe, Rainy River First Nation, 还有其他-
er Tribes working to restore sturgeon in the
Great Lakes have designed public ceremo-
nies and community feasts to commemo-
rate the ways sturgeon plays a key role in
highly interdependent, local ecosystems.
Little River’s sturgeon-release ceremony
invites the public to attend when juvenile
sturgeon are released into the river each fall,
exposing many non-Natives to Indigenous
histories, 文化, and traditional knowl-
edge of sturgeon, as well as sturgeon biolo-
gy and life cycles and environmental chal-
伦格斯. The Menominee sturgeon feast each
spring is also public, bringing Menominee
and non-Menominee together for educa-
tional and cultural immersion in sturgeon-
related history, 价值观, and practices, 在-
cluding dance. Some Odawa and Menomi-
nee attendees see the ceremony and feasts,
which attract hundreds of people, as a
chance to commemorate accountability
to the fish, to create intercultural conver-
sations about sturgeon science, to heal re-
lationships with settlers through a public
discussion of environmental degradation,
and to engender responsibilities in future
几代人. At the Odawa ceremony, 许多
children of all heritages personally release a
juvenile sturgeon into the river. 当然,
these events are significant parts of In-
digenous sturgeon recovery projects that
frame provocative empirical inquiry into
sturgeon; Little River’s and Menominee’s
research on anadromous sturgeon add to
knowledge about sturgeon biology, genet-
集成电路, life cycles, and habitats.19

Both Little River and Menominee stur-
geon programs seek to rekindle moral re-
lationships between humans and sturgeon,
and thus couple science and spirituality.
The programs are interdisciplinary, aimed
at understanding complex human interde-
pendence with sturgeon, and committed to
bringing sturgeon back to sustenance lev-
这. The ceremonies and feasts bring people
together to strengthen moral qualities, 在

142

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代达罗斯, 美国艺术学院学报 & SciencesA Brief Introduction to Indigenous Environmental Studies & 科学

this case accountability, but also trust, 骗局-
发送, and reciprocity. They seek not only to
rebuild the social fabric of Indigenous peo-
普莱斯, but also to repair the fraught relation-
ships with settler and other non-Indigenous
populations in the region. iess activist and
scholar Winona LaDuke, writing on the res-
toration of sturgeon at White Earth, 有
expressed hope that “Maybe the fish will
help a diverse set of people work together
to make something right. . . . The fish help
us remember all of those relations, 并在
their own way, help us recover ourselves.”20
Iess’ focus on responsibility and spiri-

tuality yields lessons about another mor-
al relationship relevant to resilience: jus-
泰斯. Scholarship on environmental justice
shows that groups such as Indigenous peo-
ples around the world and U.S. people of
color bear high burdens of environmen-
tally related harms, such as lower health
outcomes and losses of cultural integrity.
iess research often takes an additional step
to demonstrate that environmental injus-
tice can be understood as threatening the
moral relationships that empower all soci-
eties’ resilience. Consider how Haudenos-
aunee peoples and their allies have devel-
oped a portfolio of iess research studying
the relationship among pollution, 健康,
self-determination, and cultural vitality in
the Saint Lawrence River watershed. 他们
designed this research to respond to wide-
spread industrial pollution burdening Mo-
hawk communities on both the U.S. and Ca-
nadian sides, including toxicants like poly-
chlorinated biphenyls.

Mohawk scholars, activists, and scien-
tists have documented the history of pol-
lution in the region.21 The United States
and Canada permitted giant industrial fa-
cilities of General Motors, the Aluminum
Company of America, Domtar, and Reyn-
olds Metals to operate in close proximity
to the Mohawk communities. The nations
and industries neglected to be responsible

for cleaning up immediately after some of
these facilities closed. Some areas within
the Saint Lawrence River watershed near
Mohawk communities have been among
the most polluted in North America. 这
pollution is no accident. Winona LaDuke
has argued that the United States and
Canada set the Mohawks up for these cir-
cumstances by coercing them into ced-
ing much of their lands.22 In addition to
land dispossession, Canada and the United
States forced many Mohawks into board-
ing schools that attempted to divest them
of their cultures, 语言, and potential
to pass on skill sets.

The pollution of fish is a particular con-
欧洲核子研究组织. Indigenous studies scholar Elizabeth
Hoover has written that, in Akwesasne, “这
relationship between fish–whose duty it is
to cleanse the water and offer themselves as
food–and humans–whose role it is to re-
spectfully harvest these fish–has been in-
terrupted by environmental contamina-
tion.”23 Those most at risk from pollutants
include women of childbearing age, preg-
nant and nursing women, and children un-
der fifteen, especially given the bioaccumu-
lation of some toxicants in breast milk. 在-
digenous environmental scientists Alice
Tarbell and Mary Arquette estimate that 50
percent of the economy used to be based
on fishing before the pollution started. 是-
yond fish, they tell how the contamination
of medicinal plants leaves traditional health
care providers unable to recommend natu-
ral remedies that some elders in Mohawk
communities rely on.24

For the Haudenosaunee, the harms of
pollution strike at the heart of the moral
relationships that make up the fabric of
their societies. Indigenous environmental
scientist Henry Lickers has said that when
pollution makes it hard to continue fish-
英, “people forget, in their own culture,
what you call the knot that you tie in a net.
所以, a whole section of your language
and culture is lost because no one is tying

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147 (2) Spring 2018Kyle Whyte

those nets anymore. . . . That whole social
infrastructure that was around the fabrica-
tion of that net disappeared.”25 For Lick-
呃, the “whole social infrastructure” and
“language and culture” refer to the conver-
gence of responsibilities and spiritual rela-
tionships connecting people to each oth-
是, to fish, to biota, and to the ecosystem.
These relationships sustained trust, 骗局-
发送, reciprocity, and accountability with-
in the community and made it possible for
people to live respectfully within dynamic
ecosystems. Tarbell and Arquette describe
Mohawk people as in mourning due to the
loss of their capacity to exercise their mor-
al relationships.26

The Haudenosaunee have developed a
comprehensive strategy for responding
to pollution through the environmental
divisions of the Mohawk Council of Ak-
wesasne and the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe,
the Akwesasne Task Force on the Envi-
罗门特, the Mother’s Milk Project, 这
Traditional Mohawk Nation Council of
Chiefs, and the leadership of Mohawk sci-
entists in the Saint Lawrence River Insti-
图特. Their iess portfolio is diverse. At one
等级, they have produced peer-reviewed
research on the environmental and human
impacts of pollution, often collaborating
with universities, such as the University at
Albany, in ways that ensure scientific ex-
pertise and education stay in the Mohawk
communities after particular projects end.
They also work at the level of ethics, 胡-
man rights, and justice.27

In terms of the scientific research, 氩气-
quette and her collaborators at Akwesasne
have emphasized how studying moral re-
lationships is crucial for understanding
the impacts of pollution. Challenging the
notion–common in some environmen-
tal science circles–that if there is no expo-
sure, then there are no adverse health ef-
fects, they have shown how, when moral
relationships between humans, fish, 和
plants break down, “alternative diets are

consumed that are often high in fat and cal-
ories and low in vitamins and nutrients,”
which produces additional negative health
outcomes that affect Mohawks acutely, 在-
cluding diabetes.28 The study of environ-
mental health is not only about degrees of
exposure, but also about peoples’ moral re-
lationships.

Mohawk advocate Katsi Cook, 通过
the Mother’s Milk Project, has worked to
make environmental health science acces-
sible to affected communities so that peo-
ple can respond to pollution by observing
moral relationships with fish, medicinal
植物, and other beings. Cook sees the
Mohawk responses to pollution through
the lens of moral relationships. She said
“the beauty of the response of the mothers
. . . is that they saw everything in a bigger
picture. Many of us bless the seeds, pray
to corn, and continue a one-on-one rela-
tionship with the earth.”29 Regarding in-
novative solutions, Tarbell and Arquette
have discussed aquaculture, 例如,
not as a permanent solution, but “one that
allows the skills associated with fishing to
continue” and provides a “healthy pro-
tein.”30 The same concern for moral rela-
tionships has also inspired Mohawk lead-
ership in the fight against climate change.
The publically available climate change
plan of the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe, 奥尔加-
nized according to the Mohawk Thanks-
giving Address, uniquely focuses on mor-
al relationships, including sections on the
“Three Sisters,” “The Four Winds,“ 和
“Grand Mother Moon.”

Injustice is a form of domination that
works to undermine Indigenous peoples’
capacity to have moral relationships with
nonhumans and the environment, 哪个
are crucial to their resilience. The pollu-
tion in the Saint Lawrence River water-
shed exemplifies U.S. and Canadian in-
justice against the Haudenosaunee peo-
普莱斯. And the Akwesasne Task Force has
argued that fighting pollution is about

144

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代达罗斯, 美国艺术学院学报 & SciencesA Brief Introduction to Indigenous Environmental Studies & 科学

Mohawk self-determination, whether by
supporting environmental health or cre-
ating new economic options that are safe
and sustainable. Injustice occurs when one
society seeks to upend the moral relation-
ships that constitute another society’s re-
silience, 在这种情况下, Canada and the Unit-
ed States establishing the conditions for
their own resilience at the expense of the
Mohawk peoples. Establishing justice,
然而, as the Mohawk leaders and in-
stitutions demonstrate, involves the con-
tinuance and renewal of moral relation-
ships that support their capacity to live re-
spectfully with a changing environment.

Iess centers on Indigenous historical heri-

塔盖斯, living intellectual traditions, 研究
方法, education practices, and polit-
ical advocacy to investigate how humans
can live respectfully within diverse ecosys-
特姆斯. iess makes critical contributions to
environmental research by showing the val-
ue of moral relationships as lenses through
which to learn about sustainable social
规范 (such as the potlatch ceremony),
scientific research on fish habitats (例如
sturgeon recovery science), or the social di-
mensions of environmental health (例如

the decline of fishing at Akwesasne and dia-
betes). On the flipside, iess frames efforts
to empower people to form moral relation-
ships as a type of resilience. iess supports
Indigenous peoples’ capacity to achieve sus-
tainability and environmental justice and
provides global insights into key challeng-
es pertaining to resilience, including low-
ering carbon footprints, achieving gender
正义, conserving biodiversity, strength-
ening peoples’ senses of responsibility, 和
remediating polluted places.

Perhaps most important for the well-be-
ing of Indigenous peoples everywhere, iess
makes strong statements about what Indig-
enous reconciliation with settler and colo-
nial nations will require. While apologies
and forgiveness have symbolic value, 在-
digenous peoples are demanding reclama-
tion of Indigenous lands and waters, 和
recognition of Indigenous sovereignty and
self-determination on those lands and wa-
特尔斯. iess sheds light on how reclamation
and sovereignty entail the capacity of Indig-
enous peoples to rebuild and continue com-
plex moral relationships that can promote
经济的, 文化, and social resilience for
the sake of future generations’ well-being.

尾注
1 Anishinaabe will be used as shorthand for the diversity of spellings, including but not limited to
Neshnabé. Future references to words in this language will include a secondary spelling option.

2 Author conversation with Sherry Copenace, 七月 7, 2017.
3 While many Anishinaabe persons identify in the English language as women and discuss wom-
en’s responsibilities, it is also the case that Anishinaabe language and culture do not admit of
nor aspire to a binary gender system. Readers should mind the complexity framing Anishi-
naabe utterances of the English language words “women” and “girls.”

4 Claudia Sobrevila, The Role of Indigenous Peoples in Biodiversity Conservation: The Natural but Often For-

gotten Partners (华盛顿, 华盛顿特区: 世界银行, 2008), 十二.

5 Diana Morris, “Letter from the President,” College of Menominee Nation, http://www.menom

inee.edu/About_CMN.aspx?id=1233 (accessed December 24, 2017).

6 世界卫生组织, Climate Change and Health Fact Sheet, 七月 2017, http://万维网

.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs266/en/.

7 Ronald Sandler, The Ethics of Species: 一个介绍 (剑桥: 剑桥大学出版社,

2012).

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147 (2) Spring 2018Kyle Whyte

8 Clive Wilkinson, 编辑。, Status of Coral Reefs Around the World: 2008 (Townsville, 澳大利亚: 全球的

Coral Reef Monitoring Network, 2008), 5.

9 For an introduction to this topic, see Brigitte Evering and Dan Longboat, “An Introduction to
Indigenous Environmental Studies,” in Contemporary Studies in Environmental and Indigenous Ped-
agogies (纽约: 施普林格, 2013); Eve Tuck, Marcia McKenzie, and Kate McCoy, “Land
教育: Indigenous, Post-colonial, and Decolonizing Perspectives on Place and Environ-
mental Education Research,” Environmental Education Research 20 (1) (2014): 1–23; and War-
ren Cariou and Isabelle St-Amand, “Introduction to Environmental Ethics through Chang-
ing Landscapes: Indigenous Activism and Literary Arts,” Canadian Review of Comparative Liter-
ature 44 (1) (2017): 7–24.

10 Richard E. Atleo, “Discourses in and About the Clayoquot Sound: A First Nations Perspective,”
in A Political Space: Reading the Global through Clayoquot Sound, 编辑. Warren Magnusson and Karena
Shaw (Kingston, 加拿大: McGill University Press, 2002).

11 Marlene Renate Atleo, “The Ancient Nuu-Chah-Nulth Strategy of Hahuulthi: Education for
Indigenous Cultural Survivance,” International Journal of Environmental, 文化, Economic and So-
cial Sustainability 2 (1) (2006).

12 Atleo, “Discourses in and About the Clayoquot Sound”; Atleo, “The Ancient Nuu-Chah-Nulth
Strategy of Hahuulthi”; and Ronald L. Trosper, 弹力, Reciprocity and Ecological Economics:
Northwest Coast Sustainability (纽约: 劳特利奇, 2009).

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13 Oscar Kawagley, Delena Norris-Tull, and Roger Norris-Tull, “The Indigenous Worldview of
Yupiaq Culture: Its Scientific Nature and Relevance to the Practice and Teaching of Science,”
Journal of Research in Science Teaching 35 (2) (1998): 133–144, 特别是. 138–139.

14 Angayuqaq Oscar Kawagley, A Yupiaq Worldview: A Pathway to Ecology and Spirit (Long Grove, Ill.:

Waveland Press, 2006).

15 Marty Holtgren, “Bringing Us Back to the River,” in The Great Lake Sturgeon, 编辑. Nancy Auer and

Dave Dempsey (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2013), 133–147.

16 Christopher James Hannibal-Paci, “His Knowledge and My Knowledge”: Cree and Ojibwe Traditional
Environmental Knowledge and Sturgeon Co-Management in Manitoba (博士. 指责。, University of Man-
itoba, 2000).

17 Jimmie Mitchell, “N’me,” in The Great Lake Sturgeon, 编辑. Nancy Auer and Dave Dempsey (East
Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2013), 22. Anishinaabek is the plural of Anishinaabe.

18 Holtgren, “Bringing Us Back to the River.”
19 看, 例如, Jonathan D. Pyatskowit, Charles C. Krueger, Harold L. Kincaid, and Bernie May,
“Inheritance of Microsatellite Loci in the Polyploid Lake Sturgeon (Acipenser fulvescens),”
Genome 4 (2) (2001); and Holtgren, “Bringing Us Back to the River.”

20 Winona LaDuke, “Return of the Sturgeon: Namewag Bi-Azhegiiwewaad,” News from Indian

国家, 八月 31, 1999.

21 Alice Tarbell and Mary Arquette, “Akwesasne: A Native American Community’s Resistance
to Cultural and Environmental Damage,” in Reclaiming the Environmental Debate: 政治
Health in a Toxic Culture, 编辑. Richard Hofrichter (剑桥, 大量的。: 麻省理工学院出版社, 2000).
22 Winona LaDuke, “Akwesasne: Mohawk Mothers’ Milk and pcbs,” All Our Relations: Native

Struggles for Land and Life (剑桥, 大量的。: South End Press, 1999), 11–26, 特别是. 13.

23 Elizabeth Hoover, “Cultural and Health Implications of Fish Advisories in a Native American

社区,” Ecological Processes 2 (1) (2013): 1–12.

24 Tarbelle and Arquette, “Akwesasne.”
25 Henry Lickers quoted in ibid, 5.
26 Tarbell and Arquette, “Akwesasne.”

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代达罗斯, 美国艺术学院学报 & SciencesA Brief Introduction to Indigenous Environmental Studies & 科学

27 看, 例如, Haudenosaunee Environmental Task Force, Words that Come Before All Else:
Environmental Philosophies of the Haudenosaunee (安大略省, 加拿大: North American Travelling
大学, 1992) on human moral relationships with the environment; and Haudenosaunee
Environmental Task Force, Haudenosaunee Environmental Restoration: An Indigenous Strategy for Hu-
man Sustainability (剑桥: Indigenous Development International, 1995).

28 Mary Arquette, Maxine Cole, Katsi Cook, 等人。, “Holistic Risk-Based Environmental Decision-

制作: A Native Perspective,” Environmental Health Perspectives 110 (2) (2002): 261.

29 LaDuke, All Our Relations, 20.
30 Tarbell and Arquette, “Akwesasne.”

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