Toward Common Cause - Relational Futures Symposium - Panel I

Bringing together Indigenous scholars, activists, and policymakers from the Indigenous Southwest to the Indigenous Midwest, Relational Futures offers a platform for dialogue around Indigenous environmental advocacy and research in the context of enduring legacies of toxic exposure, resource extraction, and global public health crisis. Introductions by co-organizers Teresa Montoya (Diné), Provost’s Postdoctoral Fellow and incoming Assistant Professor of Anthropology, University of Chicago Rose Miron, Director of the D’Arcy McNickle Center for American Indian and Indigenous Studies, Newberry Library Blaire Topash-Caldwell (Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians), Assistant Professor of Anthropology, University of Massachusetts Boston Panel I - Environmental Justice in the Indigenous Midwest The Great Lakes in the Midwest of the United States holds twenty percent of the world’s fresh water and supplies ninety-five percent of the freshwater in the country. In tandem with westward expansion and American development that clear-cut Michigan’s forests in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as well as drained wetlands in the Midwest, the Great Lakes in particular became highly polluted with toxic metals, raw sewage, and higher temperatures which, in turn, depleted many of the Great Lakes fish and waterfowl species. Since the 1950s Lake Erie has been so badly contaminated due to oil spills and legal and illegal dumping, resulting in beach closings and fish that are too toxic to eat, that it is called a “dead” lake. Despite some attempts to mitigate further damage to the Great Lakes via 1970s Environmental Protection Agency policies and international agreements with Canada, oil spills continue to be an issue in the midwest region. In July of 2010, an Enbridge pipeline burst in a tributary near the Kalamazoo River in Michigan. It is known as one of the largest inland oil spills in U.S. history and a significant portion of the contamination reached within several miles of Anishinaabe reservation and trust lands. In recent years tribes in the midwest have leveraged their traditional knowledge to develop more robust ecological revitalization projects on and near tribal lands. As part of this work, knowledge holders and Indigenous environmental specialists provide education around Indigenous stewardship strategies and the revitalization of traditional foods such as manoomin (wild rice). This panel brings together several Anishinaabe scholars and community members who are pivotal to this work so that they may share their experiences of protecting their homelands in the Midwest. Roger LaBine (Lac Vieux Desert Band of Lake Superior Chippewa), Water Resource Technician, Lac Vieux Desert Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Michael Wassegijig Price (Wikwemikong First Nation), Traditional Ecological Knowledge Specialist at Great Lakes Indian Fish & Wildlife Commission Deondre Smiles (Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe), Assistant Professor of Geography, The University of Victoria Moderator: Blaire Topash-Caldwell (Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians), Assistant Professor of Anthropology, University of Massachusetts Boston