11/9/2022 0 Comments Balance of power far cry 4![]() ![]() The Just Transition Framework 4 only began gaining widespread distribution in Alaska, in 2018, through collaboration with climate and justice advocacy organizations across the state. Today, the pain and trauma of separation from our Indigenous worldviews, evidenced by the imposed language, is being healed and integrated into our vision for the future. This language shift is important to understand as we envision opportunities for growth and healing ahead of us. 2 The climate crisis is not only a product of greenhouse gas emissions (which impact the Arctic landscape at twice the rate as the rest of the globe), 3 but also of an ideological shift that was imposed by colonization and capitalism to justify violation of sacred land-, water-, and airways-domination that taught Americans to speak of “resources” instead of “relatives.” When we converse with our Elders, the stories they tell are old ones-stories of bounty and abundance, balance and reciprocity. It was achieved by commodifying relationships through the transformation of land into money, and enslaving people into zero-cost labor. This was the birth of our modern extractive economy, which sequesters wealth for the elite few (largely white, landholding, straight, cisgendered men). A state of dependency was intentionally created, with the Nations having to look to their colonizers for survival assistance.” 1 When settlers arrived and colonization began, our economic systems were targeted for disruption and destruction: Indigenous nations were dissolved, removed, subjected to genocide, or assimilated across this continent to make way for private land ownership, profiteering from finite resource extraction, and imposing of Christian norms of patriarchy and cisnormativity.Īs PennElys Droz of the NDN Collective explains, “Removing a peoples’ means of providing for themselves is a cunning way to suppress and control them. Political leaders, the army, and the church worked hard to break this connection. The way their languages curved on their tongues was slowly lost, and the graceful curves of familiar rivers were similarly interrupted-blocked by dams, poisoned by mines, and now heating to record temperatures, deadly to fish and other creatures.Įrasure of Indigenous connection to place was crucial for the colonial settlement of the lands that became America. But soon, conversations turn to the days those riches began to be taken away through compulsory boarding schools and proselytizing churches. They recount histories of this place with anthropological detail and serene reverence. Instead, they had rivers filled with fish, tundra filled with caribou, families joining together to hunt across the ice or line the smokehouse with summer salmon. When we ask our Elders about the changes they have witnessed on our Arctic lands, they tell us stories of growing up in Alaska without cars, televisions, cell towers-and with no English. We must all take accountability and turn to Indigenous leadership to help us remember how to live in and practice economies of care and compassion. To engage in true climate justice work, we must be brave enough to consider reconciliation with places that have been harmed. ![]() For all of us, Alaska Native frameworks of reciprocity and intentional interdependence inform how we answer pivotal questions of our time-one being, What do reparations to the land look like after destructive mining, leaching of toxic pollutants, and irresponsible oil extraction? We descend from both settler and Native communities. Generating collective health and well-being requires spiritually and materially reconnecting our severed relationships to the land and each other.Īll three of us live in Alaska. Indigenous communities, particularly those of the Arctic, not only are on the front lines of the climate crisis but also are the engineers and economists of sustainability, and offer spiritual teachings of gratitude and deep relationship. SNOW/Click here to download this article as it appears in the magazine, with accompanying artwork. Print “MOTHER EARTHS HER CHILD” (DETAIL) BY JESS X. ![]()
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