2007 Annual Meeting, Association
of American Geographers
April 17-21 2007, San Francisco, CA
4346: Policy, Planning and Appropriate Action
in Indigenous Contexts
Friday, 4/20/07, from 12:00 PM - 1:40 PM
Description:
This session addresses policy and planning issues facing different
indigenous communities. Environmental Justice, a concern to indigenous
peoples whose often-marginal lands are subject to Government policies
serving majority populations, will be addressed in theoretical and
specific terms, exploring how subjugated knowledges and discourses
contribute to understanding the role of space and scale in producing
and contesting injustice. The problem of risk communication in modern
indigenous contexts is also explored, with a case study on the high
incidence of drowning among indigenous peoples in Canada's Northwest
Territories. Here the examination of colonial and postcolonial factors
may lead to not only a better understanding of northern/Indigenous
risk perspectives, but also to the development of successful risk
communication strategies. Smart Growth, which seeks to re-establish
positive relationships with the natural environment, has been recommended
by the Environmental Protection Agency as a new framework to guide
development for rural areas and for American Indian reservations.
A case study of the Schitsu'umsh Coeur d'Alene Tribe Smart Growth
Project near Plummer, Idaho, considers how "smart growth"
assessment of land use patterns and densities must be tempered with
factors such as tribal architecture and settlement patterns. It
must address uncoordinated land development on reservations within
a context of tribal values and sovereignty. Finally, the award-winning
documentary "The Salt Song Trail" will look at the healing
ceremony for Southern Paiute children forcibly taken from their
homes who died at the Sherman Indian Boarding School in Riverside,
California.
Organizer: RDK Herman - National Museum of the
American Indian
Chair: RDK Herman - National Museum of the American
Indian
Presenters:
Anna E Stanley, Ph.D. - Universite Laval
Aboriginal peoples and environmental policy
making: Scale, Discourse, and the Production of Difference in Environmental
Justice Scholarship
Audrey R. Giles, Ph.D. - University of Ottawa
Heather Castleden, Ph.D. Candidate - University of Alberta
Swim at your own risk: Examining Aquatics Risk
Communication in the North from a Postcolonial Perspective
Dick G. Winchell, FAICP - Eastern Washington University
Smart Growth for Sustainable Tribal Planning:
Schitsu'umsh, The Coeur d'Alene Tribe, Idaho
Philip M. Klasky
The Salt Song Trail: bringing creation back
together
Discussant: Zoltan Grossman - Evergreen State College
