SUST 570 - Indigenous Knowledge & Environ

Credits: 4

The course will compare Indigenous and western scientific knowledge systems, how they interact, and their relationship to environmental conservation, preservation, sustainability, and justice policies. Indigenous peoples’ knowledge systems and diverse worldviews provide deep counter-narratives to mainstream political-economic and environmental assessments of planetary climate change. A key course theme is to understand how Indigenous community knowledge and livelihoods continue to be resilient in the face of ongoing colonialism, racism, discrimination, and intergenerational trauma. Approaches to integrating Indigenous research methods and epistemologies for documenting, managing, and maintaining sustainable ownership and control of Indigenous knowledge and lands through participatory community engagement are reviewed. Prerequisites: ENVI 101 and ENVI 201. Offered each spring.