Sidore Series

Stay tuned!  Just announced. 

Sidore Series 2020-2021

The University of New Hampshire
 
 

Empowering Indigenous Resurgence toward a Sustainable World

Siobhan Senier (English), Svetlana Peshkova (Anthropology),
Jennifer Brewer (Geography), Katharine Duderstadt (Earth Systems Research Center)
 
This Sidore symposium will show how Indigenous knowledge and cultural heritage can deepen our thinking about sustainable futures. Most researchers now understand that anthropogenic climate change and other sustainability challenges require humanistic as well as scientific approaches. But we have yet to thoroughly understand the colonial legacies that produced many sustainability problems in the first place and that often impede our study and solutions. This event will expose scholars, students, and the larger community to Indigenous perspectives that frame climate change specifically through challenges to Western Science and epistemology. Our goals are to:
  • Increase awareness about Indigenous perspectives on climate change and cultural resilience;
  • Showcase examples of how Indigenous groups are engaged in regional, national, and international dialogues on climate and sustainability;
  • Explore how UNH can bring these ideas into teaching, research, and scholarship;
  • Initiate relationships with Indigenous communities to pursue collaborative capacity-building for the co-production of knowledge.

These panels and our team build on Indigenous-UNH community projects from the past decade: (1) Dawnland Voices, an anthology and digital archive developed by Siobhan Senier during her tenure as Hayes Chair; (2) the Indigenous NH Collaborative Collective, led by Svetlana Peshkova, colleagues and students in Anthropology, and Indigenous and non-Indigenous community partners; and (3) the MIST team “Indigenous Communities in New England and the Arctic,” led by Jennifer Brewer, Katharine Duderstadt and Siobhan Senier in partnership with the new UNH Arctic Network and New England Arctic Network. We intend the Sidore series as leverage for larger grants associated with NSF Navigating the New Arctic (NNA), NSF Coastlines and People (CoPe), and other emerging national and international funding opportunities.