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Michèle Koppes, Associate Professor, Department of Geography, University of British Columbia
Michèle Koppes, Associate Professor, Department of Geography, University of British Columbia
Monday October 2nd; 3 PM
Monday October 2nd; 3 PM
Hosts: Jukes Liu, Rainey Aberle, Ellyn Enderlin
Hosts: Jukes Liu, Rainey Aberle, Ellyn Enderlin
Title: Braiding knowledges of braided rivers: integrating place-based, indigenous and situated knowledges and lived experience in the science of landscapes
Title: Braiding knowledges of braided rivers: integrating place-based, indigenous and situated knowledges and lived experience in the science of landscapes
Abstract: The ongoing societal and environmental crises of the Anthropocene Era require a more holistic and critical understanding of our relationship to and with the Earth system. We are now aware that every inch of the Earth’s surface is touched by Man, a mosaic of recorded artifacts of historical human activity, and where all components of the Earth system are responding to the cascading effects of anthropogenic climate change. In an era of shifting baselines, geoscientists need to examine how using a singular, objective standpoint in the scientific process privileges determinism over other ways of seeing. In order to address the inequities of this era and reorient the geosciences towards a more ethical and societally-relevant role, we need to consider shifting some resources away from data‐gathering efforts. Instead, we should seek to integrate indigenous, place-based and situated perspectives into the scientific work of understanding the landscapes we are working in, particularly as so many of the communities most impacted by the cascading effects of climate change are the least involved in guiding our scientific efforts and outcomes.
Abstract: The ongoing societal and environmental crises of the Anthropocene Era require a more holistic and critical understanding of our relationship to and with the Earth system. We are now aware that every inch of the Earth’s surface is touched by Man, a mosaic of recorded artifacts of historical human activity, and where all components of the Earth system are responding to the cascading effects of anthropogenic climate change. In an era of shifting baselines, geoscientists need to examine how using a singular, objective standpoint in the scientific process privileges determinism over other ways of seeing. In order to address the inequities of this era and reorient the geosciences towards a more ethical and societally-relevant role, we need to consider shifting some resources away from data‐gathering efforts. Instead, we should seek to integrate indigenous, place-based and situated perspectives into the scientific work of understanding the landscapes we are working in, particularly as so many of the communities most impacted by the cascading effects of climate change are the least involved in guiding our scientific efforts and outcomes.
Using examples from some of the glaciated mountain regions I have worked in, I invite the geoscience community to imagine how we might revisit how we understand landscapes from more than one perspective in time and space, frame new questions that require integrating new (and old) ways of seeing landscape change, and embrace the multiplicity of worldviews possible - and necessary - for achieving a more holistic understanding of landscape change in the Anthropocene.
Using examples from some of the glaciated mountain regions I have worked in, I invite the geoscience community to imagine how we might revisit how we understand landscapes from more than one perspective in time and space, frame new questions that require integrating new (and old) ways of seeing landscape change, and embrace the multiplicity of worldviews possible - and necessary - for achieving a more holistic understanding of landscape change in the Anthropocene.
Bio: Michele Koppes is Professor of Geography and Director of the Climate and Cryosphere Lab at the University of British Columbia. Her passion is forensic geomorphology: the art of reading landscapes to decipher their stories and the forces that shaped them. Her particular focus is on understanding how glaciers respond to climate change, and how glacier changes impact landscapes, waterscapes and people. She believes deeply that in order to address the ongoing climate emergency, there is a dire need for more place-based, integrated and embodied understandings of how the lives of the ice, the mountains, the rivers and the people who dwell among them are intertwined. She has current field projects in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest, the Patagonian Andes, the Nepal Himalayas, and the Greenland Ice Sheet, where her team combines detailed field observations of glacier dynamics and geomorphic processes with local perspectives, oral histories, acoustic mapping and conceptual modeling of ice-ocean-landscape-human interactions.
Bio: Michele Koppes is Professor of Geography and Director of the Climate and Cryosphere Lab at the University of British Columbia. Her passion is forensic geomorphology: the art of reading landscapes to decipher their stories and the forces that shaped them. Her particular focus is on understanding how glaciers respond to climate change, and how glacier changes impact landscapes, waterscapes and people. She believes deeply that in order to address the ongoing climate emergency, there is a dire need for more place-based, integrated and embodied understandings of how the lives of the ice, the mountains, the rivers and the people who dwell among them are intertwined. She has current field projects in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest, the Patagonian Andes, the Nepal Himalayas, and the Greenland Ice Sheet, where her team combines detailed field observations of glacier dynamics and geomorphic processes with local perspectives, oral histories, acoustic mapping and conceptual modeling of ice-ocean-landscape-human interactions.
Journal Article:
Journal Article:
PAPER_Koppes2022_Braidingknowledges.pdfPage updated
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