(Un)Building Binaries
Session Objective: to question the power dynamics inherent in human-nature relations across time, space, and scales
This week, we dive more fully into Unit 3, which begins the course’s consideration of procedural (rather than distributive) justice. In this third unit, we will be purposefully paying attention to stakeholders who are underrepresented in environmental decision-making: among them, Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour, womxn, queer communities, (dis)abled people, youth, future generations, non-human animals, and nature as a whole. Radical Recognition showcases different forms of power, considering how marginalised actors express themselves through non-traditional agency.
The unit begins by breaking down the ‘either/ors’ that are so prevalent in Western thinking. Dichotomies are divisions between two things that we consider to be totally separated and opposed to each other. Today’s Learning Log invites you to blur those lines.
Launch: Unit 3 by watching Becca’s thematic overview below.
Unit 3 Mini Lecture.movUnit 3 Kickoff (click to read transcript)
As we began exploring last week, Indigenous Land Acknowledgement can be a political tool highlighting the environmental inequalities and Disparate Distribution created by colonialism. But we have also seen that Land Acknowledgement is an Indigenous heritage, a sacred practice of acknowledging the Land itself. This idea launches us into Unit 3 of this course: Radical Recognition.
Distribution matters. The way that communities around the world are exposed to risk and have access to resources is a huge part of environmental justice. But it’s just one part. We started this class by exploring systemic injustice - and quickly saw that it isn’t just ‘who has what now’ that matters, but much larger issues of how our institutions are set up and function. Environmental justice isn’t just about making sure everyone has ‘their fair share’. It’s also about considering who gets to decide what’s fair, and how we make those decisions. These are questions of procedural justice. In Unit 4, we’ll look carefully at processes of environmental policymaking. Before diving into the political processes, though, we want to spend some time paying attention to who we even consider in these conversations - and who we might be leaving out.
There are a lot of underrepresented human groups in today’s world: among them, Black people, Indigenous Nations, Persons of Colour, womxn, queer communities, disabled people, youth, and the elderly. Climate activists often draw our attention to future generations - a group of humans who cannot speak for themselves, but to whom many of us feel a connection and obligation. Many cultural heritages also value and recognise ancestors and those who have passed on. But beyond these human communities...what about non-human animals, as well as ecosystems and nature as a whole? During Unit 3 on Radical Recognition, we’ll be thinking about how we better acknowledge and value these many different stakeholders.
This acknowledgement is critical to fairness in environmental decision-making and equitable distribution. It’s also valuable in and of itself, as a matter of justice and empathy: so much of the injustice in our world today results from othering, from seeing communities who aren’t exactly like us as somehow less than us, as less deserving and less important. During Unit 3, we’ll be pushing ourselves to be a bit less egocentric and a bit more ecocentric, seeing ourselves as just one part of a wider whole - and realising that empowering underrepresented voices also empowers us, as we break down the hierarchies that fragment and hold us down.
We’ll start this by examining dichotomies. A lot of Western thinking is very binary: either/or, yes/no, on/off. Categories are of course really useful, but polarised approaches to classification have become part of the way we “other” each other. Dichotomies are divisions between two things that we consider to be totally separated from and opposed to each other. Today, we’re going to blur those divisions a bit, as part of our Radical Recognition of a wide variety of stakeholders.
False Dichotomies
Consider: how binary assumptions and the distinctions we draw between “humans” and “nature” help to shape injustice through this “Theory at a Glance” overview.
At a Glance_ False Dichotomies.pdfWatch: this video from Geo Nepture sharing the history of the term “Two-Spirit”. Geo explains how dichotomous thinking about gender was used as a violent tool in colonisation.
Geo Soctomah Neptune (Niskapisuwin) is a member of the Passamaquoddy Tribe at Indian Township, a nation within unceded Wabanaki Confederacy territory in what is now referred to as Maine. Known mainly for their ash and sweetgrass basketry, Geo is a non-binary Two-Spirit whose artistic mediums include basketry, beadwork, and hand-poke tattooing.
They studied theater at Dartmouth College, and thought about heading to NYC to act, but felt pulled home. They began volunteering at reservation schools and weaving baskets the way their grandmother taught them.
Geo became Maine’s first openly trans elected official in September 2020, sitting on the Indian Township School Board. Relevant to today’s consideration of dichotomies, Geo says this about Two-Spirit: “A lot of people get caught up in trying to separate all of these different things and saying like, well, is it gender identity or is it sexual orientation? Or is it a spiritual role? Or is it gender and societal role? And all of those things are true.”
Learn: about how dichotomous assumptions about settler or Indigenous erase complex histories by reading EC Mingo’s personal essay and listening to Alice Eather’s poem.
EC Mingo (Cherokee Freedmen and Afro-Seminole Creole) is an undergraduate student at Yale double-majoring in Psychology and Ethnicity, Race, and Migration. In addition to research work in the Social Perception & Communication Lab, EC is involved with the Native American Cultural Center and Association of Native Americans at Yale; serves as President of Ichthys (a confidential group for LGBTQ+ and questioning Christians, exploring complicated feelings about faith, sexuality, and gender identity); and supports BlackOut, a space for LGBTQQIAP+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, queer, intersex, asexual, pansexual +) individuals of the African Diaspora.
When not overcommitting to these various projects, EC likes to read opinion articles, play video games, watch Disney, and talk with friends. Hear more from EC on this podcast exploring Black erasure and the importance of intersectional perspectives within the LGBTQ+ community at Yale.
Alice Eather was an Indigenous slam poet, environmental campaigner, and teacher in Australia. Eather’s mother is an Aboriginal Traditional Owner of Australia; her father is of European ancestry with lineage tracing to the second fleet of settlers and convicts to sail from England to Sydney. Eather was brought up and educated in Brisbane but moved to Maningrida to be the first Ndjebbana-speaking Aboriginal teacher in the community.
When Eather learned that Paltar Petroleum had made an application to begin fracking near her home, she began a campaign group. Protect Arnhem Land was successful in convincing the Northern Territory government to suspend the application until further consulting work had been done and the local population agreed with the plans. She continued her anti-fracking work, leading to Paltar’s withdrawal in 2016.
In 2017, Eather committed suicide – something all too horribly common amongst Indigenous youth all over the world.
Explore: this commentary and photo exhibit showcasing protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline. As you read Craig and Tyler’s words, pay special attention to how they speak about nature. While examining Rashad’s photography, think about false divisions between modernity and heritage; technology and tradition; human and environment; power and helplessness.
“The internal sense of division a human has between itself (the organism) and other (the environment) is a persistent illusion. It is a dangerous illusion...”
Dr Craig Howe is the founder and director of the Center for American Indian Research and Native Studies, a nonprofit research center committed to advancing knowledge and understanding of American Indian communities and issues important to them. He earned a PhD from the University of Michigan and is a faculty member in the Graduate Studies Department at Oglala Lakota College. Dr Howe has previously served as Deputy Assistant Director for Cultural Resources at the National Museum of the American Indian and Director of the D’Arcy McNickle Center for American Indian History at the Newberry Library. Howe was raised and lives on his family’s cattle ranch on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and is an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe.
Tyler Young works as a Park Ranger for the National Park Service. After earning a Bachelor of Science degree in Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering from Case Western Reserve University, he worked as a high-school science teacher at St. Francis Indian School and served as research assistant at the Center for American Indian Research and Native Studies.
Rashad Anabtawi is a photographer and narrative filmmaker who tells stories and shares experiences. Much of Rashad’s work has focused on environmental activism and the rights of non-human animals, with major projects documenting the installation of solar panels at the Queen Alia International Airport and biodiversity in the Al Ma’wa Nature and Wildlife Sanctuary, the Dibeen Forest, and the Al-Azraq Wetlands Nature Reserve around Jordan.
Realise: that we are not as separate as we often assume through this Buddhist teaching that draws lessons from nature.
One autumn day, I was in a park, absorbed in the contemplation of a very small but beautiful leaf, in the shape of a heart. Its color was almost red, and it was barely hanging on the branch, nearly ready to fall down. I spent a long time with it, and I asked the leaf a lot of questions...
I asked the leaf whether it was frightened because it was autumn and the other leaves were falling. The leaf told me, “No. During the whole spring and summer I was completely alive. I worked hard to help nourish the tree, and now much of me is in the tree. I am not limited by this form. I am also the whole tree, and when I go back to the soil, I will continue to nourish the tree. So I don’t worry at all. As I leave this branch and float to the ground, I will wave to the tree and tell her, ‘I will see you again very soon’”. That day there was a wind blowing and, after a while, I saw the leaf leave the branch and float down to the soil, dancing joyfully, because as it floated it saw itself already there in the tree. It was so happy. I bowed my head, knowing that I have a lot to learn from the leaf.
So please continue to look back and you will see that you have always been here. Let us look together and penetrate into the life of a leaf, so we may be one with the leaf. Let us penetrate and be one with the cloud or with the wave, to realize our own nature as water and be free from our fear. If we look very deeply, we will transcend birth and death. Tomorrow, I will continue to be. But you will have to be very attentive to see me. I will be a flower, or a leaf. I will be in these forms and I will say hello to you. If you are attentive enough, you will recognize me, and you may greet me. I will be very happy.
Thích Nhất Hạnh is a Vietnamese Thiền Buddhist monk, peace activist, and deep ecologist. He practices and teaches nonviolence and the interconnectedness of nature.
In 1966, Thay (as he is lovingly called by his students) left Vietnam for a peace mission. He met the Reverend Dr Martin Luther King Jr and Pope Paul VI, and appealed to then-US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara for an end to the American bombing of Vietnam. The South Vietnamese Government banned him from returning, as did the post-war regime. Thay lived 39 years in exile, much of he spent at the Plum Village Monastery in southwest France, where he founded the Plum Village Tradition to practice Engaged Buddhism, which applies Buddhist principles and practices to social, political, environmental, and economic injustice. (Photograph of Thích Nhất Hạnh planting a bodhi tree in India in 2008 by the Plum Village Community of Engaged Buddhism.)
Read: about “Work In The Intersections: A Black Feminist Disability Framework”. Dr Moya Bailey and Dr Izetta Autumn Mobley build on ideas of intersectionality to show how dichotomous thinking around human identities is inaccurate and contributes to marginalisation:
“In a western frame, Blackness is the antithesis of whiteness, the necessary other that creates the dichotomized racial caste system. Similarly, disabled and able-bodied function as two oppositional poles that belie the slippages and realities in between...”
Dr Moya Bailey is an assistant professor in the Department of Cultures, Societies, and Global Studies and the program in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Northeastern University. Her work focuses on Black women’s use of digital media to promote social justice as acts of self-affirmation and health promotion. She is interested in how race, gender, and sexuality are represented in media and medicine.
Dr Bailey is the founder and co-conspirator of Quirky Black Girls, a network for strange and different black girls, and now serves at the digital alchemist for the Octavia E. Butler Legacy Network. As an undergrad, she received national attention for her involvement in the Nelly Protest at Spelman, a moment that solidified her deep commitment to examining representations of Black women in popular culture. She coined the term misogynoir which describes the unique anti-Black racist misogyny that Black women experience.
Dr Izetta Autumn Mobley is a native Washingtonian focusing on how race, gender, disability, and visual culture interact to produce notions of sovereign bodies in the United States. She has extensive experience within the art field, having worked with the National Endowment for the Arts, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and the National Museum of African Art.
After completing her doctoral dissertation on Troublesome Properties: Race, Disability, and Slavery’s Haunting of the Still Image, Dr Mobley was awarded an ACLS Emerging Scholar Postdoctoral Fellowship. She is now teaching courses in American Studies for the Humanities Institute of the University of Texas at Austin.
View: this line of caribou, whose migration routes cross any number of political and ecological barriers. While you explore Subhankar Banerjee’s work, think about how he explicitly breaks down boundaries about “the academy” and where knowledge is housed...
Photographer Subhankar Banerjee is an Indian–born American conservationist photographer and researcher whose practice is place–based and community–engaged. He serves as a Professor of Art & Ecology as well as Director of the Center for Environmental Arts and Humanities at the University of New Mexico.
Banerjee works closely with Indigenous Gwich’in and Iñupiat community members and environmental organizations to defend important biological nurseries and culturally significant places in Arctic Alaska from oil and gas exploration and development.
“The work that I do today, as an artist and writer, as a conservationist and public scholar – I did not learn any of it in academia. I learned it instead by being in the Arctic and learning from Indigenous Gwich’in and Iñupiat elders and from field biologists. The Arctic has been and will continue to be my true university...”
(photograph by Anurag Agarwal)
Diverse Forms of Power
Recognise: the relational agency of ‘non-traditional’ stakeholders through this “Theory at a Glance” overview.
At a Glance_ Agency.pdfExamine: the framework of Indigenous environmental justice, which provides a “set of logics that recognizes the agency of non-human beings as well as the Earth itself”.
Dr Deborah McGregor holds the Canadian Research Chair in Indigenous Environmental Justice. She lectures in both the Osgoode Hall Law School and Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University. Professor McGregor’s research has focused on Indigenous knowledge systems and their various applications in diverse contexts including water and environmental governance, environmental justice, forest policy, and management, and sustainable development.
Professor McGregor previously served in the Department of Geography at the University of Toronto and as Senior Policy Advisor for Aboriginal Relations at Environment Canada-Ontario Region. Professor McGregor is Anishinaabe from Whitefish River First Nation, Birch Island, Ontario.
Stephen Whittaker started his career as a Countryside Ranger before spending time as a supply teacher, followed by several roles that developed both curriculum-based and informal education, as well as wider community engagement in a variety of green spaces. He became Senior Ranger for City of York Council before leaving to gain a PGCE teaching qualification and a Masters in Education specialising in learning outside the classroom. He is now bringing his knowledge and experience together in pursuit of a PhD in Learning in the Natural Environment at the University of York.
Mahisha Sritharan is a Research Intern at Sustain Ontario focusing on urban and residential agriculture. She is candidate for a Master in Environmental Studies at York University, and her research interests lie in food access and health. She is passionate about improving access to local healthy foods for communities. You can read more about Mahisha’s ethnographic work examining “The Impacts Of Climate Change On The Health And Well-being Of The Peoples Of Whitefish River First Nation, Ontario” here.
Consider: the “Reason Men Build Walls” by féi hernandez, published in Poetry, March 2020. While you read, think about how the narrator finds power in their refusal to be limited by binaries, borders, and boundaries.
My lover fears me.
There is too much cumbia,
too much Selena in my walk.
Too much Frank Ocean in my lovin’,
too much storm in our summer kiss.
I am too-much-sugar-pyramid on his tongue,
too-much-Holy-Spirit, too many ancestors
talking in a crowded room.
My lover fears me:
he only sees threat in my soil-brown
eyes: a pending earthquake,
a possession or a steep cliff, his imminent dive out the closet.
He fears the nature of my wild harvest,
the way I am hard fruit cracked open, soft
inside, and his body drools.
He is not used to the howling woman on the tip of my tongue,
not used to myth being truth.
Of course I’m a threat. My pulping heart is a caution
sign, a red light he dare not cross because
he is not a man used to the elements,
the ways of the Earth:
the way my love like fire ignites a forest,
my presence lifts him between
his thighs like wind does dust—
he is not used to a transient, borderless caress
like sound bath or universe energy cascading into
cranium, jolting him into dance with me in bed
past nirvana and all of God’s children.
He is a coward—a divide that swore
it would let me travel across its height without papeles.
My lover is a conditioned man since the start of time,
a colonizer that fears the Pima Indian
in me, the eagle, the flight, the ritual of me.
He fears the too-bare earth-child, the savage,
the Tarahumara in me, fears the too-bare lepe in me:
the too-masculine, female coalescence that makes me a god:
the healer and warrior in me.
He tried to sever parts of me during his inner war:
tried to slice me with his love like a molten silver sword,
he tried to fling my soft womb inflamed into abyss,
but with my too-much-bidi-bidi-bom-bom in my hip
too-much-Frank-Ocean in my lovin’,
being too-much-divine and storm in the summer,
being too good of a serpentine shapeshifter,
I dodged and shattered a fragile masculinity.
I, the two spirit beast, am the reason why men build
walls, borders on their fingertips. I am the catalyst for why
men don’t shed tears, don’t open up.
To lovers I will always be a wild criatura, danger, a disease,
a howling spirit, a haunted house,
awakening, awakening, awakening
and God forbid I awaken a man in our era of silence and crosses.
Yet, although the man that swore he loved me left runnin’,
abandoned me, wings outstretched, crown in hand,
I hair-flipped knowing that silence
is the only way men will ever know how to love
because a freedom like me exists.
féi hernandez was born in Chihuahua, Mexico, and is a trans, Inglewood-raised, immigrant artist, writer, and healer. They are a Define American Fellow for 2021 and was awarded the 2021 Public Art Rogers Park Artist in Residency in Inglewood, California. They are currently the Board President of Gender Justice Los Angeles and is the author of the full-length poetry collection Hood Criatura (Sundress Publications 2020) which was on NPR’s Best Books of 2020. féi collects Pokémon plushies. (Photograph by Julian Sambrano.)
OPTIONAL
Position: the idea of disability as a colonial construct through this paper written by Nicole Ineese-Nash.
Nicole Ineese-Nash is an Anishinaabe (Oji-Cree) educator, researcher, and writer from Constance Lake First Nation. Nicole completed her Bachelor of Arts in Early Childhood Studies, with a minor in psychology in 2016. She then pursued a Master of Arts in Early Childhood Studies at Ryerson University. She is currently completing a PhD in Philosophy focusing on Social Justice Education and Indigenous Health at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto.
Ineese-Nash’s research has focused on inclusivity in early childhood education and on bringing First Nations leaders, and elders together with academics to find answers together. Her current work looks at land-based education as a mechanism for youth leadership and spiritual healing.
Nicole is the director and co-founder of Finding Our Power Together, non-profit organisation providing mental health services, cultural programming, and educational support to Indigenous youth. She also works as a research associate and contract lecturer in the Schools of Early Childhood Studies and Child and Youth Care at Ryerson University.
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