Projects

Media Ecologies: Mebêngôkre-Kayapó Cinema and Art

Mebêngôkre-Kayapó youth and community members work with digital photography and film production as well with mobile media-making forms to document their everyday lives, ceremonial festivals, and political participation. This project grew out of foundational work of the Self-determination in a Digital Age project, Dr. Diego Soares (Universidade Federal de Uberlândia, Brazil) and myself co-led in partnership with one Mebêngôkre-Kayapó community (Brazil) and a local Mebêgnôkre-Kayapó NGO (2012-2017). The project continues to explore the centrality of digital “media worlds”, paying attention to the production, consumption, and reception of digital media technologies. Working alongside the Djamtire (formerly Kokojagoti) collective of filmmakers, this community-engaged project emphasizes sustainable solar systems in no-electricity environments, locally driven and designed media centers, and emancipatory possibilities of digital media production. We work with critical data studies, feminist political ecology, and decolonizing research methodologies to support sustainable digital futures. This work has many partners in addition to the ongoing collaboration with the Peoples of A’Ukre Village, Terra Indígena Kayapó, Brazil. Since 2015, we have partnered with EPICS at Purdue University (https://engineering.purdue.edu/EPICS). Since 2016, we have worked with Dr. Richard Pace (MTSU) and Dr. Glenn Shepard (Museu Goeldi) on different facets of media work with the Mebêngôkre-Kayapó Peoples. More recently we have partnered with the Universidade Federal do Pará to support media and communication technologies and sovereignty. Check out work from the Purdue Environmental and Ecological design team here and ongoing work at this blog/website: www.kokojagoti.org & annotated screening room notes from MKWURI undergraduate work here and poster of the work here.

Environmental Justice

This 2020 round-up offers a curated resource list for scholars, practitioners, students, and activists interested in intersections among environmentalism, conservation, justice, and racism. Organized conceptually and thematically, this is not meant to be exhaustive, but rather one of many resources available that can be generative of new conversations in the classroom, in workshops, and across communities. Access the resource here.

Presence to Influence

Examining the Politics of Indigenous Representation in Global Environmental Governance In recent years, Indigenous Peoples and local communities have steadily gained access and opportunities to participate in international policy-making arenas. This increased participation is particularly visible in global environmental governance venues, such as the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Convention on Biological Diversity. Despite, however, the resources and attention dedicated to indigenous representation and the increased presence of Indigenous Peoples in global environmental governance, their influence on decision outcomes remains mixed.  In this project, we seek to identify and examine the ways in which marginalized and underrepresented groups effectively influence governance processes that directly impact their ways of living. Led by Dr. Kim Marion Suiseeya and myself, presence2influence is a multi-sited, multi-year collaborative research project. More information about the team can be found here: www.presence2influence.org.

Payment for Ecosystem Services

Using cash transfers to promote ecosystem services and sustainable livelihoods: What is the role of conditionality? I am part of a team of researchers who are investigating the strong belief in the research and practitioner communities that conditionality is a core attribute of PES (Payment for Ecosystem Services) programs, dictating that payments (i.e., cash transfers) should be conditional on measurable ecological benefits or on specific management actions intended to produce desired ecological benefits.

CNH2-L: Using Sound to Advance Conceptual Frameworks of Resilience of Integrated Grassland-Pastoralist Systems

This project co-engages researchers and herders as co-discoverers of knowledge that provides critical information to help understand the coupling, decoupling and potential for recoupling of the pastoral-grassland system. Grassland biomes are rapidly being lost around the world as they are converted to croplands, mined, and grazed by domesticated livestock. In a few grassland areas, thousands of years of use by herders has resulted in management systems that are sustainable over time. These systems have become examples of resilient integrated sociocultrual-environmental systems. Sounds of wind, thunder, ice breaking, deer, and birds, among others, can be used by herders to determine when to move to summer landscapes, or if damaging weather may threaten herds or homes. Herders pass on this knowledge through calls and songs that codify information about the environment through multiple generations. Local knowledge systems have helped herders balance their stewardship of grasslands over time. As herders change their customary way of life and their traditional forms of knowledge are stressed, what does this loss of knowledge mean for the future of how grasslands are managed sustainably? This project will answer this and other questions by evaluating critical aspects of the soundscape-pastoralist-grassland system in a large intact grassland system. This research will provide insight that is valuable to local herding communities and grassland managers.

Previous Projects

Leadership and Strength

Since 2009, we partnered with community leaders to collaboratively design a project that shares community members’ stories about living well in Utqiaġvik (Barrow), Alaska. This project drew from the Iñupiat Values and the Iñupiaq Learning Framework as models for leadership, strength and healing. Our project goal was to collect these stories for the community and future generations. We used a community-based framework to show how women and men across generations build leadership, strength and community well-being. We rooted our work in a participatory and inclusive approach where research and learning projects are part of larger decolonization processes. Our project website leadershipandstrength.org and our our best practices film: https://vimeo.com/197939591 are great resources.

Equitable Co-existence of Agriculture, Mining, and Regional Development in Arequipa: Realities, Barriers, and Opportunities

This project led by Dr. Zhao Ma (Purdue PI) and Dr. Patricia Salas OBrien (UNSA PI) investigated how communities across the rural-to-urban gradient perceive water availability and quality in the context of climate change to identify potential strategies for facilitating the co-existence. Co-investigators on the team include Laura Zanotti, Jonathan Bauchet, Eliseo Zeballos, Nelly Ramirez, Glen Arce Larrea, Carlos Trujillo Vera. Learn more here: https://www.purdue.edu/discoverypark/arequipa-nexus/en/social-sciences-the-environment.php