Meanings of the Environment: Indigenous Peoples in the Marianas Pacific and Kichi Zibi Region

• In Event: Earth Relationalities: Indigenous Ecologies and Environmentalisms

Abstract

A major thread in cross-disciplinary literature on indigenous peoples and climate change highlights environmental justice as a dominant repertoire through which indigenous peoples access recognition. Drawing on in-depth interviews with Chamorro and Refaluwasch peoples living in Guam and the Northern Marianas, as well as members of Algonquin First Nations living in Eastern Ontario and Western Quebec, we show that relations to the environment differed in kind and degree. These relations contrast the steward-oriented character of indigenous peoples described in cross-disciplinary work. Focusing on the Northern Marianas case for this extended abstract, we find that indigenous identification was only tightly connected to the environmental dimension of land ownership. We found little connections between environmental care and indigenous identification. Based on these preliminary findings, we argue that research does not make visible how indigenous people make sense of this relationship because it typically posits that having an indigenous affiliation determines views on the topic of indigeneity and land stewardship. The construction of tight linkages between environmental stewardship and indigeneity may unintentionally lead to indigenous erasure via ethnonational groupism. We aim to uncover the voices of indigenous peoples by documenting the range of their views, with the goal of improving our understanding of how they gain dignity and respect amidst widening global inequalities. The full paper draft will compare the Chamorros and Refaluwasch and First Nations interviewees to draw broader conclusions.

Authors

• Chelsea King, Harvard University

• Michèle Lamont, Harvard University