UO Course Collaboration
Through this conference, three courses at the University of Oregon will come together in a variety of ways to exchange ideas, methodologies and research related to culture, sovereignty and indigenous peoples. These courses will explore separate issues, but have related themes including the nexus between traditional knowledge and science, historic and future threats to indigenous sovereignty, and the impacts of changing environments on indigenous culture. All students enrolled in these courses will have an opportunity to present their research papers through poster presentations, and several students will have the opportunity to give oral presentations. A description of each of these courses is listed below, along with faculty contacts for each course.
ENVS 411/511: Climate Change and Indigenous Peoples: Indigenous peoples in the face disproportionate risks from climate change. This course will introduce students to the impacts of climate change on tribal culture and sovereignty in the United States, and will include a brief introduction to the history, culture and political status of indigenous peoples the United States. Other topics explored during the course include indigenous rights and tribal sovereignty in the U.S., the role of traditional ecological knowledge in understanding climate change impacts and solutions, and climate justice. This course will examine how climate change will affect the sovereignty, culture and traditional ways of life among indigenous communities in the United States. Course Instructor: Kathy Lynn.
HC 434: Climate and Culture in the Americas: This course focuses on climate issues primarily in the Western Hemisphere from both historical and cultural perspectives. The cultural component has two aspects. First, we examine climate as a cultural construct—as ideas and beliefs and not just temperature and science. This lens opens up a much broader discussion about environmental knowledge and epistemologies across diverse cultures, as well as about environmental management. Second, we look at how distinct cultures (or societies) are affected differently by climate change over time. This approach demonstrates how race and class dynamics affect disaster vulnerability, adaptation, perceptions, and the politics of human responses to climate change. Course Instructor: Mark Carey
HC 444: Decolonizing Research: The Northern Paiute History Project: This course is underpinned by the values of community-based, inter-cultural, de-colonizing, multidisciplinary research, and authentic discourse among Native and non-Native students, historians, and scholars. Through collaborations and shared decision-making about research agendas, modes of inquiry, categories of analysis, dissemination of knowledge, and philosophies of scholarship with members of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs and the Burns Paiute Tribe, the course will position students to create new knowledge and contribute original research to this field of study. Specifically, this course will provide students with training in ethical methodology for researching Native American history, especially regarding primary sources, which are an integral part of the research project. Course Instructors: Jennifer O’Neal and Kevin Hatfield. http://blogs.uoregon.edu/hc444f13hatfield/
