Beyond Fires & Floods: Pt 5
MEDIA INDIGENA 370 // Synopsis
Part 5 of Beyond Fires and Floods (BFF) brings you the first half of ‘Storying Systems vs. Symptoms,’ the second session of the second day of climate conversations we co-convened with dozens of Indigenous scholars, journalists and experts last October at the University of British Columbia.
Moderated by long-time MEDIA INDIGENA roundtabler Candis Callison—a jointly-appointed Professor in the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, and the Institute for Critical Indigenous Studies at UBC—she was joined on the panel by Jeffrey Ansloos, Michelle Cyca, Tiara R Naputi, and Gina Starblanket, which was described as follows:
According to scholar Adam Hanieh, transforming our current climate trajectory means confronting ‘the multiple logics of a social system that has served to center oil throughout all aspects of our lives, and we cannot extricate ourselves from oil’s pervasiveness, certainly not at a pace necessary to halt runaway climate change, while remaining within this social system.’ Can seeing climate change as symptomatic of systems and structures shed greater light on the impacts of ongoing colonial policies and institutions?
In this session, we ask how we can move beyond event-centric journalistic practices to reflect underlying structural problems, system change, and long-term solutions. Relatedly, we also unpack what Candis Callison calls ‘crisis-talk,’ where the only allowable discourse is ‘what must be done now,’ foreclosing larger questions of how we got here or what led up to such crises.”
LISTEN > https://pod.fo/e/40d48e
PANELISTS
Dr. Jeffrey Ansloos is Associate Professor of Indigenous Health and Social Policy at the University of Toronto and Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Studies in Health, Suicide, and Environmental Justice. He directs the Critical Health and Social Action Lab, advancing Indigenous- and community-led approaches to health, environmental, and social justice. His work examines the intersections of suicide, climate change, and extractivism, exploring how the psychic and ecological wounds of colonialism are felt and resisted in Indigenous life. Drawing from Cree and Anishinaabe thought, his research foregrounds relational and land-based approaches to care, abolition, and futurity. He is Cree and English, a citizen of Fisher River Cree Nation (Ochekwi-Sipi; Treaty 5), born in Treaty 1 territory.
A member of Muskeg Lake Cree Nation in Treaty 6, Michelle Cyca (she/her) is a Vancouver, B.C.-based journalist and editor. The Narwhal’s bureau chief of conservation and fellowships, a contributing writer at The Walrus, Michelle sits on the board of Indigenous-led non-profit tâpwêwin media, publisher of IndigiNews.
Tiara R. Na’puti is an Associate Professor of Global & International Studies at the University of California Irvine. A Chamoru scholar (Guåhan/Guam) focusing on Indigenous movements, colonialism, and militarism in the Mariana Islands archipelago and throughout Oceania, she has a master’s and doctorate in Communication Studies and a certificate in Native American & Indigenous Studies (NAIS) from The University of Texas at Austin. She’s one of six Principal Investigators on “Archipelagos of Indigenous-led Resurgence for Planetary Health,” a three-year, $2.2M project funded by the Canadian Institute of Health Research. A 2021–2022 Mellon/ACLS Scholars and Society Fellow selected for her project “Sovereignty & Climate Change in Guåhan,” she’s editor of Detours Guåhan: A Decolonial Guide, which interrogates the dominant narratives that structure representations of the island.
Dr. Gina Starblanket is an Associate Professor in the School of Indigenous Governance at the University of Victoria. She is Cree/Saulteaux and a member of the Star Blanket Cree Nation in Treaty 4. Dr. Starblanket’s writings address Indigenous-settler relations, Indigenous political life in the prairies, and Indigenous feminisms. Co-editor of NAIS, the journal of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association, her publications include Making Space for Indigenous Feminisms, 3rd ed. (Fernwood Press, 2024), Storying Violence: Unravelling Colonial Narratives in the Stanley Trial (ARP Press, 2020), and Visions of the Heart: Issues Involving Indigenous Peoples in Canada, 5th and 6th eds. (OUP, 2019 & 2025).
To learn more about BFF: Beyond Fires & Floods, including our core sponsors, visit the BFF home page.
