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Presentation Type
Recorded Presentation Video
Event Website
https://naturelab.risd.edu/events/recap-the-regeneration-a-virtual-series/
Start Date
19-11-2020 12:00 PM
End Date
19-11-2020 1:15 PM
Description
November 19 hosted the second conversation in the Regeneration series with Esme Murdock, a philosopher focused on African American, Afrodiasporic, and Indigenous philosophies and environmental ethics. Make sure to take a look at this document with resources to further your learning, plus several answers to questions that were not answered during the live event.
How can we unlearn dominant western teachings in order to build a better and more inclusive environmental movement? And how do we relearn in the most thoughtful way? Esme’s work strives to deconstruct the monolithic, Eurocentric narrative of the environmental movement. During the talk, she says, “when we center one type of story and repeat it over and over again, we are actually compounding our harms and compounding our errors over time.” Esme encourages the exploration of “Black and Indigenous philosophies and ways of knowing,” while stressing the importance of acknowledging the origins of these philosophies.
She implores us to focus on “unlearning” by actively questioning the ways in which we have been taught to think and make, and critically apply non-dominant ways of thinking to our own creative practices and the larger environmental movement. We can start by building daily practices of land and water acknowledgements, choosing to disrupt tendencies for control and mastery, reading texts from scholars outside of the mainstream discourse, and speaking with people who challenge our embedded modes of thought. As a community, we can relearn histories, re-center Indigenous and Afrodiasporic narratives, and build a more equitable future of environmental ethics.
In thinking about the growing need for artists/designers to be ecologically responsible and leaders in sustainability, how does the history of ecological citizenship and the assimilating notion behind the word "citizenship" impact who participates in the environmental movement? How does this impact our ability to find kinship and relation between one another as humans and more-than-humans? How does this disrupt our ability to regenerate for a better present and future? How can makers help build a stronger, more inclusive obligation of care and respect toward the natural world and its resources?
Regeneration with Esme Murdock
November 19 hosted the second conversation in the Regeneration series with Esme Murdock, a philosopher focused on African American, Afrodiasporic, and Indigenous philosophies and environmental ethics. Make sure to take a look at this document with resources to further your learning, plus several answers to questions that were not answered during the live event.
How can we unlearn dominant western teachings in order to build a better and more inclusive environmental movement? And how do we relearn in the most thoughtful way? Esme’s work strives to deconstruct the monolithic, Eurocentric narrative of the environmental movement. During the talk, she says, “when we center one type of story and repeat it over and over again, we are actually compounding our harms and compounding our errors over time.” Esme encourages the exploration of “Black and Indigenous philosophies and ways of knowing,” while stressing the importance of acknowledging the origins of these philosophies.
She implores us to focus on “unlearning” by actively questioning the ways in which we have been taught to think and make, and critically apply non-dominant ways of thinking to our own creative practices and the larger environmental movement. We can start by building daily practices of land and water acknowledgements, choosing to disrupt tendencies for control and mastery, reading texts from scholars outside of the mainstream discourse, and speaking with people who challenge our embedded modes of thought. As a community, we can relearn histories, re-center Indigenous and Afrodiasporic narratives, and build a more equitable future of environmental ethics.
In thinking about the growing need for artists/designers to be ecologically responsible and leaders in sustainability, how does the history of ecological citizenship and the assimilating notion behind the word "citizenship" impact who participates in the environmental movement? How does this impact our ability to find kinship and relation between one another as humans and more-than-humans? How does this disrupt our ability to regenerate for a better present and future? How can makers help build a stronger, more inclusive obligation of care and respect toward the natural world and its resources?
https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/naturelab_regeneration/conversations/videos/2