colonialism

Indigenous Ecological Knowledge and the Politics of Postcolonial Writing

 
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Perspectives Issue 2016/4

Clapperton evaluates three existing frameworks for understanding Indigenous and non-Indigenous claims to know the environment. While each framework has its strengths, they reinforce a binary between Indigenous and non-Indigenous knowledge and keep salvage paradigms of Indigenous knowledge alive. Clapperton calls for an enlarged definition of Indigenous knowledge that could account for boundary-crossing and Indigenous people “doing” science.

Bitumen Exploration and the Southern Re-Inscription of Northeastern Alberta: 1875–1967

 
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Perspectives Issue 2016/4

Longley traces how geographic and cartographic knowledge of the Athabasca region, Alberta, Canada, colonized the region in the southern imagination long before the oil sands industry began extraction there. The practices of exploration, surveying, and documentation mapped the Athabasca region in terms of its rich bitumen deposits, obscuring the histories of Indigenous people. The south gained political and economic control of the region, although this process is incomplete and contested.

When China Met Africa

This film captures the rise of China’s influence in Africa and in Zambia in particular, through the lives of three individuals: a Chinese entrepreneur, a project manager for a Chinese multinational and the Zambian Minister for Commerce, Trade and Industry.

"Toiling in Paradise: Knowledge Acquisition in the Context of Colonial Agriculture in Brazil's Atlantic Forest"

Four centuries of colonial extraction lead to severe ecological degradation of the forests and soils of the Atlantic region of Brazil. This article discusses the management of soil fertility and the relationship between agricultural practices and forest stands based on agricultural manuals published in Brazil over a period of more than two centuries.

"'Reordering and Counterordering': Forestry Preservation, Bush Clearing and the Sociophysical Mapping of Chepalungu, Kericho District, Kenya, 1930-1963"

Recent research on Africa has emphasised conservation and trypanosomiasis control as the major factors, which first motivated colonial officials and scientists to embark on forestry preservation and bush clearing policies. This paper contends that in Chepalungu, Kenya, forestry preservation and bush clearing were implemented with the objective to create a racially and tribally segregated landscape.

The Nature of German Imperialism: Conservation and the Politics of Wildlife in Colonial East Africa

The Nature of German Imperialism: Conservation and the Politics of Wildlife in Colonial East Africa. Cover.

Gissibl, Bernhard. The Nature of German Imperialism: Conservation and the Politics of Wildlife in Colonial East Africa. New York, Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2016.

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