The re-(e)mergence of nature in culture II

In 2017, the SEI convened a highly successful workshop examining the intersections of nature and culture in Indigenous cosmology, philosophy, culture and literature.

SEI’s Culture and Loss research area will host an expanded two-day workshop in 2019 to continue exploring the consequences of loss of agency, culture and identity for Indigenous peoples, both as a result of historical and ongoing dispossession of territories and, more recently, climate change.

Political and corporate denial of climate change is the latest manifestation of the colonial enterprise, which continues to systemically disadvantage and disvalue Indigenous communities and their experiences. A multitude of impacts associated with climate change have already been reported by First Peoples in urban, rural and remote settings, including changed seasonal patterns, extreme weather variations and loss of habitats and keystone species.

The workshop will be an opportunity for scholars of Indigenous studies, political science, psychology, literature, architecture, engineering, media, science, philosophy, medicine and animal studies, as well as activists and community leaders engaged in Indigenous and environmental justice to engage in dialogue and gain a cross-disciplinary understanding of cultural and natural loss. Ultimately, this discourse can go on to motivate government action, influence planning and design, and begin to acknowledge and repair the discrepancies in our valuing of the lived experiences of past, present and future losses in a changed climate system.

This event was a closed workshop hosted at the University of Sydney on Thursday, 12 July 2019. 

Header Image: by Brian Robinson via courtesy of the artist and citizens of the Great Barrier Reef.