All Red Natural History Events

“What Comes After the Wilderness Act,” a virtual roundtable exploring how we should understand the Wilderness Act on its 60th anniversary—a moment both of Indigenous resurgence and a rising far right. Bringing together historians, legal experts, and impacted community members, this roundtable explores a range of issues around the Wilderness Act, from the settler-colonial ideology undergirding its definition of “wilderness,” to the question of how this historic legislation might be revised or rewritten to serve the movement for land rematriation.

SPEAKERS

*Rosalyn LaPier (Blackfeet/MĂ©tis), Professor of History at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Red Natural History Fellow

*Heather Whiteman Runs Him (Apsaalooke/Crow), Director of the Tribal Justice Clinic and Associate Clinical Professor, University of Arizona Rogers College of Law

*Christen Falcon (Amskapi Piikani/Blackfeet), Blackfeet gatherer/hunter, Traditional Diet/Land Tenure Research Coordinator for Piikani Lodge Health Institute, and co-owner of Backpacker’s Ferry

*Karl Jacoby, Allan Nevins Professor of American History at Columbia University

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Held on September 25, 2024, this event was organized by Rosalyn LaPier as part of Natural History for a World in Crisis, a programming series organized by the 2023-2025 cohort of Red Natural History Fellows with The Natural History Museum. Made possible with support from the Henry Luce Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundations and 4Culture.

“Aquifer Defenders: Learning from Waadookawaad Amikwag,” an event exploring how Indigenous knowledge and Western science can be mobilized to halt the destruction caused by pipelines, stop future projects, and protect the land and water for future generations––in Minnesota and beyond. Highlighting the work of Waadookawaad Amikwag (“Those Who Help Beaver”), a diverse community group of water protectors, scientists, drone pilots, field monitors, and grassroots organizers that is gathering and interpreting evidence of environmental destruction from the Enbridge Line 3 pipeline, expanded in 2021 after a decade of Native-led resistance, this Zoom Webinar explores the group’s their troubling findings, including aquifer breaches, lack of tribal consultations, and inadequate state regulation enforcement.

SPEAKERS

* Victoria M.L. McMillen (Migizi Clan, Anishinaabeg Nagachiwaanong): Cultural and traditional Ecological knowledge carrier, volunteer with Waadookawaad Amikwag

* Jami Gaither: Metallurgical engineer and founding member of Waadookawaad Amikwag

* Jeff Broberg: Geologist and founding member of Minnesota Well Owners Organization (MNWOO) and Waadookawaad Amikwag

* Kai Bosworth: Critical Geographer and Red Natural History Fellow

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Held on August 1, 2024, this webinar was curated by Kai Bosworth as part of “Natural History for a World in Crisis,” a virtual programming series organized by Red Natural History Fellows with The Natural History Museum. Made possible with support from the Henry Luce Foundation, Hewlett Foundation and 4Culture.

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Check out resources and other material from Wadookawaad Amikwag on the group’s website: https://waadookawaadamikwag.org

As one of The Natural History Museum’s inaugural Red Natural History Fellows, geographer Kai Bosworth has spent the past decade studying the landscape of contemporary environmentalism, exploring the tenuous alliances formed in opposition to pipeline infrastructure in the Midwest. In this short video, Bosworth explains how radical geographic practices were developed in response to his discipline’s imperialist history, drawing critical lessons for emergent practices of “red natural history.”

Edited transcript of the full interview: https://bit.ly/RNH-red-line

“Resisting the Global Land Grab,” a virtual event exploring how histories of colonialism, apartheid and uneven development have set the terms for today’s “solutions” to ecological crisis, engaging not only the common conditions of oppression faced by Indigenous communities across the world, but also the solidarities they are forging in their shared struggle against neocolonial conservation—and for Land Back.

SPEAKERS
* Krystal Two Bulls (Oglala Lakota/Cheyenne), Executive Director of Honor the Earth
* Nnimmo Bassey, Nigerian architect, environmental activist, author, poet, and Director of the environmental think tank Health of Mother Earth Foundation
* Ashley Dawson, Distinguished Professor of Postcolonial Studies at the Graduate Center, City University of New York and the College of Staten Island and Red Natural History Fellow

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Held on July 18, 2024, this webinar was curated by Ashley Dawson as part of “Natural History for a World in Crisis,” a virtual programming series organized by Red Natural History Fellows with The Natural History Museum.

Made possible with support from the Henry Luce Foundation, Hewlett Foundation and 4Culture.

Natural History for a World in Crisis

In this short video, Ashley Dawson explains a dissenting tradition within natural history that is capable of cracking open natural history’s imperialist discourses. Finding inspiration in the anarchist tradition, Dawson explores how Peter Kropotkin’s treatise on Mutual Aid troubles the social Darwinist understanding of evolution as a “struggle of each against all,” revealing another story of evolutionary time, grounded not in a logic of competition, but in the collective forms of life that allow human and other-than-human species to survive in times of upheaval.

Edited transcript of the full interview: https://bit.ly/RNH-mutual-aid