Exploring the Indigenous Symbiocene presents the notion of political power through a shared, relational ontology of voice grounded in locality.
- Date
- Thursday 21 Nov 2024, 15:00 - 17:00
- Type
- Lecture
- Spoken Language
- English
- Room
- M1-04
- Building
- Van der Goot Building
- More information
Dr. Brian Burkhart is an Associate Professor of Philosophy, affiliate faculty in Native American Studies at the University of Oklahoma, and director of the Native Nations Center. His research specializes in Native American and Indigenous philosophy, specifically Indigenous land-based conceptions of well-being and environmental ethics. His 2019 book, Indigenizing Philosophy through the Land: A Trickster Methodology for Decolonizing Environmental Ethics and Indigenous Futures, argues that land is key to both the operations of coloniality as well as the anti-colonial power that grounds Indigenous liberation. Land, as a material, conceptual, and ontological foundation for Indigenous ways of knowing, being, and valuing, provides a framework for Indigenous environmental ethics that can also function as an anti-colonial force for sovereign Indigenous futures.
His current book project, As Strong as the Land that Made You: Native American and Indigenous Philosophies of Well-Being through the Land, extends these land-based methodologies into reflections on both environmental and individual health for Native people and Native Nations. Burkhart is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma with roots in the Jaybird Creek community of Northeastern Oklahoma as well as the Indian Wells community of the Navajo Nation in Arizona. He holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Indiana University.
About the event
Join us for a collaborative presentation featuring Professor Brian Burkhart, Pathways to Sustainability Fellow at Utrecht University, as we explore themes from his latest book, "Indigenizing Philosophy through the Land: A Trickster's Methodology for Decolonizing Environmental Ethics and Indigenous Futures." This thought-provoking session will delve into the intersection of Indigenous philosophy, land-based ethics, and future sustainability.
Exploring the Indigenous Symbiocene presents the notion of political power through a shared, relational ontology of voice grounded in locality. With the land we walk on and live with is part of the story we show up with when we claim, contest, and cooperate. This approach discusses how indigenous philosophies of sustainability are tethered to particular places and commitments to and with those places, and asks us how an Indigenous trickster method of hermeneutic justice and a resurgence method of Indigenous land-based practices can anchor our kinship with the more-than-human world for thriving — our own and the world’s. By locating disassociation from land as part of our ontological, ethical, and epistemological fracture, Burkhart will share practices of indigenous well-being through the land wrought from indigenous philosophy that simultaneously enlarges our sense of self through ecological commitments and decenters agency from individualistic yet burdened identities resulting from placelessness.
The discussion will be led by Drs. Carolina Sánchez de Jaegher (Utrecht), Yogi Hendlin, Rosalba Icaza (ISS), and is organized by the Feral Ecologies Lab, Erasmus School of Philosophy, and the Dynamics of Inclusive Prosperity Initiative.
Programme
15:00 - 16:00 Talk by Professor Brian Burkhart
16:00 - 16:25 Discussants
16:25 - 17:00 Open discussion with audience
17:00 - 18:00 Borrel at the Paviljeon
We hope to see you there!