Conference: Collaborative Research on Risk, Energy Development, and Environmental Sustainability in the Navajo Nation

Appalachian State University, Boone NC

Investigators

Abstract

This is a conference proposal that would convene scholars working on issues of environment, climate, and economy in the Navajo Nation, for a two-day conference to examine how methods in ethnographic, historical, spatial, hydro-geological, and indigenous research can improve our understandings of vulnerability and risk produced in contexts of sustained energy extraction. The workshop provides a platform for scientific collaboration and capacity building among a group historically underrepresented in science, through professional collaboration with scholars at a tribal college. The research collaborative that will emerge through this workshop has the potential to become a model for other Native Nations to build research capacity and development. The workshop will facilitate the development of more effective methodologies and avenues for the dissemination of findings from anthropological research to promote public understanding of science and the scientific process. The project also contributes to the training of graduate students in methods of scientifically-grounded and empirical data collection. The objective of the workshop is to develop a research agenda to advance knowledge of extractive contexts in which questions of environmental risk and local governance are at stake. The proposed activity advances new understandings of behavioral sciences with the potential to transform the way we understand technological and cultural change in times of energy and environmental crisis. Workshop participants will meet at Diné College in Tsaile, Arizona, in Navajo Nation to share research interests and discuss work in Diné political ecology and resource geographies. The objective of the workshop is to develop a long-term collaborative project. The project would advance anthropological science in the areas of environmental risk, extractive industry, and energy transitions. The workshop aims to build networks of indigenous political ecological scholarship in theorizing the relationship between technological and cultural change, and energy transitions. Results will improve theoretical understanding of the material and economic conditions of indigenous environmental governance in the 21st century and establish a basis for future comparative research in understanding how other extractive contexts, particularly within Native Nations in the United States (e.g., Crow, Hopi, MHA Nation, Northern Cheyenne) might theorize and implement strategies for economic and energy transitions. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.