Attempting Decoloniality in a Youth Climate Campaign: Learning to Be in Right Relation and the Incommensurability of Making Indigenous Knowledges Legible

2024/08/12 by Joe Curnow, Lucy Delgado, Lucy Delgado-Barra
Social Sciences · #Anthropological Studies and Insights #Indigenous Health, Education, and Rights #Tourism, Volunteerism, and Development

paper · doi:10.1177/00027642241268548

openalex publication_date 2024/08/12 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21

Abstract

This article examines how fossil fuel divestment organizers at the University of Toronto (UofT) attempted to be in right relation with Indigenous organizations and students on campus by integrating Indigenous knowledges around relationality and countering/contesting Eurowestern relational practices. By examining the dialog of a workshop where Fossil-Free UofT discussed their hopes, concerns, and strategies for practicing right relationality, we argue that while participants did important work to build relations rooted in decolonial approaches, they were limited by the perception that they constantly needed to attend to (and often capitulate to) whiteness. We argue that this tension limits the impact of moves to decolonize non-Indigenous spaces.

Related

• Building a Meaningful Bridge Between Indigenous and Western Worldviews: Through Decolonial Conversation
• The whiteness of green: Racialization and environmental education
• From ‘Decolonized’ To Reconciliation Research in Canada: Drawing From Indigenous Research Paradigms
• Colonialism and the Indigenous Peoples of Canada: Addressing the Legacy of Injustice
• Educational Reconciliation: Implementing Traditional Land-Based Learning in Canadian Universities