Periodic Reporting for period 1 - DEJMENA (Decolonial Enviromental Justice: from the Middle East and North Africa to North America)
Reporting period: 2022-03-01 to 2023-08-31
DEJMENA—Decolonial Environmental Justice: from Middle East and North Africa to North America aims to provide a reading of environmental justice at the intersection of indigeneity and feminist decoloniality. The project draws on activists’ and indigenous communities’ struggles with environmental (in)justice, particularly land and water protection, across the contexts of the Levant (Palestinian women farmers in the Southern West Bank), and North America (Native American women activists of the Lakota people in the Midwestern region of the US). In doing so, it provides a novel and a much urgent grounding of the locally global impact and value of decolonial feminist ecologies. DEJMENA combines a decolonial feminist approach to the question of Environmental Justice (EJ) as it emerges from the historical and material specificity of everyday confrontation with and survival against the violence of the settler colonial regimes (Israel and the United States).The objective of DEJMENA is to map out how EJ intersects and mutually interacts with indigenous strife for land and water protection across Indigenous locales. While DEJMENA utilizes the expertise that I have built in relation to decolonial feminist epistemes from below responding to socio-political injustices of [settler]colonial and/or neo-colonial statist settings of the global south, it expands this by revealing their deeply ecological implications. There are three interrelated and specific objectives: SO1 (WP3). To expand the theorising of decolonial EJ as it emanates from the indigenous locales of MENA. It does so via an excavation of the (hi)stories of ecological colonialism as they unfold from indigenous voices, narration of experiences and memories of present-past traumas and living mechanisms for adaptation, land, and water protection.
SO2 (WP4). To explore the ways in which such decolonial EJ frame equally embeds itself into the strife of feminist indigeneity. That is, to investigate how the colonial and ecological present realities simultaneously embed socialising and class processes of gendering and racializing a native other. This, in turn, allows an understanding of the historical and material positionality of feminist indigeneity as deeply ecological.
SO3 (WP5). To explore the significance of grassroots decolonial/indigenous forms of EJ and the impact they could potentially have on top-down EJ mechanisms.
SO2 (WP4). To explore the ways in which such decolonial EJ frame equally embeds itself into the strife of feminist indigeneity. That is, to investigate how the colonial and ecological present realities simultaneously embed socialising and class processes of gendering and racializing a native other. This, in turn, allows an understanding of the historical and material positionality of feminist indigeneity as deeply ecological.
SO3 (WP5). To explore the significance of grassroots decolonial/indigenous forms of EJ and the impact they could potentially have on top-down EJ mechanisms.
WP1 - Management and Training: I have drafted and shared with Prof Legrenzi a career development plan, in which I specify how my future career vision takes this project towards a larger research fellowship (ERC) that I hope to attain by the year. I have been sharing with my supervisor specific progress and hours completed for each work package via the Ca Foscari time sheet page. During my time at Columbia university, I have undertaken all necessary training courses to enable my handling of financial reporting and field mission arrangements. For example, I received sufficient raining on the usage of the concur website, which pertain to reimbursement for project related activities within the department. Further, my supervisor at Columbia was my main reference point for reporting on progress related to the project and the outcomes of the field trips.
WP2 – Foundation: I have completed all required ethics reporting and received the approval from the designated committee. At Columbia I have also attended trainings and workshops pertaining to indigeneity and environmentalism, which helped quip me with the necessary theoretical and epistemic foundation for the project. During my time in the US, I have worked on identifying fieldwork gatekeepers in the context of the Lakota. Specifically, I identified Dr Elizabeth Castle whose work on Lakota Indigenous matriarchs in the US context was a vital reference point for my research. Further, Dr Castle became my primary facilitator for entry into Lakota territory. I began a process of extensive readings on the Lakota context, as well as drafting of a methodological chapter for the upcoming monograph.
WP3 - Decolonial EJ: I conducted an extensive 4-month fieldtrip into Lakota territory- US. During this time, I completed data gathering through the lens of ethnographic methodology. I am in the process of completing data analysis related to SO1. I have written two articles with a focus on the decolonial environmental justice. One has been published with Journal of Political Geography and the second will be published within this year with the journal of Social and Cultural Geography.
WP4 - Gendering EJ: I have used a feminist methodological framework to conduct the research and data gathering. I am in the process of completing data analysis related to SO2. I have written two articles that contribute to the gendered aspect of environmental justice.
WP5 - Grassroots EJ : I am in the process of Data collection and analysis related to SO3. I have completed ethnographic work in Lakota context, the next phase of the project’s ethnographic research will begin in Palestine by October 2023 and will last for approximate 4 months. I am in the process of completing desk research related to the Lakota context, I have gathered archival material and other online sources that directly pertain to the research goals.
WP6 – Consolidation: I am in the process of writing drafts of chapters for the monograph. I have consolidated my profile in the field of Human Geography through dissemination of project findings in major Human geography peer-review journals.
WP7 - Dissemination: I have completed and submitted data management plan. I have submitted and presented papers at the U.S based conferences: Raising Indigenous voices in Academia and society-2022 and Security in Context Conference held in Oklahoma city-2022. I have disseminated research findings in various outlets: 1. Academic: Journal of Political Geography; Social and Cultural Geography. 2. Non-academic: local radio stations and locally organised events in South Dakota and in New York.
WP8 – Communication: I have been regularly communicating with UNIVE officers on the project’s ongoing developments. Throughout the fieldwork in the Lakota territory, I have disseminated research and its goals to wider non-academic community: I presented at the brave heart society located in the Yankton reservation; I have attended and participated as a speaker at the memorial of Wounded Knee; I was interviewed by the NDN native collective in Rapid city; I was also interviewed by the local native radio in South Dakota.
WP2 – Foundation: I have completed all required ethics reporting and received the approval from the designated committee. At Columbia I have also attended trainings and workshops pertaining to indigeneity and environmentalism, which helped quip me with the necessary theoretical and epistemic foundation for the project. During my time in the US, I have worked on identifying fieldwork gatekeepers in the context of the Lakota. Specifically, I identified Dr Elizabeth Castle whose work on Lakota Indigenous matriarchs in the US context was a vital reference point for my research. Further, Dr Castle became my primary facilitator for entry into Lakota territory. I began a process of extensive readings on the Lakota context, as well as drafting of a methodological chapter for the upcoming monograph.
WP3 - Decolonial EJ: I conducted an extensive 4-month fieldtrip into Lakota territory- US. During this time, I completed data gathering through the lens of ethnographic methodology. I am in the process of completing data analysis related to SO1. I have written two articles with a focus on the decolonial environmental justice. One has been published with Journal of Political Geography and the second will be published within this year with the journal of Social and Cultural Geography.
WP4 - Gendering EJ: I have used a feminist methodological framework to conduct the research and data gathering. I am in the process of completing data analysis related to SO2. I have written two articles that contribute to the gendered aspect of environmental justice.
WP5 - Grassroots EJ : I am in the process of Data collection and analysis related to SO3. I have completed ethnographic work in Lakota context, the next phase of the project’s ethnographic research will begin in Palestine by October 2023 and will last for approximate 4 months. I am in the process of completing desk research related to the Lakota context, I have gathered archival material and other online sources that directly pertain to the research goals.
WP6 – Consolidation: I am in the process of writing drafts of chapters for the monograph. I have consolidated my profile in the field of Human Geography through dissemination of project findings in major Human geography peer-review journals.
WP7 - Dissemination: I have completed and submitted data management plan. I have submitted and presented papers at the U.S based conferences: Raising Indigenous voices in Academia and society-2022 and Security in Context Conference held in Oklahoma city-2022. I have disseminated research findings in various outlets: 1. Academic: Journal of Political Geography; Social and Cultural Geography. 2. Non-academic: local radio stations and locally organised events in South Dakota and in New York.
WP8 – Communication: I have been regularly communicating with UNIVE officers on the project’s ongoing developments. Throughout the fieldwork in the Lakota territory, I have disseminated research and its goals to wider non-academic community: I presented at the brave heart society located in the Yankton reservation; I have attended and participated as a speaker at the memorial of Wounded Knee; I was interviewed by the NDN native collective in Rapid city; I was also interviewed by the local native radio in South Dakota.
The project so far fills a gap in the literature on ecology and environmental justice that fails to take seriously the settler colonial framework to historically situating our contemporary ecological disaster. In doing so, its findings from both the Palestine and Lakota Indigenous contexts advance an engagement with the greenwashing (progressive environmental narrative) that settler colonial states practice in the attempt to conceal their inherent responsibility for the unfolding human and ecological disasters on local and global scales. Additionally, the project contributes to expanding the debate on the significance of a feminist decolonial positionality to combat and overcome our current planetary crisis and the challenges it poses on economic, social, and ecological fronts.