Surviving the Anthropocene: How evaluation can contribute to knowledge and better policymaking

Evaluation ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 135638902110345
Author(s):  
Juha I. Uitto
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Ecosystem Health ◽  
Transformational Change ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
Vulnerable Groups ◽  
Global Environment Facility ◽  
Natural Systems ◽  
Durable Solutions ◽  
Climate Crisis ◽  
Do So

We live in the Anthropocene in which human impact on Earth is the dominant force. At the same time, humans are very much part of the ecosystem. This close interdependency is brought home by the COVID-19 pandemic as well as by anthropogenic climate change. Ecosystem health and human health are closely interlinked. Transformational change is required to avoid further catastrophes caused by the three environmental crises that human actions have caused: climate crisis; nature crisis; and pollution and waste crisis. Evaluation can contribute to finding durable solutions based on sound science and experiences from the field, but to do so evaluation must broaden its vision. Theory-based approaches will remain central, but they must be open to the full human and natural systems in which the intervention that is the evaluand operates. Evaluations must also pay attention to unintended consequences of all interventions to the environment, to social and power relations, to women, indigenous peoples and vulnerable groups. I identify three principles for evaluation in the Anthropocene, at the nexus of human and natural systems, and illustrate them using examples from evaluations from the Global Environment Facility: (a) integrating human and natural systems; (b) geographical approaches; and (c) addressing the drivers.

Oregon’s K–12 Ethnic Studies Bill

2019 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 180-195
Author(s):  
Shirley A. Jackson
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Ethnic Studies ◽  
Original Intent ◽  
Racial And Ethnic Minorities ◽  
Protected Group ◽  
Social Minorities ◽  
K 12 ◽  
Racial Ethnic ◽  
Do So

In 2017, Oregon passed House Bill 2845 requiring Ethnic Studies curriculum in grades K–12. It was the first state in the nation to do so. The bill passed almost fifty years after the founding of the country’s first Ethnic Studies department. The passage of an Ethnic Studies bill in a state that once banned African Americans and removed Indigenous peoples from their land requires further examination. In addition, the bill mandates that Ethnic Studies curriculum in Oregon's schools includes “social minorities,” such as Jewish and LGBTQ+ populations which makes the bill even more remarkable. As such, it is conceivable for some observers, a watered-down version of its perceived original intent—one that focuses on racial and ethnic minorities. Similarly, one can draw analogies to the revision of the Civil Rights Bill of 1964 when it included women as a protected group. Grounded in a socio-political history that otherwise would not have been included, this essay examines the productive and challenging aspect of HB 2845. Framing the bill so it includes racial, ethnic, and social minorities solved the problem of a host of bills that may not have passed on their own merit while simultaneously and ironically making it easier to pass similar bills.

scholarly journals CURRÍCULOS INTRA/INTERCULTURAL NA BOLÍVIA: a matemática e a perspectiva pós-colonial

2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 41
Author(s):  
Harryson Júnio Lessa Gonçalves ◽  
Antônio Hilário Aguilera Urquiza
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Mathematics Curriculum ◽  
American Identity ◽  
Curricular Reform ◽  
Teaching Mathematics ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Documentary Analysis ◽  
Theoretical Assumptions ◽  
Do So

 O artigo tem como objetivo descrever, a partir de documentos curriculares, o processo de planificação dos currículos regionalizados do Estado Plurinacional da Bolívia. Para tanto, tem como objetivos específicos: a) identificar a organização e estrutura o sistema educacional boliviano a partir de algumas características sociais, histórica e econômicas; b) identificar pressupostos teóricos que consubstanciam a reforma curricular boliviana; c) descrever a organização curricular de Matemática no ensino secundário (Ensino Médio) viabilizada pelos currículos bolivianos. A investigação foi desenvolvida a partir de documentos curriculares que, pressupomos, são pouco conhecidos no Brasil e, por isso, como estratégia para afirmação da identidade latino-americana no Brasil. Assim, o estudo foi produzido a partir de pesquisa bibliográfica (artigos sobre ensino de Matemática na Bolívia) e documental (análise de documentos e currículos oficiais da Bolívia). Desse modo, nos consubstanciamos em um referencial teórico pós-colonial. O currículo analisado nos revelou um compromisso com a educação centrada em aspectos antropológicos que toma o conhecimento como histórica e socialmente posicionado a partir da diversidade cultural, valorizando, assim, saberes providos de povos indígenas originários; percebemos, ainda, um currículo distanciado de bases conceituais e epistemológicas preconizadas pela comunidade internacional de educadores matemáticos.Palavras-chave: Currículo de matemática. Bolívia. Educação boliviana.INTRA/INTERCULTURAL CURRICULA IN BOLIVIA: mathematics and the post-colonial perspective Abstract: The article aims to describe, from curricular documents, the process of planning the region's curriculum, of the Sate of Plurinational of Bolivia. To do so, it has specific objectives: a) to identify the organization and structure of the Bolivian educational system based on some social, historical and economic characteristics; b) to identify theoretical assumptions that underpin Bolivian curricular reform; c) describe the curricular organization of Mathematics in secondary education (Middle School) made possible by Bolivian curriculum. For that, the research was developed from curricular documents that, we assume, are little known in Brazil and, therefore, as a strategy for affirming the Latin American identity in Brazil. Thus, the study was produced from bibliographical research (articles on teaching Mathematics in Bolivia) and documentary (analysis of official documents and curricula from Bolivia). Therefore, we are based on a post-colonial theoretical framework. The curriculum analyzed showed us a commitment to education centered on anthropological aspects that takes knowledge as historical and socially positioned from cultural diversity, thus valuing the knowledge provided by native indigenous peoples; We also notice, a curriculum distanced from the conceptual and epistemological bases advocated by the international community of mathematical educators.Keywords: Mathematics curriculum. Bolivia. Bolivian education. CURRÍCULOS INTRA/INTERCULTURAL EN BOLIVIA: la matemática y la perspectiva post-colonial Resumen: El objetivo del artículo es describir, a partir los documentos curriculares, el proceso de planificación de los currículo regionalizados del Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia. Para ello, tenemos como objetivos específicos: a) identificar la organización y estructura del sistema educativo boliviano a partir de algunas características sociales, históricas y económicas; b) identificar los fundamentos teóricos que aportan la reforma curricular boliviana; ci) describir la organización curricular de Matemáticas en la educación secundaria viabilizada por los currículos bolivianos. La investigación fue desarrollada a partir de documentos curricular que, presumimos, son poco conocidos en Brasil y, por eso, se presenta como estrategia para la afirmación de la identidad latinoamericana en Brasil. Así, el estudio fue producido a partir de investigación bibliográfica (artículos sobre Enseñanza de Matemáticas en Bolivia) y documental (análisis de documentos y currículos oficiales de Bolivia). De ese modo, nos basamos en un marco teórico pos-colonial. El currículo analizado nos reveló un compromiso con la educación centrada en aspectos antropológicos que parte de un conocimiento histórico y socialmente posicionado a partir de la diversidad cultural, valorando los saberes provenientes de pueblos indígenas originarios; Percibimos también un currículo distanciado de bases conceptuales y epistemológicas preconizadas por la comunidad internacional de educadores matemáticos.Palabras clave: Currículo de matemática. Bolivia. Educación boliviana.               

Australia and pandemics v BLM: No, Love Lost (at the High Court) Part I

2021 ◽  
pp. 1037969X2110240
Author(s):  
Asmi Wood
Keyword(s):  
Thin Layer ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
High Court ◽  
Founding Fathers ◽  
The Right ◽  
Do The Right Thing ◽  
Do So

Whatever else may have been their shortcoming with respect to coloured people, the founding fathers clearly did not view Indigenous peoples as aliens. They made it clear that Indigenous peoples were a state issue and that their regulation was to be local. The founding fathers also did not (or probably could not) ethnically cleanse the continent and did not appear to attempt to do so. In seeking to deport two Aboriginal men the current executive are attempting to do what not even the most racist of their forebears did not dare. In Love, in a wafer‐thin majority, the High Court has created a wafer‐thin layer of protection for Indigenous persons in the class of the plaintiffs. This two part article calls on the non-Indigenous peoples, who now share this continent to shake off their apathy and force their recalcitrant leaders to ‘do the right thing by Blacks’ something they claim to have done for the immigrants to this continent.

scholarly journals From Aggression to Acceptance: The Shifting of Quebecois Nationalist Attitudes in Relation to Indigenous Nationalism in Canada

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-31
Author(s):  
Andrew McWhinney
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
James Bay ◽  
Quiet Revolution ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Do So

This essay examines the shifting relationship between Quebecois and Indigenous nationalism, tracing a historical path from post-Quiet Revolution Quebec to the signing of the “La Paix des Braves” document in 2002. Nationalist attitudes in Quebec were initially hostile towards their Indigenous counterparts, due to the Indigenous push of a three-nation conception of Canada which undermined the Quebecois dualist English-French founding narrative upon which Quebecois nationalist claims rested. This essay argues that Quebecois nationalist attitudes have grown more accepting over time in response to popularization of the three-nation conception of Canada, and that Quebec’s unique hybrid position as a decolonizing nation and a settler-colonial nation has allowed it to do so through recognition of Indigenous peoples as co-colonized by the Canadian state. This shift from aggression to tolerance is shown through examinations of historical moments such as the James Bay Agreement, the Meech Lake and Charlottetown Accords, and the Oka Crisis.

Indigenous science (fiction) for the Anthropocene: Ancestral dystopias and fantasies of climate change crises

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 224-242 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyle P. Whyte
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Viewing Time ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future ◽  
Parallel Universes ◽  
Indigenous Perspectives ◽  
Colonial Violence ◽  
Climate Crisis

Portrayals of the Anthropocene period are often dystopian or post-apocalyptic narratives of climate crises that will leave humans in horrific science-fiction scenarios. Such narratives can erase certain populations, such as Indigenous peoples, who approach climate change having already been through transformations of their societies induced by colonial violence. This essay discusses how some Indigenous perspectives on climate change can situate the present time as already dystopian. Instead of dread of an impending crisis, Indigenous approaches to climate change are motivated through dialogic narratives with descendants and ancestors. In some cases, these narratives are like science fiction in which Indigenous peoples work to empower their own protagonists to address contemporary challenges. Yet within literature on climate change and the Anthropocene, Indigenous peoples often get placed in historical categories designed by nonIndigenous persons, such as the Holocene. In some cases, these categories serve as the backdrop for allies' narratives that privilege themselves as the protagonists who will save Indigenous peoples from colonial violence and the climate crisis. I speculate that this tendency among allies could possibly be related to their sometimes denying that they are living in times their ancestors would have likely fantasized about. I will show how this denial threatens allies' capacities to build coalitions with Indigenous peoples. Inuit culture is based on the ice, the snow and the cold…. It is the speed and intensity in which change has occurred and continues to occur that is a big factor why we are having trouble with adapting to certain situations. Climate change is yet another rapid assault on our way of life. It cannot be separated from the first waves of changes and assaults at the very core of the human spirit that have come our way. Just as we are recognizing and understanding the first waves of change … our environment and climate now gets threatened. Sheila Watt-Cloutier, interviewed by the Ottawa Citizen. (Robb, 2015) In North America many Indigenous traditions tell us that reality is more than just facts and figures collected so that humankind might widely use resources. Rather, to know “it”—reality—requires respect for the relationships and relatives that constitute the complex web of life. I call this Indigenous realism, and it entails that we, members of humankind, accept our inalienable responsibilities as members of the planet's complex life system, as well as our inalienable rights. ( Wildcat, 2009 , xi) Within Māori ontological and cosmological paradigms it is impossible to conceive of the present and the future as separate and distinct from the past, for the past is constitutive of the present and, as such, is inherently reconstituted within the future. (Stewart-Harawira, 2005, 42) In fact, incorporating time travel, alternate realities, parallel universes and multiverses, and alternative histories is a hallmark of Native storytelling tradition, while viewing time as pasts, presents, and futures that flow together like currents in a navigable stream is central to Native epistemologies. ( Dillon, 2016a , 345)

A retrospective on reconciliation by design

2018 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alika T. Lafontaine ◽  
Christopher J. Lafontaine
Keyword(s):  
First Nations ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Indigenous Health ◽  
Transformational Change ◽  
Alternative Approach ◽  
Stakeholder Alignment ◽  
The Government ◽  
Government Of Canada ◽  
Multi Stakeholder ◽  
Thinking Tools

It is well-established that Indigenous Peoples continue to experience a lower level of health than non-Indigenous Peoples in Canada. For many health leaders, finding practical strategies to close the gap in health disparities remains elusive. In this retrospective study, we will illustrate our own experience of transformational change using design and systems thinking tools toward a primary outcome of multi-stakeholder alignment. Using this approach enabled three Indigenous Provincial/Territorial Organizations (IPTOs) representing more than 150 First Nations communities from Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Ontario to establish the largest community-led, collaborative approach to health transformation in Canada at the time. These IPTOs have gone on to pursue some of the most ambitious health transformation initiatives in Canada and in September 2018, were granted $68 million in funding support by the Government of Canada. If health leaders are looking at an alternative approach to closing the gap in Indigenous health, alignment thinking has shown promising results.

scholarly journals Investment in Land Restoration: New Perspectives with Special Reference to Australia

Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 156
Author(s):  
John E. Leake
Keyword(s):  
Urban Areas ◽  
Transformational Change ◽  
Environmental Services ◽  
Traditional Food ◽  
International Institution ◽  
Land Restoration ◽  
Single Product ◽  
Market Benefits ◽  
Do So ◽  
The Way

Environmental services of biodiversity, clean water, etc., have been considered byproducts of farming and grazing, but population pressures and a move from rural to peri-urban areas are changing land use practices, reducing these services and increasing land degradation. A range of ecosystem markets have been reversing this damage, but these are not widely institutionalized, so land managers do not see them as “real” in the way they do for traditional food and fiber products. There are difficulties defining and monitoring non-food/fiber ecosystem services so they can be reliably marketed, and those markets that do operate usually do so in a piecemeal single product way in the interest of simplicity for the buyer, and seldom adequately regulate or compensate land managers for non-market benefits. New profitable uses of degraded water and regenerating land are emerging, but they require technology transfer or supply chain development to facilitate adoption. There is a need for a transformational change in the way land and water are used to promote a broader approach, so environmental services become a mainstream activity for land managers. A far-sighted Philanthropist is required to support an International institution to take up the challenge of institutionalizing such a ‘brokerage’ system to operate globally.

Reification and passivity in the face of climate change

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 435-452 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Leduc Browne
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Social Transformation ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Structural ◽  
Social Innovations ◽  
Systemic Transformation ◽  
The Face ◽  
Climate Crisis ◽  
Do So

Why do so many people remain so passive in the face of today’s massive, looming economic, political, and ecological crises, such as climate change? Despite some notable rhetorical and regulatory examples, attempts to stem climate change have, as a rule, not come to frame the activities of most citizens. The inability to confront the imperative of social transformation today is a complex, manifold problem. At root, it has to do with fundamental systemic features of a global social system that we all contribute to reproducing in our everyday lives. While these features do not preclude political engagement, innovation, and action, they do undermine the bases of movements towards truly systemic transformation. This article focuses on one such feature, reification, as a social-structural foundation of passivity that impedes the social innovations required to tackle the climate crisis.

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