Reimagining U.S. Federal Land Management through Decolonization and Indigenous Value Systems

U.S. Federal Land Management Areas (FLMAs) are grounded in settler colonialism, including Indigenous land dispossessions and violations of Tribal treaties. This critical thought-piece is written by Indigenous scholars to reimagine FLMAs (especially recreation areas) through decolonization and the Indigenous value systems embedded within the “four Rs”: relationship, responsibility, reciprocity, and redistribution. We reweave conceptions about parks and protected areas, reimagine park management, and reconfigure management foci to reflect Indigenous value systems shared by Indigenous peoples. We emphasize a need for Tribal comanagement of FLMAs, the inclusion of Tribal land management practices across ecosystems, and the restoration of Indigenous land use and management rights. Land and recreation managers can use this paper to 1) decolonize park management practices, 2) understand how Indigenous value systems can inform park management foci, and 3) build a decolonized and reciprocal relationship with Tribes and their ancestral landscapes.

The teaching of English to third and fourth forms in New Zealand

The authors of the Spens Report state that the curriculum of the secondary school should be developed around an attitude to life, and one main core of learning which is to be found in what are generally known as the English subjects. These consist of history and geography ("social studies" in the third and fourth forms) and English itself. Of these, perhaps the one most capable of integrating the others and giving meaning to the secondary course is English in the narrower sense. Its influence does not end with school life; the outlook of boys and girls, and consequently their actions, will have been influenced, perhaps quite unconsciously, by the "reading, discussion and reflection which the study of English provides and stimulates." It is the hope of the teacher of English that this will produce clear critical thought and expression.

The teaching of English to third and fourth forms in New Zealand

The authors of the Spens Report state that the curriculum of the secondary school should be developed around an attitude to life, and one main core of learning which is to be found in what are generally known as the English subjects. These consist of history and geography ("social studies" in the third and fourth forms) and English itself. Of these, perhaps the one most capable of integrating the others and giving meaning to the secondary course is English in the narrower sense. Its influence does not end with school life; the outlook of boys and girls, and consequently their actions, will have been influenced, perhaps quite unconsciously, by the "reading, discussion and reflection which the study of English provides and stimulates." It is the hope of the teacher of English that this will produce clear critical thought and expression.

Critical Thoughts About Health Disparities With the NIA Division of Neuroscience

Population-based health disparities studies requires improved research design and appropriate research questions for investigation that will inform evidenced-based interventions and prevention strategies. The NIA Division of Neuroscience is committed to supporting new studies that 1) invests in health priorities as reflected by needs of minoritized populations (e.g. Race/Ethnic minorities; Rural or Sexual Gender Minorities); 2) examines Alzheimer’s Disease and cognitive changes across the individual lifespan; and 3) understands intersectionality of cohorts and minimize potential biases in participant selection. This brief session will outline updated steps to permit critical thought about the use of the NIA’s Health Disparities Framework to examine relevant biological, sociocultural, behavioral and environmental across multiple levels of influence.

The Age of Transition: Postdevelopment and North-South Synergies

The development enterprise has deepened the maladaptation of a social order built on the values of modernity and coloniality. Postcolonial scholars critiqued the discourses that were perpetuating its failures. Latin American decolonial scholars sharpened the analysis, rejecting Eurocentric frames of thought and drawing on a plurality of voices and ways of knowing. Mounting evidence of global socio-ecological interdependence has led to the emergence of discourses of transition advocating a break with the civilizational model of the modern West. Buen vivir and postextractivism are two Latin American examples of these discourses. Although there are divergences between these and Northern transition discourses, the scale of civilizational transition renders dialogue imperative. A review of the path of Latin American critical thought raises the possibility of North-South synergies, highlighting the implications of a true dialogue of ways of knowing. El proyecto del desarrollo ha profundizado la mala adaptación de un orden social construido sobre los valores de la modernidad y la colonialidad. Los analistas poscoloniales hicieron una crítica de los discursos que perpetuaban dichos fracasos. Los académicos descoloniales latinoamericanos fueron más allá, rechazando marcos de pensamiento eurocéntricos y recurriendo a una pluralidad de voces y formas de saber. La creciente evidencia en torno a la interdependencia socioecológica global ha llevado a la aparición de discursos de transición que abogan por una ruptura con el modelo civilizatorio del Occidente moderno. El buen vivir y el posextractivismo son dos ejemplos latinoamericanos de estos discursos. Aunque hay divergencias entre ellos y los discursos de transición del Norte, la escala de la transición civilizatoria exige el diálogo. Una revisión de la línea de pensamiento crítico latinoamericano plantea la posibilidad de sinergias Norte-Sur, destacando las implicaciones de un verdadero diálogo de saberes.

Conceptualizing the hydrogeothermal setting of Sloquet Hot Springs in the Canadian Cordillera on unceded St'at'imc Territory: an example of a reconciliation-based approach to field geoscience

Field geoscience has made important scientific advances but has not consistently considered the impact of these geoscience results on communities where the fieldwork is conducted. A reconciliation-based approach calls for critical thought about who defines, participates in, owns, and uses geoscience research, particularly in light of unresolved aboriginal rights and title claims and treaty rights throughout all of Canada. Geothermal research in the Canadian Cordillera has typically focused on hot spring systems and predicting maximum temperatures at depth, estimating fluid circulation depths, and investigating the distribution of hot spring systems and their relation to major geological features that often control thermal fluid flow. Detailed fieldwork to develop local and regional conceptual models of these systems has rarely been conducted and to our best knowledge, never in partnership with a First Nation. The scope of this project was working collaboratively with Xa’xtsa First Nation to conduct detailed structural, hydrologic and hydrogeologic fieldwork to develop local and regional conceptual models of Sloquet Hot Springs, on unceded St'at'imc territory. To motivate our research and provide a successful example of a reconciliation-based approach to field geoscience, we review how resource regulation, research, relationships, and reconciliation interact in British Columbia and consider our community partnership relative to Wong et al (2020)’s 10 Calls for Action for Natural Scientists. Well drilling, testing and monitoring revealed numerous soft zones in the subsurface as well as high transmissivity suggesting bedrock in the area has significant permeability. The annual flux calculated for Sloquet Hot Springs suggests a regional flow contribution from nearby watersheds. Although surface and subsurface observations did not identify the primary fault that conveys high-temperature fluids, the potential locations of buried fault structures are hypothesized based on zones with observably high temperatures and flow along Sloquet Creek. These results and interpretations are synthesized into a conceptual model of a localized hydrogeothermal system with local and regional groundwater flow along permeable pathways in the subsurface and mixing with cooler water before discharging in some of the springs.

Bach’s Works and the Listener’s Viewpoint

This chapter attempts to review the status of Bach’s compositions in relation to emerging concepts of musical works in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Certain pieces might seem problematic in the face of the notions of originality and uniqueness that became essential to the high status of artworks. The Christmas Oratorio, as a sequence of cantatas largely borrowed from preexisting works honoring royalty, could therefore be seen as secondhand. But a more nuanced view might emerge from the ways in which metaphysical and hermeneutic theory of Bach’s age could reflect how a musical construction might have been conceived, and how such developments themselves might have influenced emerging narratives about art music. The crucial issue might be the accommodation of the notion of viewpoint into how music is composed, heard, and judged. It is unlikely that Bach paid any consistent attention to the cutting edge of critical thought. But at least the latter may function as evidence of what it was possible to think within Bach’s environment, something that might provide a bridge toward later beliefs about what music represented or rendered actual.

Decolonising the Curriculum in International Law: Entrapments in Praxis and Critical Thought

Calls to decolonise the curriculum gain traction across the academe. To a great extent, the movement echoes demands of the decolonisation era itself, a period from which academics draw both impetus and legitimacy. In this article, we examine the movement’s purchase when applied to the teaching of international law. We argue that the movement reinvigorates debates about the origins of international law, centring its violent foundations as well as its Eurocentric episteme. Yet, like many critical approaches toward international law, the movement is smitten with itself and with the regime. As a consequence, the outcome of its activism and critique is predetermined: both must redeem the Eurocentrism of international law and its associated pedagogy. Calls to decolonise the curriculum ultimately validate the epistemological limitations inherent to a stratified, international order, failing to offer a genuine alternative framework or epistemology.

Community livelihood improvement through social forestry and agraria reform in Indonesia: a critical thought

The existence of a poor community, landless farmers and tenure conflict triggers the government to launch a social forestry (SF) and an agrarian reform (Land Object Agrararian Reform-TORA) program. Both programs should be evaluated periodically. The objectives of the research are to (i) explain the definition of SF and TORA and their target achievement, (ii) accelerate the target achievement of SF and TORA, (iii) analyze the community prosperity before and after SF and TORA implementation, and (iv) formulate a recommendation for the effectiveness of SF and TORA future implementation. The exploration of regulation substances uses content analysis and the explanation of the whole discussion uses the descriptive qualitative method. The research result reveals that the SF program has given management rights at the state forest. Meanwhile, the TORA program has distributed property (land) rights from the state land. Both programs have the same objectives that improve and increase the prosperity of their recipient target; however, both definitions are the difference between the old and the new definition. The good acceleration of both programs is the revision of their recipient target. The prosperity of the community should be enhanced by giving them access to capital, technology, relevant training, and the market. The effectiveness of the SF and TORA program can be acheived by implementing simple and appropriate actions for their six pilars (economical, social, ecological, professional, technical, and cultural) of target achievement.

Radicalism, Respectability, and the Colour Line of Critical Thought: An Interdisciplinary History of Critical International Relations

The epithet ‘critical’ has become both coveted and contested. A long-established lodestone of personal, political, and professional commitment within academia, its meanings are multiple, and its histories are poorly understood. This article reconstructs an interdisciplinary history of debates concerning what it is to ‘be critical’, beginning in the 1930s but focusing on the late 1960s to the late 1990s. It argues the significance of the category ‘critical’ to be that it can connote political radicalism while allowing for a degree of professional respectability. Furthermore, the article shows that claims and counterclaims upon the parameters of criticality have privileged certain thought traditions. In particular, while contemporary discourses of ‘anti-wokeness’ caricature critical academics as being prepossessed with issues of coloniality and race, traditions of thought dealing with these issues have, until recently, been rather marginalised. The enduring ‘colour line’ of critical thought is not only unjust but also deleterious to political imagination.