Political ecology and decolonial research

Co-production with the Iñupiat in Utqiaġvik

Bibliographic Data

ID4302147
AuthorsCharlene Apok (University of Alaska Fairbanks), Charlotte Ambrozek (University of California, Davis), Courtney Carothers (0000-0002-1513-9078, University of Alaska Fairbanks), Jesse Coleman (0000-0002-3601-7854, University of Alaska Fairbanks), Laura Zanotti (0000-0003-2712-4284, Purdue University West Lafayette, corresponding author), Sarah Huang (Purdue University West Lafayette)
Year2020
Volume27
Issue1
Publication date2020-01-21
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Political Ecology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1073-0451 • E-ISSN: 1073-0451
PublisherUniversity of Arizona (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.2458/v27i1.23335
OpenAlexW3004292626
LanguageEN
Citations received31
References cited41

Environmental social science research designs have shifted over the past several decades to include an increased commitment to multi-, inter-, and transdisciplinary team-based work that have had dual but complementary foci. These address power and equity in the substantive aspects of research, and also to adopt more engaged forms of practice, including decolonial approaches. The fields of political ecology, human geography, and environmental anthropology have been especially open to converge with indigenous scholarship, particularly decolonial and settler colonial theories and research designs, within dominant human-environmental social science paradigms. Scholars at the forefront of this dialogue highlight the ontological (ways of knowing), epistemological (how we know), and institutional (institutions of higher education) transformations that need to occur in order for this to take place. In this article we contribute to this literature in two ways. First, we highlight the synergies between political ecology and decolonial scholarship, particularly focusing on the power dynamics in research programs and historical legacies of human-environmental relationships, including those of researchers. Second, we explore how decolonial research pushes political ecologists and other environmental social scientists to not only consider adopting international and local standards of working with, by and for Indigenous Peoples within research programs but how this work ultimately extends to research and education within their home institutions and organizations. Through integrating decolonized research practices in the environmental social sciences, we argue that synthesizing multiple knowledge practices and transforming institutional structures will enhance team-based environmental social science work to improve collaboration with Indigenous scientists, subsistence practitioners, agency representatives, and sovereign members of Indigenous communities

Colonialism · Engineering ethics · Environmental ethics · Environmental social science · Indigenous · Political ecology · Political science · Politics · Scholarship · Social science · Sociology · Traditional knowledge · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Indigenous Health, Education, and Rights · Indigenous Studies and Ecology · Ecology

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