Advancing Climate Justice through Transdisciplinary Research: Developing STRONG Relationships

Duke University students, faculty and staff are invited to attend the second presentation of the Nicholas Institute and UPEP Environmental Institutions Seminar Series for the 2022-2023 school year. Our speaker will be Duke alumna Kimberly Marion Suiseeya Ph.D. '14, assistant professor in the Department of Political Science and the Environmental Policy and Culture program at Northwestern University. Seminar abstract: Co-developed with tribal partners, Strengthening Resilience of Ojibwe Nations across Generations (STRONG) aims to enhance disaster anticipation, preparation, mitigation, and response in Indigenous communities by expanding the availability, integration, utility, and usability of Indigenous knowledge and socio-ecological data. STRONG's planning efforts established clear links between Ojibwe sovereignty and resilience, and a need to collect and integrate new environmental data within a culturally appropriate resilience framework. Tribal leaders made clear that their ability to effectively implement resilience strategies requires recognition of their sovereignty and respect for their authority, legitimacy, and credibility to govern and to exercise treaty rights with the US. Consequently, the STRONG team adopted two central concepts for Ojibwe resilience: Anishinaabeg minwendamoog noondawindwaa (The Anishinaabeg, they are happy that they are heard) as a governance principle, and the Ojibwe Four Orders (physical, plant, animal, and human worlds) as a socio-ecological framework for integrating resilience information. In this presentation, Dr. Marion Suiseeya will share experiences cultivating relationships with tribal Nations and organizations in the Upper Great Lakes of the United States. Such relationships are the foundation of their collaborative work and are critical for ensuring that this research is useful, useable, and contributes to advancing climate justice. She will also discuss how these relationships led to the development of an innovative, transdisciplinary convergent research initiative that synthesizes traditional knowledge and scientific knowledge with new data collected through advanced sensing technology to inform tribal governance for resilience to climate change. Ultimately, this work aims to illuminate the critical links between how climate science and climate knowledge is produced and what the possibilities for climate justice are. This is an in-person event with no virtual viewing option.