Listening to Fish: Indigenous sovereignty and freshwater fish conservation in north/western Canada

Speaker: Zoe Todd, Carleton University

Zoe Todd explores two major projects they have worked on over the last decade that examine the role of plural Indigenous legal orders and sciences in protecting freshwater fish well-being. Their short talk examines the role of Indigenous sovereignty in disrupting settler Canada's harmful legacies in western and arctic watersheds.

About the speaker:

Dr. Zoe Todd is an artist and researcher who studies Indigenous perspectives on freshwater fish conservation in western Canada (specifically, Alberta). Their fish philosophy work brings together Indigenous science, art, social studies, stories, and legal thinking about fish as more-than-human kin. Their current projects examine how Indigenous governance shapes and refracts western fish conservation paradigms. They are a co-founder of the Institute for Freshwater Fish Futures (2018), which is an international collective of scientists, artists, writers, landscape architects, architects, environmentalists, journalists, and community leaders dedicated to honouring reciprocal responsibilities to freshwater fish in watersheds locally and globally.

[kmcd]

Land acknowledgements at UTSC in 2016 were effective to change my thinking, but at this point they feel like a rote script devoid of meaning in most cases. Everyone knows the script, and it so often feels like going through the motions. I noticed the change after TRC. Definitely going to share parts of your talk with my grade 8 science class on the rez!