Title: Indigenous Decolonial Climate Hope through th e Land
Abstract:
In the face of climat
e despair and environmental collapse\, Indigenous peoples offer a vital per
spective that reframes both the crisis and the possibilities for hope. This
talk explores “climate hope through the land” as a decolonial and kinship-
based alternative to dominant narratives of an impending climate apocalypse
. Against frameworks that reduce land to a resource or frame hope as disemb
odied optimism\, this talk centers Indigenous philosophies of landedness to
articulate a grounded and accountable vision of hope. Rather than viewing
climate change as a singular rupture\, Indigenous decolonial thought unders
tands it as the latest wave in a long history of colonial genocide and ecoc
ide\, carried out through the violent reconceptualization of land and human
ity. Hope\, then\, arises not from escaping this history but from returning
to it—with humility\, kinship\, and a spatial point of view rooted in land
\, where land is not an object but a creator\, a relative\, and an ethical
agent whose vitality offers the ground for transformation. This talk calls
for a radical shift in how we imagine and enact climate hope—not as an abst
ract ideal\, but as a decolonial practice of being together in and through
the land.
Bio:
Dr. Brian Burkhart is an Associa
te Professor of Philosophy and affiliate faculty in Native American Studies
at the University of Oklahoma and was the director of the Native Nations C
enter at OU from 2020 to 2023. His research specializes in Native American
and Indigenous philosophy. His 2019 book\, Indigenizing Philosophy through
the Land: A Trickster Methodology for Decolonizing Environmental Ethics and
Indigenous Futures\, argues that land is key to both the operations of col
oniality as well as the anti-colonial power that grounds Indigenous liberat
ion. Land\, as a material\, conceptual\, and ontological foundation for Ind
igenous ways of knowing\, being\, and valuing\, provides a framework for In
digenous environmental ethics that can also function as an anti-colonial fo
rce for sovereign Indigenous futures. His current book project\, As Strong
as the Land that Made You: Native American and Indigenous Philosophies of W
ell-Being through the Land\, extends these land-based methodologies into re
flections on both environmental and individual health for Native people and
Native Nations. Burkhart is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma w
ith roots in the Jaybird Creek community of Northeastern Oklahoma as well a
s the Indian Wells community of the Navajo Nation in Arizona. He holds a Ph
.D. in Philosophy from Indiana University.