Aaron Strain 
Professor and Baker Ferguson Chair of Politics 
Whitman College 

Abstract: 

Dreams of "unf**king the planet" and "saving the world" with massive seaweed-based carbon dioxide removal (CDR) projects exploded into prominence during the past seven years. The "Seaweed Revolution" quickly became a darling of the likes of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, liberal media outlets, and a wide array of geoengineering, marine permaculture, and green start-up gurus. The movement capitalized on seaweed's charisma and a really good story: Seaweeds, the narrative ran, are the "rainforest of the ocean," "carbon-sucking sea trees." Even as start-ups and investors rushed forward with multi-million-dollar projects backed by this brilliant story, there was a sense that the science didn't add up and the analogy didn't work. Only a few years after the boom began, seaweed CDR now faces significant scientific challenges--and deep investor skepticism (particularly after the dramatic failure of the industry's most prominent start-up). Examining the wild ride of seaweed CDR, this talk goes beyond technical debates about the effectiveness of seaweed carbon projects to show how the cultural practices of "start-up culture" scupper real climate solutions. It ends by looking at two seaweed CDR start-ups that are trying to do things differently and suggests that "doing fine" might be better than "saving the world." 

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Dr. Clancy Wilcott 
Assistant Professor 
University of California, Berkeley 

Abstract: 

This talk discusses a series of critical cartographic interventions undertaken in collaboration between local Indigenous, activist and community groups, and studio.geo?, a cartographic research and teaching studio based at UC Berkeley. It centers on Before You Are Here, one of a series of ongoing collaborative research projects making maps with the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust (STLT) an Indigenous, Urban, Women-Led organization seeking to rematriate the land in East Bay, California. This series of works reimagines cartography, a historically colonial tool of territorialization, for telling stories of Indigeneity, sovereignty and multiplicity in Sogorea Te’s view of the Ohlone Bay Area. Together, we asked: what would it mean to decolonise at the level of the fundamentals of cartography itself and produce a map that depicts a cosmography, rather than a cartography, a living world rather than abstracted data, a map that wrenches open notions of universality and standardization to represent the landscape of the Bay as a series of seasonal space-times through which communities of people live and move, a space uncomputable rather than a fixed fact: an “Indigenous depth of place” (Pierce and Louis, 2007)?

Speaker Bio:

Clancy Wilmott (PhD) is Assistant Professor of Critical Cartography, Geovisualization and Design in the Department of Geography and the Berkeley Center for New Media at the University of California, Berkeley. Her work focuses on intricacies of power inherent in spatial representations, including mapping, cartography and GIS from an anti-colonial perspective.

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Abstract:

In this presentation, I analyze the Piikani Nation’s attempts to halt the construction of the Oldman River Dam, as this struggle highlights the challenges Indigenous communities can face in attempting to assert our own forms of jurisdiction within the confines of Canadian law. Completed in 1991, the Dam faced multiple forms of opposition by Piikani members, including lawsuits, interventions within the Federal Environmental Review Process, and an attempt by community activists to divert the river around an existing irrigation weir. For this presentation, I focus on the Piikani water rights case, wherein the Piikani Nation attempted to creatively draw from the US Winters Doctrine as a means to establish a legal claim to the Oldman River rooted in treaty rights.

This presentation draws from my current research on Piikani/Blackfoot water relationships, which seeks to answer: how are Indigenous forms of jurisdiction enacted within and beyond reserve boundaries? And how do they articulate with Canadian legal systems, such as the reserve and band council systems? To answer these questions, I draw from both critical political economy and Indigenous legal scholarship, as I argue that in struggles against the capitalist reterritorialization of Indigenous places, it is through the assertions of competing legal jurisdictions that these struggles tend to find their most profound expression. Here, I draw from, and extend, the Marxian concept of articulation, suggesting this concept might be a generative reframing ‘legal pluralism’ frameworks that are often used by scholars to examine how Indigenous legal orders interact with settler law.

Bio:

Michael Fabris (he/they) is a Blackfoot scholar and Assistant Professor in the UBC Department of Geography. His current research focuses on Piikani challenges to the construction of the Oldman River Dam, Piikani water rights, and articulations between Indigenous and settler forms of law.

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On February 9, 2024, the Department of Geography held a Dumpling Making Party to celebrate two cultural events: the Chinese Spring Festival (春节 chūnjié) and Tibetan New Year (Losar). Both cultures follow their own calendars for festivals and holidays. This year, these two holidays coincided with February 10 marking the first day of their respective new years. Geography faculty, staff, and students, along with their families and friends, participated in the party.

We were getting ready to make dumplings.

We were having fun!

And it was the first time that many of us made dumplings…

Many thanks to our fellows and friends for their help with the party, including bringing their steamers, wrapping the red envelopes, chopping vegetables, setting up the table, and cooking and serving the dumplings. Special thanks to Hauqingjia (Palchengyal) from the Department of Religious Studies; Aleksander Berg, Drolma Gadou, Annika Hirmke, Shruthi Jagadeesh, Alaric Akhil Kothapally, Michele Lissoni, Taneesha Mohan, Briana Prado, Nic Tarasewicz, Neda Shaban and Gabriella Subia Smith from the Geography department.

Special thanks also to Karen Weingarten, Gabriela Sales, and Brandon Brown for putting together the lovely, festive décor at the Guggenheim Building, and to Sean Dunn for coordinating the food purchase.

After the party, participants were gifted a red envelope (红包 hóngbāo) containing one brand-new Chinese one-dollar bill (元 yuán, approximately $0.14 USD). This bill is known as “压岁钱 yāsuìqián,” literally meaning money to suppress a demon named “Suì.” During the Chinese Spring Festival, it is a tradition to gift red envelops to friends and family. According to the Chinese legend, Suì terrorized children while they slept on Spring Festival Eve. The red envelope is believed to dispel this demon, symbolizing good wishes and prosperity for the new year ahead. Karen kindly added a lucky node (同心结 tóngxīnjié) to each envelope to double up the good luck and prosperity people brought to their homes.

This event was part of a departmental effort, spearheaded by department Chair Jennifer Fluri, to recognize diverse groups and cultures on our CU campus, promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Losar Tashi Delek to our Tibetan friends, and 新年快乐 (Xīnnián Kuàilè) to our Chinese communities

Organizer and editor

Xiaoling Chen, Research Assistant and Ph.D. Candidate in Geography

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Spaces of Diaspora Policy
by Aaron Malone

Land grabbing at the legal crux: Forced displacement and land restitution in Colombia
by Max Counter

Uneven State Territorialization: Governance, Inequality, and Survivance in Xinjiang, China
by Sarah Tynen

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Join geographer and CU alum Joseph Kerski as we explore research and development of GIS in education and how you can take advantage of these developments in your own career pathway.

Joseph J. Kerski, Ph.D., GISP
Education Manager, ESRI

Hosted by Colleen Reid

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Rediscover and Reconnect with CU Boulder Geography

Come back to Boulder during Homecoming 2017 to celebrate and reconnect with your friends from CU!  In addition to the reunion tailgate on Saturday October 28, which you can register for , we are also holding a special event to feature and celebrate the work of the Geography department on Friday Oct 27, 5:00 - 8:00 pm in IBS 155 (Institute of Behavioral Science - ).

Dr. Waleed Abdalati, Professor of Geography at CU Boulder, alumnus of the department (PhD 1996) and former Chief Scientist at NASA will be giving a lecture on “Earth from space.” In addition to a reception to reconnect with current faculty, students, and other alumni, a number of current graduate students will also giving exciting IGNITE talks about their research.

We are required by university policy to have a guest list for this event. Registration is now closed. If you already registered, we will see you tonight! 

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Hosted by Suzanne Anderson. See a .

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