Abstract
Native nations are on the frontlines of resisting pipelines and at the forefront of creating the kinds of relationships required for living well in a just future. Drawing on our experiences working with Native nations in Minnesota as well as teaching, learning, and organizing around North American pipelines, we argue for a pipeline pedagogy that centers sovereignty by supporting Native leaders. Community partnerships, activism, and college courses are three methods for advancing this pipeline pedagogy, which connects environmental and climate justice, social movements, and Native nation sovereignty. We reflect on our experiences in these three domains: developing partnerships between a tribal school and our institutions, teaching and learning in environmental studies courses at a liberal arts college, and organizing with community activists against the Line 3 tar sands pipeline. We offer suggestions for approaches and activities that advance a pedagogy with the power to protect people, prevent pipelines, and promote justice.
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Notes
- 1.
Glen Coulthard and Simpson [9] call this place-based way of knowing “grounded normativity.” They explain that grounded normativity “houses and reproduces the practices and procedures, based on deep reciprocity, that are inherently informed by an intimate relationship to place,” and “teaches us how to live our lives in relation to other people and nonhuman life forms in a profoundly nonauthoritarian, nondominating, nonexploitative manner.”
- 2.
After teaching with this text, I was able to ask Jasilyn Charger, the youth leader featured in the article, what she thought of it. She critiqued the author’s intrusion into Jasilyn’s personal life and generally said that stories don’t always get told in her words, as she would like. I have used this as a teachable moment to discuss research ethics with students and how the media manipulates information.
- 3.
Buen vivir is a concept enshrined in the Ecuadorian and Bolivian constitutions. It is in opposition to the capitalist notion of living better, with success defined by consumption and profit.
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Gordon, T., Grosse, C., Mark, B. (2021). Linking Sovereignty, Local Environments, and Climate Justice Through Pipeline Pedagogy. In: Banschbach, V., Rich, J.L. (eds) Pipeline Pedagogy: Teaching About Energy and Environmental Justice Contestations. AESS Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies and Sciences Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-65979-0_8
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