Because This Land Is Who We Are is an exploration of environmental repossession, told through a collaborative case study approach, and engaging with Indigenous communities in Canada (Anishinaabe), Hawai'i (Kanaka Maoli) and Aotearoa (Maori). The co-authors are all Indigenous scholars, community leaders and activists who are actively engaged in the movements underway in these locations, and able to describe the unique and common strategies of repossession practices taking place in each community. This book celebrates Indigenous ways of knowing, relating to and honouring the land, and the authors' contributions emphasize the efforts taking place in their own Indigenous land. Through engagement with these varying cultural imperatives, the wider goal of Because This Land Is Who We Are is to broaden both theoretical and applied concepts of environmental repossession, and to empower any Indigenous community around the world which is struggling to assert its rights to land.
An illustrated version of the classic Woody Guthrie folk song, perfect for a family singalongs! Since its debut in the 1940s, Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land" has become one of the best-loved and most timely folk songs in America, inspiring activism and patriotism for all. This classic ballad is now brought to life in a richly illustrated edition for the whole family to share. Kathy Jakobsen's detailed paintings, which invite readers on a journey across the country, create an unforgettable portrait of our diverse land and the people who live it.
Based on extended interviews at the Culiprán fundo in Chile with peasants who recount in their own terms their political evolution, this is an in-depth study of peasants in social and political action. It deals with two basic themes: first, the authoritarian structure within a traditional latifundio and its eventual replacement by a peasant-based elected committee, and second, the events shaping the emergence of political consciousness among the peasantry. Petras and Zemelman Merino trace the careers of local peasant leaders, followers, and opponents of the violent illegal land seizure in 1965 and the events that triggered the particular action. The findings of this study challenge the oft-accepted assumption that peasants represent a passive, traditional, downtrodden group capable only of following urban-based elites. The peasant militants, while differing considerably in their ability to grasp complex political and social problems, show a great deal of political skill, calculate rationally on the possibility of success, and select and manipulate political allies on the basis of their own primary needs. The politicized peasantry lend their allegiance to those forces with whom they anticipate they have the most to gain—and under circumstances that minimize social costs. The authors identify the highly repressive political culture within the latifundio—reinforced by the national political system—as the key factor inhibiting overt expressions of political demands. The emergence of revolutionary political consciousness is found to be the result of cumulative experiences and the breakdown of traditional institutions of control. The violent illegal seizure of the farm is perceived by the peasantry as a legitimate act based on self-interest as well as general principles of justice—in other words, the seizure is perceived as a “natural act,” suggesting that perhaps two sets of moralities functioned within the traditional system. The book is divided into two parts: the first part contains a detailed analysis of peasant behavior; the second contains transcriptions of peasant interviews. Combined, they give the texture and flavor of insurgent peasant politics.
Deadly drought, near fatal accidents, blizzards, grasshopper plagues, choking dust storms, endless days of relentless toil for measly crop yields ... ... enchanting big skies, an endless undulating prairie, the spine-tingling cry of midnight coyotes, the self-satisfaction of scratching sustenance from the earth ... This is the Montana of Calvin Wall Redekop’s childhood, a place at once what the neighbors labeled “the most awful forsaken place God had ever created” and a magical world for a wide-eyed boy. These background forces of hardship and wonder constituted Redekop’s earliest memories and in the retrospective vision of these remembrances he finds the subtle basis for his subsequent personal development and orientation. The mutual interdependence in the homesteading community encountered in Enchantment and Despair: A Montana Childhood 1925 – 1937 helped Redekop see the significance and power of cooperative human ventures, and recognize the importance of the environment in human survival: awareness the author has acted upon throughout his life. Readers will be transported back in time by this vivid account of another age and, like its author, pass through despair to find themselves enchanted.
A huge spawling Southern novel set mainly in Swansboro, and many other counties in North Carolina and Georgia. It covers several generations of commercial fishermen and farmers and shows how their contrast of labors serverd the South so well from the old time to the present.
What does the evangelical church in Palestine think about the land, the end times, the Holocaust, peace in the Middle East, loving enemies, Christian Zionism, the State of Israel, and the possibilities of a Palestinian state? For the first time ever, Palestinian evangelicals along with evangelicals from the United States and Europe have converged to explore these and other crucial topics. Although Jews, Muslims, and Christians from a variety of traditions have participated in discussions and work regarding Israel and Palestine, this book presents theological, biblical, and political perspectives and arguments from Palestinian evangelicals who are praying, hoping, and working for a just peace for both Israelis and Palestinians.
In Pollution Is Colonialism Max Liboiron presents a framework for understanding scientific research methods as practices that can align with or against colonialism. They point out that even when researchers are working toward benevolent goals, environmental science and activism are often premised on a colonial worldview and access to land. Focusing on plastic pollution, the book models an anticolonial scientific practice aligned with Indigenous, particularly Métis, concepts of land, ethics, and relations. Liboiron draws on their work in the Civic Laboratory for Environmental Action Research (CLEAR)—an anticolonial science laboratory in Newfoundland, Canada—to illuminate how pollution is not a symptom of capitalism but a violent enactment of colonial land relations that claim access to Indigenous land. Liboiron's creative, lively, and passionate text refuses theories of pollution that make Indigenous land available for settler and colonial goals. In this way, their methodology demonstrates that anticolonial science is not only possible but is currently being practiced in ways that enact more ethical modes of being in the world.
