About Us
Infrastructure Beyond Extractivism
About
the Team
Our interdisciplinary team of Indigenous theorists, critical legal scholars and geographers, and land-based practitioners, brings forward a bold agenda for fundamentally re-making our socio-technical systems; for generating strategies to both conceptualize and materialize ‘infrastructure otherwise’ (Cowen 2017). If infrastructures of extraction constitute the ‘spine’ of the settler colonial nation (LaDuke & Cowen 2020), we propose a vital new central nervous system: communities energized by a completely different conception of what ‘critical infrastructure’ entails.
We have assembled a team of scholars and land-based practitioners from across distinct North American bio-regions who have deep experience working in Indigenous communities to generate infrastructure that restores Indigenous jurisdiction. In partnership with key university-based programs and research institutes, the proposed partnership is poised to generate ground-breaking new policy pathways for materializing infrastructure beyond extractivism.
Co-Directors
Co-Directors Dr. Dayna Nadine Scott and Dr. Heidi Kiiwetinepinesiik Stark are both experienced community-grounded scholars that work or have worked in collaboration with many of the researchers and community-based practitioners that form the team.
Co-director Dr. Dayna Nadine Scott is York Research Chair in Environmental Law & Justice in the Green Economy and has a wealth of experience leading large interdisciplinary teams. She brings to the project expertise in environmental law and justice, just transition, resistance to extraction, and Indigenous jurisdiction.
Co-Director Dr. Heidi Kiiwetinepinesiik Stark (Turtle Mountain Ojibwe) is a widely recognized expert on Anishinaabe law, Indigenous legal and political orders, and treaty-making. She brings deep expertise on Indigenous sovereignty and nationhood, accountability and relational modes of governance. She is also an expert in land-based learning strategies for the revitalization of Indigenous law.
Dayna Nadine Scott
Co-Director
Associate Professor, Osgoode Hall Law School & Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change, York University
Heidi Kiiwetinepinesiik Stark
Co-Director
Associate Professor of Indigenous Governance at the University of Victoria
In addition to Dr. Scott and Dr. Stark, the team includes eminent, globally renowned senior scholars; established mid-career researchers; early-career researchers (ECR) on exciting trajectories of influence; and community-based practitioners of jurisdiction-building from across distinct North American bio- regions. These scholars, practitioners, and leaders will collaborate across three research clusters.
Anne Spice
Acting Assistant Professor
Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, Toronto Metropolitan University
Christine Sy
Assistant Professor
Gender Studies, University of Victoria
Deborah Cowen
Associate Professor
Department of Geography, University of Toronto
Deborah Curran
Associate Professor
Faculty of Law, University of Victoria
Damien Lee
Assistant Professor
Sociology, Toronto Metropolitan University
Jason Lewis
Professor
Computation Arts, Design and Computation Arts, Concordia University
Jeff Corntassel
Associate Professor
Indigenous Studies, University of Victoria
John Borrows
Professor
Faculty of Law, University of Victoria
Karletta Chief
Professor
Department of Environmental Science, University of Arizona
Maya Trotz
Professor
Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, College of Engineering, University of South Florida
Michelle Daigle
Assistant Professor
Centre for Indigenous Studies and Department of Geography and Planning, University of Toronto
Robert Clifford
Assistant Professor
Peter A. Allard School of Law, University of British Columbia
Shiri Pasternak
Assistant Professor
Criminology, Toronto Metropolitan University
Jeffery Hewitt
Associate Professor
Osgoode Hall Law School, York University
Kanahus Manuel
Tiny House Warriors
Melina Laboucan-Massimo
Senior Director
Indigenous Climate Action
Tara Marsden
University of Northern British Columbia
Tiffany Joseph
W̱SÁNEĆ Leadership Council
Winona Laduke
Honor the Earth
Irina Ceric
Assistant Professor
Faculty of Law, University of Windsor