Reclaiming Indigenous Jurisdiction in the Climate Crisis:

Critical Analyses of ‘Critical’ Infrastructure

Friday, May 23, 2025, 3-5 p.m. EST

Reclaiming Indigenous Jurisdiction in the Climate Crisis: Critical Analyses of ‘Critical’ Infrastructure

This panel draws together critical scholars from law, geography, and anthropology with community partners and land-based practitioners who are working to restore Indigenous jurisdiction in the context of the climate crisis — and are reconceptualizing what constitutes ‘critical infrastructure’ along the way. From standing against pipeline projects, to revitalizing Indigenous systems of land and fire stewardship, to fighting for a radically ‘just transition’ panelists will speak across a diversity of strategies for reclaiming jurisdictional authority and remaking the material and socio- technical infrastructures that sustain collective life on Indigenous lands. But, in addition to material infrastructure, panelists will also explore whether and how legal ‘infrastructures’ can be remade to foreground Indigenous authority in the transition.

This panel will include the following presentations:

  • Emma Feltes (York University) and Jocelyn Stacey (Allard School of Law, University of British Columbia), “Right to Burn: Indigenous Rights and Jurisdiction in a Country on Fire”
  • Kanahus Manuel (Tiny House Warriors), “Building Anti-colonial Solidarity Infrastructure Networks”
  • Dayna Nadine Scott (Osgoode Hall Law School and York University), “Infrastructural (Dis)Entitlement: Coercive Dispossession on the Critical Minerals Frontier”
  • Karletta Chief (University of Arizona), “A Just Transition Post-Coal Mining Plan for Black Mesa United: Navajos living within the Peabody Western Coal Company (PWCC) Leasehold Area”
  • Robert Clifford (Allard School of Law, University of British Columbia), “The Jurisdictional Entanglements of LandBack”

Time and Date: Friday, May 23, 2025 from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. EST

Location: Online (Zoom)

Register here: https://yorku.zoom.us/meeting/register/vYZJnzrET8qrSulvXZL6xQ