Indigenous Planetary Health Podcast HECLab University of Victoria

In this episode, Hōkūlani Aikau explains how doing ethnographic research in the academy provided her with opportunities to learn from and about her various communities. As an ethnographer her approach is committed to understanding the experiences of the people with whom she works. Her training and experience have brought her to the Archipelago Collective and she explains how trans-Indigenous critical juxtaposition can be productive and synergistic and offers a foundation for thinking globally about planetary health without losing sight of the local, Indigenous context.







Dr. Hōkūlani Aikau is a Kanaka ‘Ōiwi Professor and the Director of the School of Indigenous Governance at the University of Victoria. She is the author of A Chosen People, A Promised Land: Mormonism and Race in Hawaiʻi (University of Minnesota Press, 2012). And with Vernadette V. Gonzalez, she coedited Detours: A Decolonial Guide to Hawaiʻi (2019). She and Dr. Gonzalez edit the Detours Series with Duke University Press. With Heidi Kiiwetinepinesiik Stark and Aimee Craft, she co-edited Indigenous Resurgence in the Age of Reconciliation. (University of Toronto Press, 2023). Dr. Aikau is also the Editor for the Pacific Islands Monograph Series with the University of Hawaiʻi Press.

Heather and Hoku sit down with Chamorro scholar, Tiara Na’puti, to discuss Indigenous planetary health from the perspective of Guåhan and the Marianas archipelago. Tiara is an Associate Professor in Global and International Studies at the University of California-Irvine. Her scholarship and community work addresses militarism, colonialism, Indigenous cultures, and movements in the Mariana Islands archipelago and throughout Oceania. As Tiara explains, while Guåhan is geologically part of the Marianas archipelago, it is geo-politically a territory of the United States. Listeners may not be aware that the United States military is one of the biggest polluters on the planet. And with US miliary bases occupying large portions of the island, they contribute to environmental degradation and climate change as well as producing local and global political insecurity. In this podcast, Tiara invites us to consider what we can learn when the ocean is our teacher and how real security on Guåhan begins with the reunification of the Mariana archipelago and self-determination.







This podcast is created by the Impact Chair in Transformative Governance for Planetary Health at the University of Victoria, with production from Cited Media. We are supported by grants from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

In both Canada and the United States, the idea of state, provincial, territorial and national parks are widely celebrated for preserving wilderness for the public to enjoy. However, what might be less known is that the origins of the nature conservancy movement that produced these parks are based in white supremacy and anti-Indigenous racism. While these parks were established in Indigenous territories, they were designed to keep Indigenous Peoples out. In this episode, Heather and her guest co-host, Naatoi’Ihkpiakii Melissa Quesnelle, sit down with Dr. Deondre Smiles, a citizen of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe and an Assistant Professor of Geography at the University of Victoria, to discuss how his research and teaching strive to disrupt the dominant environmental and conservation narratives by centering Indigenous preservation practices that sustain Indigenous territories. As a member of the Archipelagos collective, Deondre explains how Indigenous-led resurgence and planetary health are part of his work.







This podcast is created by the Impact Chair in Transformative Governance for Planetary Health at the University of Victoria, with production from Cited Media. We are supported by grants from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Dr. Diana Lewis who is Mi’kmaq from the Sipekne’katik First Nation holds the Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Environmental Health Governance at the University of Guelph. She joins co-hosts, Hokulani Aikau and Heather Castleden, for a conversation about doing community engaged research and the leadership role Indigenous women are playing to redress environmental injustice and racism in their communities. In this episode, Diana shares her experiences of doing Indigenous-led research, providing listeners with clear, accessible instructions for how to do this work in a trusting and respectful community-centered way.   







This podcast is created by the Impact Chair in Transformative Governance for Planetary Health at the University of Victoria, with production from Cited Media. We are supported by grants from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

One of the key values of our collective is prioritizing the importance of art to an Indigenous worldview. In this episode, Hoku and Heather sit down with Sarah Jim who is a visual artist from the village of Tseycum in W̱SÁNEĆ. As a muralist, her art practice reflects the lessons she’s learned from Coast Salish mentors and from her land-based work at PEPÁḴEṈ HÁUTW̱. She also talks about how art allows her to educate others about the role of the small ones – the slugs, frogs, bees, bugs, flowering plants, and medicinal plants –in planetary health.







This podcast is created by the Impact Chair in Transformative Governance for Planetary Health at the University of Victoria, with production from Cited Media. We are supported by grants from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

In this episode, Heather and, guest host, Carey Newman have a conversation with Métis activist Breanne Lavallee-Heckert. When we spoke with Breanne, she was the Research Director for Indigenous Climate Action, an Indigenous-led organization that works on connecting and supporting Indigenous communities to reinforce their place as leaders who are driving climate change solutions for today and tomorrow.







Carey and Heather speak with Breanne about the limits of the Canadian legal system for addressing issues of planetary health and why she chose to reject the process of being called to the bar. Listen and learn how she’s working to build new futures for Indigenous governance. 







This podcast is created by the Impact Chair in Transformative Governance for Planetary Health at the University of Victoria, with production from Cited Media. We are supported by grants from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.