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| Project Profile: First Peoples |
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Project Title: First Peoples, Landownership, and Sustainable Resource Management: A UW-Madison Research Circle
Term: January - June/August 2000
Funding: Office of International Studies and Programs, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Amount: $10,000
Project contacts: Harvey M. Jacobs, Principal Investigator (Director, Land Tenure Center; 608-262-5537, hmjacobs@facstaff.wisc.edu); Thomas M. Yuill (Director, Institute for Environmental Studies; 608-265-5296, tmyuill@facstaff.wisc.edu)
Participating institutions: Institute for Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Summary: The project will establish a network of faculty, staff, and students on the UW-Madison campus who are interested in the issue of first peoples, landownership, and sustainable resource management
Objective: To provide an opportunity for bringing together faculty and students associated with the Area Studies programs on campus to address relevant issues. Assuming sufficient interest, the long-term goal is to establish an ongoing, interdisciplinary research circle around the theme of first peoples, landownership, and sustainable resource management.
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One of the dominant issues globally, in developing, transition, and developed countries, is the assertion by first peoples of their traditional claims to and rights in land. After several centuries of colonialism, first peoples are asserting treaty rights, or their equivalent, in countries around the world. Throughout the United States and Latin America, and in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, the issue of restitution of land to native peoples, and/or the renegotiation of traditional treaties about land, has led to, for example, creation of new provinces (Canada), uncertainty about non-native rights to land (U.S.), and new bases for thinking about access to exploitable natural resources. Quite literally, native peoples globally are reinventing property, often using the western model of property to establish claims to their traditional lands as a first step in reestablishment and reassertion of tribal identity.
The issue of first peoples and their relationship to land and sustainable resource management is increasingly a focus for both LTC and IES. Within IES graduate students are undertaking thesis/dissertation research on this subject focused on first peoples' experiences throughout the globe. Within LTC the experience of first people is a theme of several major projects, current and planned. We are convinced that this is an area that will remain a compelling and academically interesting topic nationally and internationally for many years to come. We believe that there are enough colleagues already on campus to address most of the major facets of this timely theme. The challenge will be to bring them together and generate the intellectual excitement needed to keep the group together.
This is a joint project of the Land Tenure Center and the Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Its immediate goal is to provide an opportunity for bringing together many of the faculty and students associated with campus Area Studies programs, since many of these programs focus on the experience of first peoples. The long-term goal, assuming sufficient interest, is to establish an ongoing, interdisciplinary research circle around this theme.
To achieve these goals, three outputs are anticipated:
All are welcome to attend the series of informal discussion seminars sponsored by members of the First Peoples, Land-ownership, and Sustainable Resource Interest Group. The seminars will be held at the Memorial Union from 4:00-5:30PM unless otherwise noted. For more information, contact David Joiner at dljoiner@students.wisc.edu.
| Date | Speaker | Topic |
|---|---|---|
| Thursday, November 9 |
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| Marcus Lane, Assistant Professor, Urban and Regional Planning Zoltan Grossman, Doctoral Student Department of Geography |
"Indigenism" and the Environment | |
| Wednesday, December 6 |
To be announced |
Informal Discussion Seminar Series. A continuation of an on-going series that began in the summer of 2000, these informal meetings are meant to serve as forums for interest group members to discuss general themes and topics that cut across the theme of indigenous peoples, land, land-ownership, and sustainable resource management. The structure of the forum is a 1 1/2 hour session beginning with a pair of short 10 minute presentations outlining the discussion topic followed by a moderated open discussion.
First Discussion Seminar Topic: "Indigenism" and the Environment. Indigenous groups' voices in relation to land and other natural resources are bound up with what can be termed the "politics of indigenism," i.e. articulating, reproducing and/or recuperating indigenous 'culture' in the context of an intensely politicized struggle over land and resources within wider society. Marcus Lane (Assistant Professor, Urban and Regional Planning) will discuss mining in an Aboriginal domain in northern Australia; Zoltan Grossman (Doctoral Student, Geography) will discuss alliance building in the northern Wisconsin conflict over spear fishing treaty rights.
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