Decolonizing Economics 2024: Earth Day to May Day

Join us as we dive into the word “Decolonize”and offer perspectives to help think about what it means to decolonize. What is it? What does it look like? Is decolonization only a Native Peoples’ thing? Where does decolonization fit in with the larger efforts to transform systems? Is decolonization enough? What is next, and what is beyond? Our conversation will add to the pluriverse of understandings on the topic and offer ways to internalize and actualize decolonization in our collective efforts to (re)build the new world.

Moderated by Native Roots Network.

The People’s Network for Land & Liberation (PNLL) is a BIPOC-led Consortium consisting of  Community Movement Builders, Cooperation Jackson, Cooperation Vermont, Incite Focus,  Native Roots Network, and Wellspring Cooperative. 

The shared mission of the network is to decommodify the land to reestablish right relationship with the earth and all our relatives and relations. We aim to advance democratic ownership of the means of production and liberatory social relationships. We are committed to building communities that regenerate the earth’s lifegiving eco-systems. PNLL consists of autonomous organizations that share best practices and opportunities to allow each entity to fulfill its organizational mission.

Presenters: Kali Akuno, Edget Betru, Miki’ala Catalfano, Blair Evans, Michelle Eddleman McCormick, and Emily Kawano.

The US legal system is based on private property. At its core, this is a colonial concept of land “ownership” imposed through force and coercion. This framework justifies and enforces enclosure of the commons and codifies private rights to control, sell, or commodify the natural world. The indigenous world view is premised on relationship and stewardship. Humans are not seen as superior to other life, but as part of an interconnected web of reciprocal and interconnected responsibilities. 

This session will be a learning journey  about Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK), a cumulative body of knowledge, understanding, and practice that evolved and was handed down through generations through traditional songs, stories and observations. 

Presenters: Ali Meders-Knight, Mel Figueroa, Phil Albers (Save California Salmon), and Brook Thompson.

The role of the media cannot be overstated. It constructs narratives that influence public perception. Through agenda-setting, framing, and priming, the media shapes opinions, beliefs, and behaviors, reflecting its power in shaping societal discourse and values. In this age of corporate media consolidation, it is critical that we build and use “People’s Media” to decolonize, democratize, and liberate. 

Presenters: Tom Llewellyn (Shareable), Joseph Orozco (KIDE Hoopa Tribal Radio) Levi Rickert (Native News Online), Laura Flanders (American Public Television), Mark Winston Griffith (Free Speech TV). Moderated by Melanie Bush.

Unionizing green groups is an incredible antidote to the multi-crises landscape we are currently living in. To avoid losing power and relevancy, the environmental movement must find a sincere way to connect with people who live around the landscapes it seeks to protect. The United States faces the biggest income inequality gap in its history. Working class solidarity is a concept yet to be embraced in the environmental movement, but is desperately needed to genuinely interface with so-called frontline communities. Additionally, as green groups push the concept of a “just transition,” it is critical that workers in the climate and environmental sector build bridges and directly engage with workers in agriculture, oil and gas, coal, mining, and more – rather than holding those dialogues at arms-length. Despite the incredible potential of green nonprofit unionism to bridge the climate and labor divide, nonprofit management remains extremely resistant to unions in their workplaces. This is sometimes due to a lack of education and awareness about unions, and in other instances is a reflection of a neoliberal orthodoxy that has shaped the modern environmental nonprofit sector. As a result, union busting is increasingly becoming normalized within the sector, if not openly at the point of recognition, then more subtly via prolonged contract negotiations. Internal conflicts with organized labor within the nonprofit sector highlight the disconnect between the green managerial class and the plight of everyday workers facing the climate, ecological and social crises of late-stage capitalism. Specifically, wherever the planet is exploited, labor is as well. This an intentional choice by corporations, and upheld by both poor labor and environmental laws in this country. The green nonprofit sector is largely funded by capitalist philanthropy, creating a tension between the goals of green nonprofits and those of movements seeking broader social and economic justice.Absent bottom-up organizing by workers in the sector, the potential of green organizations to move in a more pro-worker direction is likely to remain unexplored, x, and is further frustrated when managers – contrary to their own DEIJ statements – engage in union busting. The workers that comprise this panel are an indication of where the sector is heading. These are the future program and executive directors of climate, environmental and conservation orgs, and union leaders of progressive workplaces. By building solidarity with one another across organizations, we have committed to a future of increased mutualism, where possessiveness over campaigns, donors, and the unnecessary competitiveness among greens can finally fall away so that we can truly focus on a habitable, equitable future. This panel will share a vision of this future, discuss obstacles to realizing this future, and present ideas and strategies for how to achieve it.

Presenters: Erica Panther, Mireille Bejjani, CJ Garcia-Linz, Rae Lee, and Danny Noonan.

Art serves as a potent catalyst for social change by fostering empathy and inspiring action. Through various mediums like visual arts, literature, and performance, artists illuminate injustices, challenge norms, and envision alternatives. Art can be used as a platform for marginalized voices to be heard, sparking conversations that drive collective consciousness and activism. By provoking thought, evoking emotions, and fostering connections, art galvanizes communities, transcending cultural and linguistic barriers to ignite movements for progress and equity. Ultimately, art cultivates empathy, ignites imagination, and empowers individuals to envision and enact a more just and inclusive society. As Toni Cade Bambara famously said, “The role of the artist is to make revolution irresistible.”

Presenters: Michelle Hernandez, Sakura Saunders (Beehive Collective), Christine O’Moore, Kwame Braxon (Cooperation Jackson), and Dana Lyons.

The legal system serves as society’s framework. It defines norms, resolves conflicts, sets standards for behavior, and maintains order. The law shapes societal values and structures power dynamics. This panel questions the very framework of our current legal system. This panel of legal scholars asks: Can we use the law to dismantle structures of oppression and colonization? Can we use the law to create equitable and sustainable systems?

Presenters: Lauren Van Schiflegarde, Anthony Cook, and Mohit Mookim. Moderated by Mele Moniz.

The Wiyot people understand the sacred interconnectedness between people and place. Since time immemorial, the Wiyot people have lived along Shou’r (the Pacific Ocean) and around Wigi (Humboldt Bay). This region was once in balance. This balance was disrupted with the onset of settler colonialism and intensified through decades of extractive practices around fur, minerals, timber, fishing, and water diversion. This has left the region to face economic decline alongside increasing environmental threats such as sea level rise and wildfires.

The Wiyot Tribe has already demonstrated how land return can restore balance, heal trauma, and provide opportunity.  For over a century, Wiyot people have worked to remain in a reciprocal relationship with their unceded ancestral territory – through private land purchases, legal action, and more recently, voluntary land returns (see p.8-9 for a timeline of some of these events). Through this work, the Wiyot Tribe has exemplified how Native and non-Native peoples can exist in relationship to the land and to one another.

As the Community Land Trust of the Wiyot Tribe, Dishgamu Humboldt is the next step on this journey. Named after the Soulatluk word for love, Dishgamu Humboldt is designed to facilitate the return of Wiyot ancestral lands to Wiyot stewardship, putting land in trust for the purposes of affordable housing creation, workforce development, and environmental and cultural restoration.

Presenters: Michele Vassel and David Cobb.

Graduate students within the Environment and Community Program (Cal Poly Humboldt) discuss their intersecting work with the Rou Dalagurr Food Sovereignty Lab and Traditional Ecological Knowledges Institute, with a focus on food sovereignty and food justice projects.

Presenters: Karley Rojas, Julia Dunn, Chelsea Ríos Gómez, and Delaney Schroeder-Echavarria.

This closing panel is an effort to synthesize the last three days. The title is an intentional reference to the seminal pamphlet written in 1902 by Vladimir Lenin outlining a “skeleton plan” for going beyond fighting economic battles over wages, working hours and the like and towards restructuring all of society. As we face ecological collapse and fascism rising across the globe, we bring together movement leaders to pose the question to them in no uncertain terms: “What Is to Be Done?”

Presenters: Nick Cortez, Kali Akuno, Mary Hooks, Joe Guinan. Moderated by Melanie Bush.