Sunday, February 8, 2009

Impacts to Indigenous People's Lands from Development Projects

Barbara Adam’s book Timescapes of Modernity: The Environment and Invisible Hazardsargues that many of the most fundamental problems modern (often understood as Western) society faces are due to government decisions that are often made based on short-term and spatially narrow impact decisions. As she argues in her book, these decisions are being made when long-term and spatially wide impacts are involved. These long-term and spatially wide impacts, it is further argued, disrupt the timescapes of the human and natural environment. Timescapes, as Adams defines them are the timings and tempos – the changes and contingencies – of the human and natural environment (Adam, 1998: 11). Timescapes, in essence, are the physical and cultural embodiment of practiced approaches to time in space; they are the traditional lifeways of indigenous peoples.

In a recent article entitled “Timescapes in Conflict: Cumulative Impacts on a Solar Calendar,” anthropologists, researchers, and Native Americans discuss how the timescapes of a solar calendar, along with traditional lands in which it is located, have been impacted over the last 200 years, with a special focus on recent gas and electric developments. Their article and case study prove to be a valuable example of how governments, agencies, and others should look at impact assessments and other methodologies used in modern development projects, as it clearly demonstrates the consequences of multiple impacts over time.

The headwaters of the Tunakwint River, known today as the Santa Clara River, begin in the upper reaches of the western flanks of the Pine Valley Mountain range in southern Utah. This watershed is the focus of hundreds of special Native American Indian places, especially of the Paiute, including ceremonial, religious, and cultural sites and resources. It is also an area full of water and puha (a kind of creation energy), deriving from the tall volcanic mountains and small lava flows that constitute the headwaters, the boundaries, and the topography of the Tunakwint River basin.

Read more on the Long-Term Impacts to Indigenous People’s Lands from Electric, Gas, and Energy Corridors and Projects: A Case From Native North America here.

Related Indigenous People's Issues by Keywords



Use the Search Function at the Top to Find More Articles, Fellowships, Conferences, Indigenous Issues, Book Reviews, and Resources

No comments:

Post a Comment

Contribute to Indigenous People's Issues Today

Do you have a resource on indigenous peoples that you would like to share? Indigenous People's Issues is always looking for great new information, news, articles, book reviews, movies, stories, or resources.

Please send it along and we will do a feature. Email it to the Editor, Peter N. Jones: pnj "at" bauuinstitute.com.

Indigenous Peoples Issues and Resources

Privacy Policy for Indigenous Peoples Issues Today (http://indigenousissuestoday.blogspot.com)

The privacy of our visitors to Indigenous Peoples Issues Today is important to us.

At Indigenous Peoples Issues Today, we recognize that privacy of your personal information is important. Here is information on what types of personal information we receive and collect when you use visit Indigenous Peoples Issues Today, and how we safeguard your information. We never sell your personal information to third parties.

Log Files

As with most other websites, we collect and use the data contained in log files. The information in the log files include your IP (internet protocol) address, your ISP (internet service provider, such as AOL or Shaw Cable), the browser you used to visit our site (such as Internet Explorer or Firefox), the time you visited our site and which pages you visited throughout our site.

Cookies and Web Beacons

We do use cookies to store information, such as your personal preferences when you visit our site. This could include only showing you a pop-up once in your visit, or the ability to login to some of our features, such as forums.

We also use third party advertisements on Indigenous Peoples Issues Today to support our site. Some of these advertisers may use technology such as cookies and web beacons when they advertise on our site, which will also send these advertisers (such as Google through the Google AdSense program) information including your IP address, your ISP, the browser you used to visit our site, and in some cases, whether you have Flash installed. This is generally used for geotargeting purposes (showing New York real estate ads to someone in New York, for example) or showing certain ads based on specific sites visited (such as showing cooking ads to someone who frequents cooking sites). Google, as a third party vendor, uses cookies to serve ads on this site. Google's use of the DART cookie enables it to serve ads to users based on their visit to sites on the Internet. Users may opt out of the use of the DART cookie by visiting the Google ad and content network privacy policy.

You can chose to disable or selectively turn off our cookies or third-party cookies in your browser settings, or by managing preferences in programs such as Norton Internet Security. However, this can affect how you are able to interact with our site as well as other websites. This could include the inability to login to services or programs, such as logging into forums or accounts.

Thank you for understanding and supporting Indigenous Peoples Issues Today. We understand that some viewers may be concerned that ads are sometimes served for companies that negatively depict indigenous peoples and their cultures. We understand this concern. However, there are many legitimate companies that utilize Google Adwords and other programs to attract visitors. Currently, we have no way of deciphering between the two - we leave it up to the viewer to decide whether the companies serving ads are honest or not.