February 12, 2025 • 31 mins
In this episode of Talking Environment, host Gevorg Ghazaryan sits down with Professor Andrew Smith, a scholar in Philosophy and Environmental Studies at Drexel University, to explore the connections between environmental justice, food justice, and decolonization.
Professor Smith shares insights into the ethical dimensions of climate change, the role of Indigenous knowledge in environmental research, and the importance of challenging colonial legacies in academia. This conversation explores key areas such as climate justice, environmental ethics, and the moral responsibilities of societies toward the environment.
Tune in to Talking Environment to get a better understanding of how philosophy and environmental studies fight for a more equitable and sustainable future.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello everyone and welcome back to Talking Environment. I'm your host Gevorg Ghazaryan
(00:05):
and today we have the privilege of hosting Professor Andrew Smith. Andrew Smith is a
professor of philosophy and environmental studies at Drexel University. Drexel University,
Professor Smith's research delves into the critical issues such as environmental justice,
food justice, and climate justice with a focus on decolonization and indigenous research methodologies.
(00:28):
So welcome to the show Professor Smith. Thanks for having me here. Awesome. So to start with,
could you please give us a bit of an introduction of what do you do, what is your,
what are your interests in this field? Sure. I was trained as a philosopher and my work is at the
intersection of environmental philosophy and indigenous philosophy. Specifically, I work on
(00:55):
indigenous ecological knowledge and the ways in which it can be understood to provide a clear
sense of the ways in which we understand and seek to address climate change. Awesome. That's great.
And could you give us, we will dive into these topics and terms a bit more later on, but,
(01:17):
and could you give us an introduction of your journey? How did you, how did you decide to
do environmental philosophy or what drives you to this field? Sure. I, I was trained as a social
and political philosopher. And just to give a little more context for that, I worked on theories
of democracy. I got to Drexel, hired to do theories of democracy, but learned right away that there
(01:42):
was a lot more need and interest among students for someone who does environmental philosophy.
I had taught that before. This was an opportunity to do it on a more routine basis. And the more I
taught it, the more I loved it. And the more I got to interact with students. So my research and my
teaching just sort of built on one another. I changed the trajectory of the work that I do.
(02:08):
And it became much more focused on environmental philosophy and then again switched to incorporate
indigenous philosophy. Awesome. Awesome. That's great. And so I would, at first I would like you
maybe break down what is environmental philosophy. I mean, most of us have some perceptions of what
(02:29):
it is, but could you give us like an introduction to it from a scientific perspective maybe, or
just explain it in simple terms? Yeah, it's interesting. I think a lot of people probably
have no idea what I'm doing, which makes perfect sense. As a philosopher, I'm trained to do
(02:52):
conceptual analysis, to try to understand the way concepts, propositions, claims, theories work.
Environmental philosophers focus on the way we use language to describe environmental effects
and the way these uses of language can affect politics, social organizations, questions of
(03:16):
ethics. I focus mostly on environmental ethics, questions of the way we value environmental
phenomena or environmental structures. And one of the things that really interests me is the
stark difference in questions of valuation between indigenous communities and people of what are
(03:39):
called settler colonial communities, like in the United States. Great. That's interesting. And so,
I mean, we are going to discuss today the intersection between the environmental philosophy
and environmental studies and environmental ethics. We have had another guest earlier who
(04:00):
kind of discussed a lot about the environmental ethics and what should maybe the people's
obligations should be towards the environment. So does your research also cover that part?
It does. It does. My focus is on the difference in how we understand our responsibilities compared
(04:25):
to a number of the indigenous communities and indigenous scholars with whom I work.
That sense of responsibility is a real distinguishing factor between cultures.
Okay. So could you... So I am personally, I know more about... I've never probably researched about
(04:50):
the environmental ethics in the indigenous communities. So could you, just for our
knowledge, could you just give us an introduction of how does that look like in the indigenous
communities? Do they care about it that much or is the situation kind of the same?
Yeah. I hesitate to speak in broad brushstrokes since indigenous communities are so different.
(05:14):
Definitely.
But I can try to provide some helpful generalizations. One common theme that we see
in indigenous cultures and indigenous communities is thinking of ecologies not in terms of the
physical interactions within... The biophysical interactions within ecosystems, but thinking of
(05:37):
ecologies in terms of kinship arrangements. How do we relate to that? How do we...
How do we relate to the world around us as relatives? Relatives among humans and relatives
among other than human beings. And we may even relate as relatives to mountains or streams or
(05:59):
other bodies of water. And this also includes our food. Interestingly enough, we're kin with
the food that we eat. That is a common approach among indigenous communities. And you can see
right away the sort of investment one would have being a member of that community to take care of
(06:23):
the world around you. If they're essentially family members, you want to uphold your responsibilities.
You want to do well by them because they have done well by you.
Within settler colonial cultures, we tend not to think that way. We tend to think of ecosystems or
ecologies as a phenomenon that we have a responsibility to protect or clean or restore
(06:47):
or remediate. These aren't bad things. They just don't have the sort of emotional weight,
I think, that thinking in terms of kin can have. And that marks a real difference, I think.
Yeah. Yeah. I wanted to know your opinion. There's this phrase that's been going on for a while is
(07:15):
does it really matter of what kind of obligations we have for the environment
if we are going to live for 80, 90 years? And does that really matter? What do you think about that?
Or should we have obligations for our future generations in terms of environmental ethics?
(07:36):
Should we follow the steps? What we do in our daily lives? And should we actually think twice
before doing something in our daily life that is going to affect the future generations?
Here's one way to extend the kinship analogy thinking of ecologies as family members.
One way to understand ancestor worship or ancestor veneration is to regard our ancestors
(08:02):
as returning to the earth and remaining part of the community while in a different form.
If that's the case, then say I live 80 or 90 years, it's not as if I disappear. It's not as if I go away.
My obligations are important for future generations of those who are alive.
(08:24):
I also may have obligations in death to be food for future beings. And I think that's a really
important thing to be food for future beings and to be part of something that continues.
(08:45):
I wouldn't rule it out. And even in terms of worrying what's true in terms of what happens
after we die, it just seems to make more sense in terms of how we think about the world around us
and maybe we still have a stake in it after we die. And it's certainly easy for people in my position,
(09:09):
people in our culture, in my culture, to think of having obligations to children, grandchildren.
Of course. I totally agree with you. Diving into the environmental ethics part maybe a bit more,
(09:31):
I just wanted to know maybe your opinion on how those ethics should be, if a person decides to
follow the environmental ethics or should maybe is there a set of practices that people can follow?
I mean, there are some popular ones, let's say, like no cluttering or trying to recycle or maybe
(09:58):
trying to lose less gas powered vehicles or so on, so on, so on. And do you think those, let's say,
small decisions made by us can have also a great impact or is it only the collective impact that
we can get by uniting maybe towards these issues that will have a great impact in the future?
(10:25):
This is a tough question. It's one that I wrestle with. Here's one way that I've tried to unpack it,
tried to make sense of it. It's hard for me to think that substantial transformations can take
place without structural changes, without big changes. But who are those changes made by?
(10:51):
They're made by humans and oftentimes it takes a sort of collective building to get to a point
where that sort of cultural transformation occurs. Certainly not littering, trying to
(11:12):
use less fossil fuels. These things are really important. And I think that they have
the sort of emotional importance too to feel that one is at least doing the bare minimum.
Of course, if you want to think of it that way. I tend to think of our environmental concerns or
(11:34):
responsibilities in a wider sense. I also think of them as incorporating our social relationships
and even our personal relationships, our relationships to ourselves. So caring for
the environment, being a good environmental citizen also means in my situation, being cognizant of
(11:59):
the needs and interests of my students, for instance, paying attention to the amount of
stress they are dealing with. As you well know, university life is full of it, lots of stress.
So my relationship with them has to involve being a decent community member. That's just as important.
(12:24):
There's always the opportunity for that to resonate out, that they may do the same
with those around them. And that sort of transformation, building relationships
within human communities, hopefully can extend to other than human communities as well.
Yeah, I totally agree. And also the idea that you personally can have a big influence on the
(12:48):
community around you. You stop doing things, for example, let's say in a circle of your friends,
some leaders, you're telling them to not do that. And then it is going to have some impact on
them. It is going to have some impact on the people who are with you. And maybe if you are,
if you, let's say, if you're not really into environmental studies or the climate change,
(13:13):
maybe some of the people around you will get more interested into that. And that will have an effect
on them, a lasting effect on them. Yeah. Yeah. So that's how maybe I tend to think about it. So
even the small actions by us can maybe be an inspiration for the people around us,
if not ourselves. I think family and friendship relationships are incredibly powerful.
(13:39):
People have an effect on one another that we don't even see. Yeah. Yeah. You're very familiar
with that, you know, growing up in a household, say, where you've been influenced in ways that
you don't really realize until you move away. I think relationships among friends can have the
same effect, eating less meat, because a friend has done so. These sorts of things are so common.
(14:06):
And they're part of this transformative process. And I think we see that transformation occurring
when we look at the differences between generations. Look at Gen X, say, my generation,
or baby boomers compared to the interests and commitments of Gen Z. There's a noticeable
(14:31):
difference there, a real commitment among those who are in Gen Z to climate issues, environmental
issues, issues of social justice. That's not an oddity. It makes perfect sense. But it's also
part of that social transformation, that cultural shift toward living literally more responsibly,
(14:58):
I think. Yeah. There's this saying, I think it was, you are becoming the person
with the five friends you surround you with. And I think this applies also in the environmental
context, too, of how you're going to treat these issues, or what steps you're going to take towards
it. Yeah. So, going a little bit back, we talked about how, let's say, some aspects of language
(15:26):
can influence the environmental studies or environmental issues. So, we have also had,
I also wanted to know your opinion of how some aspects of maybe visual media or movies or
(15:48):
literature or any other type of writings can influence our perception of these issues,
and maybe raise awareness towards it for the kids, for the youth, or for the other.
Over the years, I've been teaching environmental philosophy for 20 years now.
(16:13):
I have seen a shift in the way that I teach, the material that I cover. I've moved away from
what would be regarded as traditional philosophy, and I've been teaching more with the use of film,
visual material, or novels, or fiction writing, and also creative nonfiction. The reason I've done
(16:36):
this is because I found that it is more engaging for students, that it's more evocative, that it
elicits a sort of reaction that I think provides a way to get deeper into the material,
(16:57):
better discussions, that's part of it, but also something that students take with them. They may
not remember much of the content, but I would assume they'll remember a film that they saw that
meant a lot to them, or a book that stood out. Yeah, it's not only that material is just so much
(17:20):
more powerful, students are just drawn to it, and it just provides a nice sort of feedback loop. It
makes the process for me that much more enjoyable and interesting. Yeah, I definitely agree the way
that it's changed. It has a way better impact on the people, especially the students, how we
(17:46):
understand. Also, what do you think about the efforts made by film productions towards
making more movies, maybe to raise awareness towards these issues, or let's say the Avatar,
for example, do you think they would really serve the purpose as they are supposed to, as such,
(18:13):
of raising awareness in people towards these issues, or it's more like, let's say it doesn't
really affect how we perceive the issues, or are they making enough efforts to support it?
There's a certain trope that I've seen in filmmaking. It's also common in
(18:42):
sort of popular books. In the popular books, you get, say it's an eight chapter book, you get seven
chapters of horror, and one chapter of here's what we can do. The films as well paint a very
dire picture, and the situation is dire. And then finish with some, but not all is lost. You see this
(19:06):
in Inconvenient Truth, say Al Gore's movie was sort of one of the standards. I would like to see a
little more variation in that approach, not to say that films should be optimistic, but that they
should operate in a way that breaks that specific sort of narrative structure. Not all novels
(19:33):
proceed in the same way, and one of the wonders of reading fiction is finding authors who speak
to familiar, sometimes the same sort of concerns in different ways. So you sort of get different
perspectives on the issue. I hope that in filmmaking, there's a same sort of process of
(19:54):
maturation, that we get filmmakers who can get the funding they need to do their films to show
things from those sorts of different angles as well. I see, yeah. Yeah, I definitely agree on that.
So most of the part is not really focused on telling the issue or what we can do towards it,
(20:17):
I think, in the filmmaking or the literature. Also going back maybe to the indigenous part of
(20:39):
the story, of how maybe the education or the awareness for the people is made towards how
their practices can help towards solving the environmental issues, or do they have different
practices, or do they follow the different practices, or how it is made?
(21:04):
It's a tricky question, because there's no simple way to answer. There's no sort of one set of
practices. When we think of the education of children, let's think of that. The way we are
(21:26):
normalized to think about education is that we pay attention to someone who provides a lecture,
and we gain knowledge from an authority figure. And one thing that's fairly common about this
(21:48):
approach that we don't talk about is that it's incredibly boring. And we learn to sit down and
sit quietly in rows and not disturb the instruction. We do this for two decades of our lives thereabouts.
(22:12):
Indigenous forms of education of children tend to proceed differently. They allow children to
freely explore, and they also allow children to pursue the sorts of things they're interested in
pursuing over the amount of time that it takes them to pursue it. So there's no sort of you have to
(22:36):
learn by this time, and you have to learn this much. And you all have to learn it together with
your peers. No, the process of learning is individualized, because we're individuals,
and we have different interests and different needs. That plays out within thinking of the way
(22:57):
we engage with the world around us. If we engage with the world around us inquisitively, as if
the world is our learning space, we're going to tend to think of it, think of our place in it
as a place of reciprocity. We give to it, it gives to us. Our educational system cuts us off from that
(23:26):
and cuts us off from sort of really interesting forms of relationships you can have with people
providing you guidance. We get it when we're children from our parents or from our grandparents
or aunts and uncles. But then that process disappears and we're moved into schools.
(23:51):
At least traditionally for Indigenous communities, that doesn't disappear. The process of learning
goes on continually. And yeah, it provides a really different sort of set of relational
structures. What about the environmental education? I mean, in the standard, let's say high schools,
(24:14):
I wouldn't say it is taking too much into attention, the environmental education. Maybe
there are some subjects, maybe there are some classes on it, but I wouldn't say there are
resources or opportunities enough created for the students. Maybe there are clubs,
environmental clubs that students can join, but there isn't much done towards making students
(24:41):
aware on what they can specifically do, what is the issue, why is it urgent. And it's more like
the students are getting to know it themselves if they're interested in it. So would you say it is
the same case for the Indigenous communities too? There are some real differences. Take for instance,
(25:01):
the Potawatomi people. They're in the sort of upper Midwest around the Great Lakes. Among Potawatomi,
wild rice, rice that grows in ponds and lakes is regarded as a cultural food, a food that
(25:24):
they have harvested and that has nourished them for generations, many generations.
In the process of tending to these ponds, children get an opportunity to see how their elders are
caring for the water, making sure that they're not over-harvesting, and then learning what the
(25:50):
process of creating, learning the process of harvesting and then preparing these foods is.
And since the food is regarded as, again, literally a relative, the ceremonies that are involved with
(26:10):
tending to the rice and engaging with elders who are doing all this caretaking provides a very
different sense of relationship. And it's not the case that this is tightly ingrained in young
people's lives now, but there have been real efforts made within Potawatomi communities to
(26:41):
reintroduce young people to rice tending, to manument tending. And this is a common
theme that you see in Indigenous communities, that Gen Xers, again, are really interested
in reconnecting with the land, understanding traditional harvesting practices or traditional
(27:03):
hunting practices and trying to get a better sense of the cultural values that formed their people
and that sustain them. So would you say it is more, so the education is more individualized to the
needs of the community or in a way of they more learn about the aspects of the environmental issues
(27:30):
or the aspects that will be beneficial to the community in terms of, let's say, how the harvesting
of the wild rice work or would you say it is more individualized in the sense of the needs or it is
more genderized? It's focused, if this helps to answer your question, it's focused on maintaining
(27:53):
adaptability to change and community resilience. So to the extent that they are invested in the
well-being of their people, they are invested in the well-being of the rice or their traditional
foods because the rice is literally a community member. So there's a sense of investment that is
(28:16):
both individual and collective. They gain individually by seeing to the needs of the
community and the community provides sort of nurturing support. I see. And would you say
there is enough support from the government or other organizations towards these practices
(28:37):
as far maybe like funding this type of education for the indigenous communities or trying to apply
like the same practices into the surrounding communities or would you say there is enough
support or they are, let's say, they are being overlooked or how does that support look like?
(29:02):
There is increasing federal funding for indigenous forms of education and for cultural revitalization.
A number of people within these communities though would like to see the opportunity for
(29:22):
greater sovereignty, for the capacity to be self-determining in a manner that being
essentially shunted or treated as if they are dependents within a greater nation does not allow.
I see. Yeah. And that's, yeah, I think that's totally understandable. And so we are coming
(29:49):
to the end and thank you so much for all the great remarks on the indigenous communities and
their way of environmental education of how they try to adapt to the changes and how they kind of
try to solve the environmental aspects of their communities themselves. So I would ask you if you
(30:12):
have any, let's say, final remarks to share with us or any call to action or any last words?
Being at Drexel University, I would hope that our administration would invest more in
indigenous scholars. This is an area that we are in desperate need of supporting, not just
(30:38):
for the sake of our students who are committed to environmental concerns, although that's a
real thing, but to better support individuals who are doing good work for their own communities.
Yeah. So thank you so much, Andrew. And so thank you for the great insights that you shared with
us today. And yeah, so to all our listeners, thank you for coming back to Talking Environment.
(31:05):
And stay informed, stay engaged, and thank you for coming to another episode.
And I will see you next time. Have a great day.
Hello everyone and welcome back to Talking Environment. I'm your host Gevorg Ghazaryan
(00:05):
and today we have the privilege of hosting Professor Andrew Smith. Andrew Smith is a
professor of philosophy and environmental studies at Drexel University. Drexel University,
Professor Smith's research delves into the critical issues such as environmental justice,
food justice, and climate justice with a focus on decolonization and indigenous research methodologies.
(00:28):
So welcome to the show Professor Smith. Thanks for having me here. Awesome. So to start with,
could you please give us a bit of an introduction of what do you do, what is your,
what are your interests in this field? Sure. I was trained as a philosopher and my work is at the
intersection of environmental philosophy and indigenous philosophy. Specifically, I work on
(00:55):
indigenous ecological knowledge and the ways in which it can be understood to provide a clear
sense of the ways in which we understand and seek to address climate change. Awesome. That's great.
And could you give us, we will dive into these topics and terms a bit more later on, but,
(01:17):
and could you give us an introduction of your journey? How did you, how did you decide to
do environmental philosophy or what drives you to this field? Sure. I, I was trained as a social
and political philosopher. And just to give a little more context for that, I worked on theories
of democracy. I got to Drexel, hired to do theories of democracy, but learned right away that there
(01:42):
was a lot more need and interest among students for someone who does environmental philosophy.
I had taught that before. This was an opportunity to do it on a more routine basis. And the more I
taught it, the more I loved it. And the more I got to interact with students. So my research and my
teaching just sort of built on one another. I changed the trajectory of the work that I do.
(02:08):
And it became much more focused on environmental philosophy and then again switched to incorporate
indigenous philosophy. Awesome. Awesome. That's great. And so I would, at first I would like you
maybe break down what is environmental philosophy. I mean, most of us have some perceptions of what
(02:29):
it is, but could you give us like an introduction to it from a scientific perspective maybe, or
just explain it in simple terms? Yeah, it's interesting. I think a lot of people probably
have no idea what I'm doing, which makes perfect sense. As a philosopher, I'm trained to do
(02:52):
conceptual analysis, to try to understand the way concepts, propositions, claims, theories work.
Environmental philosophers focus on the way we use language to describe environmental effects
and the way these uses of language can affect politics, social organizations, questions of
(03:16):
ethics. I focus mostly on environmental ethics, questions of the way we value environmental
phenomena or environmental structures. And one of the things that really interests me is the
stark difference in questions of valuation between indigenous communities and people of what are
(03:39):
called settler colonial communities, like in the United States. Great. That's interesting. And so,
I mean, we are going to discuss today the intersection between the environmental philosophy
and environmental studies and environmental ethics. We have had another guest earlier who
(04:00):
kind of discussed a lot about the environmental ethics and what should maybe the people's
obligations should be towards the environment. So does your research also cover that part?
It does. It does. My focus is on the difference in how we understand our responsibilities compared
(04:25):
to a number of the indigenous communities and indigenous scholars with whom I work.
That sense of responsibility is a real distinguishing factor between cultures.
Okay. So could you... So I am personally, I know more about... I've never probably researched about
(04:50):
the environmental ethics in the indigenous communities. So could you, just for our
knowledge, could you just give us an introduction of how does that look like in the indigenous
communities? Do they care about it that much or is the situation kind of the same?
Yeah. I hesitate to speak in broad brushstrokes since indigenous communities are so different.
(05:14):
Definitely.
But I can try to provide some helpful generalizations. One common theme that we see
in indigenous cultures and indigenous communities is thinking of ecologies not in terms of the
physical interactions within... The biophysical interactions within ecosystems, but thinking of
(05:37):
ecologies in terms of kinship arrangements. How do we relate to that? How do we...
How do we relate to the world around us as relatives? Relatives among humans and relatives
among other than human beings. And we may even relate as relatives to mountains or streams or
(05:59):
other bodies of water. And this also includes our food. Interestingly enough, we're kin with
the food that we eat. That is a common approach among indigenous communities. And you can see
right away the sort of investment one would have being a member of that community to take care of
(06:23):
the world around you. If they're essentially family members, you want to uphold your responsibilities.
You want to do well by them because they have done well by you.
Within settler colonial cultures, we tend not to think that way. We tend to think of ecosystems or
ecologies as a phenomenon that we have a responsibility to protect or clean or restore
(06:47):
or remediate. These aren't bad things. They just don't have the sort of emotional weight,
I think, that thinking in terms of kin can have. And that marks a real difference, I think.
Yeah. Yeah. I wanted to know your opinion. There's this phrase that's been going on for a while is
(07:15):
does it really matter of what kind of obligations we have for the environment
if we are going to live for 80, 90 years? And does that really matter? What do you think about that?
Or should we have obligations for our future generations in terms of environmental ethics?
(07:36):
Should we follow the steps? What we do in our daily lives? And should we actually think twice
before doing something in our daily life that is going to affect the future generations?
Here's one way to extend the kinship analogy thinking of ecologies as family members.
One way to understand ancestor worship or ancestor veneration is to regard our ancestors
(08:02):
as returning to the earth and remaining part of the community while in a different form.
If that's the case, then say I live 80 or 90 years, it's not as if I disappear. It's not as if I go away.
My obligations are important for future generations of those who are alive.
(08:24):
I also may have obligations in death to be food for future beings. And I think that's a really
important thing to be food for future beings and to be part of something that continues.
(08:45):
I wouldn't rule it out. And even in terms of worrying what's true in terms of what happens
after we die, it just seems to make more sense in terms of how we think about the world around us
and maybe we still have a stake in it after we die. And it's certainly easy for people in my position,
(09:09):
people in our culture, in my culture, to think of having obligations to children, grandchildren.
Of course. I totally agree with you. Diving into the environmental ethics part maybe a bit more,
(09:31):
I just wanted to know maybe your opinion on how those ethics should be, if a person decides to
follow the environmental ethics or should maybe is there a set of practices that people can follow?
I mean, there are some popular ones, let's say, like no cluttering or trying to recycle or maybe
(09:58):
trying to lose less gas powered vehicles or so on, so on, so on. And do you think those, let's say,
small decisions made by us can have also a great impact or is it only the collective impact that
we can get by uniting maybe towards these issues that will have a great impact in the future?
(10:25):
This is a tough question. It's one that I wrestle with. Here's one way that I've tried to unpack it,
tried to make sense of it. It's hard for me to think that substantial transformations can take
place without structural changes, without big changes. But who are those changes made by?
(10:51):
They're made by humans and oftentimes it takes a sort of collective building to get to a point
where that sort of cultural transformation occurs. Certainly not littering, trying to
(11:12):
use less fossil fuels. These things are really important. And I think that they have
the sort of emotional importance too to feel that one is at least doing the bare minimum.
Of course, if you want to think of it that way. I tend to think of our environmental concerns or
(11:34):
responsibilities in a wider sense. I also think of them as incorporating our social relationships
and even our personal relationships, our relationships to ourselves. So caring for
the environment, being a good environmental citizen also means in my situation, being cognizant of
(11:59):
the needs and interests of my students, for instance, paying attention to the amount of
stress they are dealing with. As you well know, university life is full of it, lots of stress.
So my relationship with them has to involve being a decent community member. That's just as important.
(12:24):
There's always the opportunity for that to resonate out, that they may do the same
with those around them. And that sort of transformation, building relationships
within human communities, hopefully can extend to other than human communities as well.
Yeah, I totally agree. And also the idea that you personally can have a big influence on the
(12:48):
community around you. You stop doing things, for example, let's say in a circle of your friends,
some leaders, you're telling them to not do that. And then it is going to have some impact on
them. It is going to have some impact on the people who are with you. And maybe if you are,
if you, let's say, if you're not really into environmental studies or the climate change,
(13:13):
maybe some of the people around you will get more interested into that. And that will have an effect
on them, a lasting effect on them. Yeah. Yeah. So that's how maybe I tend to think about it. So
even the small actions by us can maybe be an inspiration for the people around us,
if not ourselves. I think family and friendship relationships are incredibly powerful.
(13:39):
People have an effect on one another that we don't even see. Yeah. Yeah. You're very familiar
with that, you know, growing up in a household, say, where you've been influenced in ways that
you don't really realize until you move away. I think relationships among friends can have the
same effect, eating less meat, because a friend has done so. These sorts of things are so common.
(14:06):
And they're part of this transformative process. And I think we see that transformation occurring
when we look at the differences between generations. Look at Gen X, say, my generation,
or baby boomers compared to the interests and commitments of Gen Z. There's a noticeable
(14:31):
difference there, a real commitment among those who are in Gen Z to climate issues, environmental
issues, issues of social justice. That's not an oddity. It makes perfect sense. But it's also
part of that social transformation, that cultural shift toward living literally more responsibly,
(14:58):
I think. Yeah. There's this saying, I think it was, you are becoming the person
with the five friends you surround you with. And I think this applies also in the environmental
context, too, of how you're going to treat these issues, or what steps you're going to take towards
it. Yeah. So, going a little bit back, we talked about how, let's say, some aspects of language
(15:26):
can influence the environmental studies or environmental issues. So, we have also had,
I also wanted to know your opinion of how some aspects of maybe visual media or movies or
(15:48):
literature or any other type of writings can influence our perception of these issues,
and maybe raise awareness towards it for the kids, for the youth, or for the other.
Over the years, I've been teaching environmental philosophy for 20 years now.
(16:13):
I have seen a shift in the way that I teach, the material that I cover. I've moved away from
what would be regarded as traditional philosophy, and I've been teaching more with the use of film,
visual material, or novels, or fiction writing, and also creative nonfiction. The reason I've done
(16:36):
this is because I found that it is more engaging for students, that it's more evocative, that it
elicits a sort of reaction that I think provides a way to get deeper into the material,
(16:57):
better discussions, that's part of it, but also something that students take with them. They may
not remember much of the content, but I would assume they'll remember a film that they saw that
meant a lot to them, or a book that stood out. Yeah, it's not only that material is just so much
(17:20):
more powerful, students are just drawn to it, and it just provides a nice sort of feedback loop. It
makes the process for me that much more enjoyable and interesting. Yeah, I definitely agree the way
that it's changed. It has a way better impact on the people, especially the students, how we
(17:46):
understand. Also, what do you think about the efforts made by film productions towards
making more movies, maybe to raise awareness towards these issues, or let's say the Avatar,
for example, do you think they would really serve the purpose as they are supposed to, as such,
(18:13):
of raising awareness in people towards these issues, or it's more like, let's say it doesn't
really affect how we perceive the issues, or are they making enough efforts to support it?
There's a certain trope that I've seen in filmmaking. It's also common in
(18:42):
sort of popular books. In the popular books, you get, say it's an eight chapter book, you get seven
chapters of horror, and one chapter of here's what we can do. The films as well paint a very
dire picture, and the situation is dire. And then finish with some, but not all is lost. You see this
(19:06):
in Inconvenient Truth, say Al Gore's movie was sort of one of the standards. I would like to see a
little more variation in that approach, not to say that films should be optimistic, but that they
should operate in a way that breaks that specific sort of narrative structure. Not all novels
(19:33):
proceed in the same way, and one of the wonders of reading fiction is finding authors who speak
to familiar, sometimes the same sort of concerns in different ways. So you sort of get different
perspectives on the issue. I hope that in filmmaking, there's a same sort of process of
(19:54):
maturation, that we get filmmakers who can get the funding they need to do their films to show
things from those sorts of different angles as well. I see, yeah. Yeah, I definitely agree on that.
So most of the part is not really focused on telling the issue or what we can do towards it,
(20:17):
I think, in the filmmaking or the literature. Also going back maybe to the indigenous part of
(20:39):
the story, of how maybe the education or the awareness for the people is made towards how
their practices can help towards solving the environmental issues, or do they have different
practices, or do they follow the different practices, or how it is made?
(21:04):
It's a tricky question, because there's no simple way to answer. There's no sort of one set of
practices. When we think of the education of children, let's think of that. The way we are
(21:26):
normalized to think about education is that we pay attention to someone who provides a lecture,
and we gain knowledge from an authority figure. And one thing that's fairly common about this
(21:48):
approach that we don't talk about is that it's incredibly boring. And we learn to sit down and
sit quietly in rows and not disturb the instruction. We do this for two decades of our lives thereabouts.
(22:12):
Indigenous forms of education of children tend to proceed differently. They allow children to
freely explore, and they also allow children to pursue the sorts of things they're interested in
pursuing over the amount of time that it takes them to pursue it. So there's no sort of you have to
(22:36):
learn by this time, and you have to learn this much. And you all have to learn it together with
your peers. No, the process of learning is individualized, because we're individuals,
and we have different interests and different needs. That plays out within thinking of the way
(22:57):
we engage with the world around us. If we engage with the world around us inquisitively, as if
the world is our learning space, we're going to tend to think of it, think of our place in it
as a place of reciprocity. We give to it, it gives to us. Our educational system cuts us off from that
(23:26):
and cuts us off from sort of really interesting forms of relationships you can have with people
providing you guidance. We get it when we're children from our parents or from our grandparents
or aunts and uncles. But then that process disappears and we're moved into schools.
(23:51):
At least traditionally for Indigenous communities, that doesn't disappear. The process of learning
goes on continually. And yeah, it provides a really different sort of set of relational
structures. What about the environmental education? I mean, in the standard, let's say high schools,
(24:14):
I wouldn't say it is taking too much into attention, the environmental education. Maybe
there are some subjects, maybe there are some classes on it, but I wouldn't say there are
resources or opportunities enough created for the students. Maybe there are clubs,
environmental clubs that students can join, but there isn't much done towards making students
(24:41):
aware on what they can specifically do, what is the issue, why is it urgent. And it's more like
the students are getting to know it themselves if they're interested in it. So would you say it is
the same case for the Indigenous communities too? There are some real differences. Take for instance,
(25:01):
the Potawatomi people. They're in the sort of upper Midwest around the Great Lakes. Among Potawatomi,
wild rice, rice that grows in ponds and lakes is regarded as a cultural food, a food that
(25:24):
they have harvested and that has nourished them for generations, many generations.
In the process of tending to these ponds, children get an opportunity to see how their elders are
caring for the water, making sure that they're not over-harvesting, and then learning what the
(25:50):
process of creating, learning the process of harvesting and then preparing these foods is.
And since the food is regarded as, again, literally a relative, the ceremonies that are involved with
(26:10):
tending to the rice and engaging with elders who are doing all this caretaking provides a very
different sense of relationship. And it's not the case that this is tightly ingrained in young
people's lives now, but there have been real efforts made within Potawatomi communities to
(26:41):
reintroduce young people to rice tending, to manument tending. And this is a common
theme that you see in Indigenous communities, that Gen Xers, again, are really interested
in reconnecting with the land, understanding traditional harvesting practices or traditional
(27:03):
hunting practices and trying to get a better sense of the cultural values that formed their people
and that sustain them. So would you say it is more, so the education is more individualized to the
needs of the community or in a way of they more learn about the aspects of the environmental issues
(27:30):
or the aspects that will be beneficial to the community in terms of, let's say, how the harvesting
of the wild rice work or would you say it is more individualized in the sense of the needs or it is
more genderized? It's focused, if this helps to answer your question, it's focused on maintaining
(27:53):
adaptability to change and community resilience. So to the extent that they are invested in the
well-being of their people, they are invested in the well-being of the rice or their traditional
foods because the rice is literally a community member. So there's a sense of investment that is
(28:16):
both individual and collective. They gain individually by seeing to the needs of the
community and the community provides sort of nurturing support. I see. And would you say
there is enough support from the government or other organizations towards these practices
(28:37):
as far maybe like funding this type of education for the indigenous communities or trying to apply
like the same practices into the surrounding communities or would you say there is enough
support or they are, let's say, they are being overlooked or how does that support look like?
(29:02):
There is increasing federal funding for indigenous forms of education and for cultural revitalization.
A number of people within these communities though would like to see the opportunity for
(29:22):
greater sovereignty, for the capacity to be self-determining in a manner that being
essentially shunted or treated as if they are dependents within a greater nation does not allow.
I see. Yeah. And that's, yeah, I think that's totally understandable. And so we are coming
(29:49):
to the end and thank you so much for all the great remarks on the indigenous communities and
their way of environmental education of how they try to adapt to the changes and how they kind of
try to solve the environmental aspects of their communities themselves. So I would ask you if you
(30:12):
have any, let's say, final remarks to share with us or any call to action or any last words?
Being at Drexel University, I would hope that our administration would invest more in
indigenous scholars. This is an area that we are in desperate need of supporting, not just
(30:38):
for the sake of our students who are committed to environmental concerns, although that's a
real thing, but to better support individuals who are doing good work for their own communities.
Yeah. So thank you so much, Andrew. And so thank you for the great insights that you shared with
us today. And yeah, so to all our listeners, thank you for coming back to Talking Environment.
(31:05):
And stay informed, stay engaged, and thank you for coming to another episode.
And I will see you next time. Have a great day.
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