NTEC’s coal mine purchase draws critics – Navajo Times
— Read on navajotimes.com/ntecs-coal-mine-purchase-draws-critics/
Author: apcurley
“Our Winters’ Rights”: Challenging Colonial Water Laws
T’áá hwó ají t’éego and the Moral Economy of Navajo Coal Workers
My article on the meaning of work and livelihood for Diné coal workers at the embattled Kayenta mine is now available Open Access through the Annals of American Association of Geographers website. The link is here: T’áá hwó ají t’éego and the Moral Economy of Navajo Coal Workers
New Geoforum article
I am happy to share a link to my latest article, ” A failed green future: Navajo Green Jobs and energy ‘transition’ in the Navajo Nation” (this link is good for 50 days, 11/22/2017).
The article is a product of many years of work, starting with research in 2008 and concluding with my dissertation research in 2013.
This article questions how we think about development, energy production, and sustainability in the Navajo Nation and in tribal communities more generally. It was a hard article to conceptualize and I actually wrote several versions of it before settling on this format.
My main point is that proposed energy transitions need to be grounded in the practices and politics of a community in order to gain legitimacy among the people they are suppose to benefit.
A difficulty in writing this article was communicating the internal workings of tribal governments to an audience less familiar with these issues. I felt that focusing on our internal politics and showing their complicated processes was a way to enhance peoples’ understanding of our tribal sovereignty. Readers can’t just gloss over our internal issues of governance and pretend our motivations and viewpoints are simplistic.
I also tried to cite Native scholars as much as I could and – importantly – scholarship emergent from Native communities. It is not just to say someone is Native, but that their work is grounded and in dialog with their communities. This includes work from The Dine Policy Institute, The Red Nation, and other influential online formats. These are not traditional forms of scholarship for academics, but the work featured on these sites are just as theoretical and empirical as anything found in academic journals.
Thank you very much for considering my work and I happy to answer any questions about my work:
Closing Navajo Nation’s coal plant is not justice
Closing Navajo Nation’s coal plant is not justice
6/29/17 – My take on the proposed replacement lease for the Navajo Generating Station recently published in High Country News. My main point is that it’s not energy that is the problem, although this is a problem. It is the relationship between the tribe and the state that needs addressed. It sounds convoluted and parts of it are, but the situation is complex and obviously there is a lot to consider. Here are some of the most important considerations I think.
Andrew
Intervention – “Water is Life and Life is Sovereignty: Context and Considerations for Critical Geographers”
Water is Life and Life is Sovereignty: Context and Considerations for Critical Geographers
Andrew Curley
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
apcurley@email.unc.edu
On 4 December 2016, the Army Corps of Engineers denied the owners of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) the necessary permit to drill beneath the Missouri River and bring more oil to the international market. This is a great victory for indigenous people and should be treated as such. A small tribal government, saying mni waconi or “water is life”, took on the most powerful industry in the world in the interest of our collective sustainability and they won. It’s clearly not a total victory. But it is a sizeable achievement. The tribe had to challenge: state and local authority; thuggish police; regulators in league with oil interests; the harassment of the US Republican Party; and the indifference of the US Democratic Party. In terms of political…
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12/28/16 Obama declares Bears Ears a National Monument; upcoming book highlights the story to win the designation
Today President Obama designated the Bears Ears, an important cultural and spiritual site for Native peoples in Utah, a U.S. national monument. This was an important step in preserving this land and its indigenous ancestral ruins for future generations. This victory was the result of tireless work from a range of actors. Some were Native environmentalists and organizers. Others were students and residences wanting to preserve the lands where they grew up. And finally non-Native allies who valued the history of the land and its cultural sites provided invaluable work.
But there are still challenges in preserving the land and gaining Native control over it. First, the monument size was much smaller than what advocates had wanted. Second, the incoming Trump administration might attempt to roll back these designations. Finally, we are unsure on what kind of influence tribe’s will have over the park. These are serious considerations.
In Jacqueline Keeler’s forthcoming edited volume, “Edge of Morning: Native Voices Speak for the Bears Ears,” Native activists, academics, and organizers consider the meaning of Bears Ears for Native people. Writing from the standpoint of a researcher in the Navajo Nation, I contributed a small essay on how national monuments can assist tribal land claims. The book is a timely and resourceful account on Bears Ears and the campaign to designate it a national monument. It will be available in the spring of 2017 from Torey House Press.
