Story of a RYSE blogger

Because I will be writing for the RYSE blog on a regular basis, I want to take a moment to introduce myself and my path to environmental activism. Hopefully by sharing my story you will have a clearer idea of how I look at things and how to read my posts.

Archaeology and Anthropology

Since high school, I have been fascinated by archaeology. I participated in my first archaeological dig when I was 16, and continued to study ancient cultures in college.

As a tour guide at the University of Michigan’s natural history museum, I gave tours of the Native cultures exhibits. I enjoyed teaching students about sovereign nations and treaty rights, and asked them to consider how they would want their cultures portrayed in a museum. After I had been giving tours for a while, I was surprised by a protest at the museum. For a school project, a group of art students visually criticized controversial dioramas and representations of Native Americans in the museum. I was intrigued by their arguments and decided to read up on Native American perspectives of museums, anthropology, and archaeology.

Long story short, there is a lot of controversy, and I continued to learn about indigenous rights issues. I read All Our Relations by Winona LaDuke, and was inspired by her vignettes of Native American communities engaging in environmental activism as a component of cultural revitalization. I began to understand the severity of our environmental issues and how environmental degradation affects disenfranchised communities first and worst.

Land Use in Belize

In the summer after my junior year, I attended an archaeological field school in Belize to begin research for a senior thesis. By this point I had become interested in how ancient peoples organized their agriculture and the sustainability of food systems and land use. I found that the same questions I asked in my research were relevant as I looked at Belizean land use today. An oil company was performing explosive oil explorations in the nature reserve where we studied. There was tension between the nature reserve and local ranchers when jaguars from the reserve killed cattle. When driving down the country’s northern highway to the capital city, we passed road signs touting political slogans such as “Clear the land!”, a proposed way to move towards economic prosperity. I believe this mindset, promoted by large corporations that reap the profits of forest destruction, threatens countries with abundant cultural and environmental resources that could be lost.

Launching into Activism

As I continued to study past responses to climate change through laboratory work in environmental archaeology in Washington DC, I got involved with organizing Powershift 2007. At the conference, I heard Van Jones speak and immediately realized there could be a place for me in an environmental movement that incorporated social justice issues such as those he addressed. I became a member of the National Council for the Student Environmental Action Coalition (SEAC), which I chose to get involved with because of their commitment to social justice principles. Through SEAC, I was introduced to RAN and RYSE. RAN appealed to me because its campaigns address some of the problems I had encountered in Belize.

Through these organizations, I learned about environmental disasters such as tar sands and mountaintop removal and the communities they affect. I got to work with disenfranchised communities in Detroit trying to speak out against polluting industries in their neighborhoods. I learned to recognize the significant role of corporations in environmental destruction. Most of my work on campus focused on bridging the efforts of social justice and environmental groups to promote understanding of and action on some of the world’s worst industrial projects.

What’s next?

I am still trying to figure out how to leverage my own power to help make the world a better place. My goal is for communities to be able to support themselves sustainably without disruption from greedy companies or political maneuvers. I am continuing to study archaeology, which I love, and trying to figure out how to make my research relevant in the search for solutions today. At the same time, I hope to continue to develop and grow as an activist, and a gardener!