This document summarizes a class on Indigenous ecological knowledges in South America taught by Professor Zoe Todd. It includes discussions of Kimmerer's concept of gratitude and reciprocity, Francia Márquez's environmental activism in Colombia, Indigenous groups in Bolivia sustainably managing forests, and working across different worldviews to protect lands in Peru. The class covers Indigenous farming techniques like the Three Sisters and videos about plant knowledge keepers.

1. Dr. Zoe Todd
October 7, 2020
Week 5: “Indigenous ecological knowledges:
South America”
INDG 2015
Copyright Professor Zoe Todd 2020

2. Class outline
- Kimmerer:
- Thanksgiving Address (Kimmerer)
- Epiphany in the beans
- Three Sisters
- Valencia, Robert. 2019. “Francia Márquez,
Renowned Afro-Colombian Activist: What
Environmental Racism Means To Me”.
- Painter, L. and R. Wallace. 2017. “On Our Lands:
Indigenous Bolivians Take Control Of Their Forests”
- de la Cadena, M. (2015) “Uncommoning nature” in
e-flux August 2015. http://supercommunity.e-
flux.com/texts/uncommoning-nature/
Copyright Professor Zoe Todd 2020

3. Recap, week 4
§ Little Bear: Indigenous vs European
worldviews
§ Manuel: mutual dependence
§ Kimmerer: a) A Mother’s Work and b)
Consolation of water lilies
Copyright Professor Zoe Todd 2020

4. “Allegiance To Gratitude”
§ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swJs
2cGNwIU
Please watch this interview with Frieda
Jacques and Kateri Riley Thornton about the
Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address
Copyright Professor Zoe Todd 2020

5. Thanksgiving Address
§ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uDMS
-5JeEo
Please watch this video
CopyrightProfessorZoeTodd2020

6. § What does
Kimmerer mean
when she describes
the Thanksgiving
address as a form of
“native science”?
Image credit: Onondaga Historical Association
Copyright Professor Zoe Todd 2020

7. Week 5 More-than-human
relations I
§ Reciprocity, relationality:
§ “As Freida says, “The Thanksgiving
Address is a reminder we cannot hear too
often, that we human beings are not in
charge of the world, but are subject to the
same forces as all the rest of life”
(Kimmerer 2013, p. 112)
Copyright Professor Zoe Todd 2020

8. § through the last 140 pages, Kimmerer
has asked us to reflect on principles of
gratitude, reciprocity and relationality
§ In class activity:
| Reflect on one thing you are grateful for
| Write it out on a piece of paper
| Discuss what you are grateful for with folks in your
physical bubble or your virtual bubble online
| How does intentional reflection on what you are grateful
for impact your priorities in the present, near and/or far
future? How do you organize your life to protect
earth/land/waters/atmospheres in your day to day
existence?
Learning activity
Copyright Professor Zoe Todd 2020

9. Kimmerer review
§ Kimmerer
| Up to this point, we have followed Kimmerer
in her discussion of many different human-
environmental and more-than-human
relations.
| What more-than-human/other-than-human
relations has she discussed in the readings so
far
• (map out all the relationships discussed so far
in the book)
Copyright Professor Zoe Todd 2020

10. Learning Questions
§ Reciprocity
| “Cultures of gratitude must also be cultures of
reciprocity” (Kimmerer p. 115)
| How is this concept of gratitude different from the
American Pledge of “Allegiance”? What organizing
principles underpin ‘allegiance’ to a nation state?
(draw on materials from previous weeks to think
through this question)
Copyright Professor Zoe Todd 2020

11. An Epiphany in the beans
§ Reciprocity
| “The land loves back. She
loves with beans and
tomatoes, with roasting
ears and blackberries and
bird songs. By a shower
of gifts and a heavy rain
of lessons. She provides
for us and teaches us to
provide for ourselves.”
(Kimmerer p. 122)
Copyright Professor Zoe Todd 2020 Photo credit: Zoe Todd

12. Epiphany in the beans
§ What does it mean
to you when
Kimmerer asks us if
the land loves us
back?
Copyright Professor Zoe Todd 2020
Photo credit: Zoe Todd

13. § Three Sisters
| How do relationality and reciprocity manifest in Kimmerer’s
description of the Three Sisters?
http://agrarianorganics.com/blogs/news/14304365-planting-the-three-
sisters-corn-beans-squash
Copyright Professor Zoe Todd 2020
Three Sisters

14. § What are some non-
western planting systems
that you are familiar with?
How do they differ from
western (euro/american)
agricultural practices?
| Think about the materials we have
read – Manuel’s discussion of the
Western notion of dominion over
plants/animals vs Indigenous
concepts of working with
plants/animals/more-than-human
beings
Copyright Professor Zoe Todd 2020
Photo credit: Zoe Todd

15. Three Sisters
§ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQ4
dgTwTpvk&ab_channel=OneidaDigitalM
edia
CopyrightProfessorZoeTodd2020

16. Learning questions
§ What role does the
corn play in the
Three Sisters?
§ What role do beans
play?
§ What role does
squash play?
Copyright Professor Zoe Todd 2020 Photo credit: Zoe Todd

17. Indigenous Plant Diva
§ Filmmaker:
Kamala Todd
§ Plant Diva:
Cease Wyss
§ https://www.nf
b.ca/film/indige
nous_plant_div
a/
Copyright Professor Zoe Todd 2020

18. § Who does Cease Wyss identify as the
oldest beings on the planet?
§ Who are the second oldest beings on the
planet?
§ What plants does Cease identify in the
film? Where is she gathering them in the
film?
§ Identify an urban plant that you see
regularly in your movements in the city.
What relationship do you have with this
plant? (feel free to tweet about it or post a
picture on Instagram!)
Learning questions:
Copyright Professor Zoe Todd
2020

19. Francia Márquez
Source: https://www.goldmanprize.org/recipient/francia-
marquez/
Copyright Professor Zoe Todd 2020

20. § Francia Márquez is an Afro-Colombian
environmental activist who studied law at
Santiago de Cali University. She worked with
other community members to organize “a
protest march of 80 women who trekked 350
miles to Bogotá, the capital, to demand the
removal of all illegal miners and equipment from
their community.”* She has been targeted several
times by armed attackers for her work – including
an assassination attempt in 2019 **
§ *source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francia_M%C3%A1rquez)
§ **source: https://justiceforcolombia.org/news/award-winning-activist-francia-marquez-
survives-assassination-attempt/
Copyright Professor Zoe Todd 2020

21. § Márquez: “Colombia is a country that has traditionally
been run by wealthy families. When Black and
Indigenous communities demand that large-scale mining
be removed from our communities and we ask for
protection under the rule of law, the ruling families say
that we’re posing a hurdle to economic development.
That’s when I ask, what kind of development are they
referring to, especially when Indigenous and Black
communities lack basic utilities? The community I live in
has no drinking water, and our river has been polluted
with chemicals used for illegal mining.” (2019)
§ source: https://earthjustice.org/blog/2019-august/francia-m-rquez-renowned-afro-
colombian-activist-what-environmental-racism-means-to-me
Copyright Professor Zoe Todd 2020

22. On the death of 1700 environmental
defenders between 2002 and 2018,
globally:
§ Márquez: “Much of the pressure environmental
leaders experience comes from developed countries.
The U.S. is responsible for what happens to us as
environmental leaders because of its multinational
companies’ work in our communities. These
companies, directly or indirectly, are complicit of this
genocide. If there weren’t economic interests in these
territories, we wouldn’t have to get up and fight in
order to have a decent life. We’re risking our lives to
stop harmful extractive industries, because the latter
are enjoying benefits at the expense of the many
people who have died.” (2019)
Copyright Professor Zoe Todd 2020

23. Indigenous environmental
activism in Bolivia:
“If there were no trees, no animals, no forest...”
Source: https://e360.yale.edu/features/on-our-lands-indigenous-bolivians-take-control-of-their-forests
Copyright Professor Zoe Todd 2020

24. Indigenous environmental activism
in Bolivia:
“...we could not live”
Source: https://e360.yale.edu/features/on-our-lands-indigenous-bolivians-take-control-of-their-forests
Copyright Professor Zoe Todd 2020

25. Watch the video:
https://e360.yale.edu/features/on-our-lands-
indigenous-bolivians-take-control-of-their-forests
“The second-place winner in the 2017 Yale Environment
360 Video Contest describes how the Tacana and Lecos
communities, which have a total population of 6,700,
have provided sustainable livelihoods by developing
small-scale agriculture, including coffee and cacao
plantations; promoting ecotourism; allowing limited
logging; and effectively managing rainforest and rivers
for hunting and fishing. As the 9-minute video by
directors Robert Wallace, Lilian Painter, and Elvira Salinas
explains, these controls have resulted in a deforestation
rate four times lower than surrounding regions.”
Copyright Professor Zoe Todd 2020

26. Learning questions:
§ Which Indigenous groups are
represented in the documentary?
§ Which environmental issues are
described?
§ What article from Week 4’s class
discussion comes to mind as we learn
that Indigenous governance in this
community is attenuating deforestation?
Copyright Professor Zoe Todd
2020

27. ”Uncommoning Nature” –
Marisol de la Cadena
§ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkTkZoXQpUs&ab
_channel=Fundaci%C3%B3nEntreculturas (Spanish)
§ Awajun-Wampis defence of lands against mining and
extraction industries

28. § “Instead of the expression of shared relation,
and stewardship of nature, this commons wou
ld be the expression of a worlding of many wo
rlds ecologically related across their constituti
ve divergence. ” Marisol de la Cadena 2015
§ Working across many onto-epistemologies
(cosmologies) to protect
homelands/watersheds/atmospheres, but not
requiring universal notions of
nature/culture/environment to do so.
Copyright Professor Zoe Todd 2020

29. Summary
§ Kimmerer: cultures of
reciprocity/gratitude; can land love us
back?; Reciprocity and relationality in
the Three Sisters
§ Francia Márquez’ environmental labour
in Colombia
§ Environmental stewardship in Bolivia
§ Working across plural notions of
homelands/watersheds/atmospheres/rel
ations in Peru
Copyright Professor Zoe Todd
2020