The Social Justice Institute
Noted Scholars Series presents:
Dr. Rita Wong
Associate Professor, Emily Carr University
&
Dr. Aimée Craft
Associate Professor, University of Ottawa
“Being with Water”
Co-sponsored by the Transformative Memory Network
WHEN & WHERE
February 16th, 12 PM to 1:00 PM
Venue: Michael Smith Laboratories, Room 102
& Livestreamed
Seating is limited – RSVP to reserve your seat in advance. Please note that all guests will be required to wear non-medical masks and have proof of vaccination accompanied with a government-issued ID upon entrance.
RSVP for this event are now closed.
All events are free and open to the public.
Grounded in Nibi miinawaa aki inaakonigewin: Indigenous governance in relationship with land and water, Aimée Craft will share her work with the Nibi Declaration and activities generated by the Decolonizing Water project and working within Indigenous laws and governance mechanisms, including in the revitalization of Cree laws and working with nations who are considering their ways of recognizing the spiritedness and agency of nibi (water). Asking how to be in good relation and uphold our responsibilities to the land and its Indigenous peoples, Rita Wong will consider how water teaches us so much about where to focus our attention and energy in this precarious moment. From its response to illegitimate pipelines on unceded Coast Salish land, to fertile valleys and destructive hydro dams on Dane Zaa territory, water is one of the best teachers we could hope to learn from. After introducing their work, Aimée and Rita will have a conversation about how to sustain the necessary work of caring for the health and well-being of the waters that we are part of.
Rita Wong is a poet-scholar who attends to the relationships between water justice, ecology, and decolonization. She has co-edited an anthology with Dorothy Christian entitled Downstream: Reimagining Water, based on a gathering that brought together elders, artists, scientists, writers, scholars, students and activists around the urgent need to care for the waters that give us life.
A recipient of the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize and the Asian Canadian Writers’ Workshop Emerging Writer Award, Wong is the author of current, climate (Wilfrid Laurier UP 2021), beholden (Talonbooks, 2018, with Fred Wah), undercurrent (Nightwood, 2015), perpetual (Nightwood, 2015, with Cindy Mochizuki), sybil unrest (Line Books, 2008, with Larissa Lai), forage (Nightwood, short-listed for the 2008 Asian American Literary Award for Poetry, winner of Canada Reads Poetry 2011), and monkeypuzzle (Press Gang, 1998).
Wong works to support Indigenous communities’ efforts towards justice and health for water, having witnessed such work at the Peace River, the Wedzin Kwa, Ada’itsx/Fairy Creek, the Columbia River, the Fraser River, the Salish Sea, and the Arctic Ocean watershed. She understands that when these waterways are healthy, life (including people) will be healthy too, and that we cannot afford to endanger and pollute the waters that sustain our lives.
An Associate Professor in Critical and Cultural Studies at Emily Carr University of Art and Design, Wong has also served her faculty association as a steward and president. She completed her PhD at SFU, where her dissertation focused on Asian North American cultural production. As an instructor, Wong values the processes of open dialogue, critical inquiry, respect for difference, and attentive listening as an important basis for lifelong learning.
Aimée Craft is an award-winning teacher and researcher, recognized internationally as a leader in the area of Indigenous laws, treaties and water. She holds a University Research Chair Nibi miinawaa akiinaakonigewin: Indigenous governance in relationship with land and water.
An Associate Professor at the Faculty of Common law, University of Ottawa and an Indigenous (Anishinaabe-Métis) lawyer from Treaty 1 territory in Manitoba, she is the former Director of Research at the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls and the founding Director of Research at the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation. She practiced at the Public Interest Law Centre for over a decade and in 2016 she was voted one of the top 25 most influential lawyers in Canada. In 2021 she was awarded the prestigious Canadian Bar Association President’s Award and was named the Early Career Researcher of the Year Award at the University of Ottawa.
Prof. Craft prioritizes Indigenous-lead and interdisciplinary research, including through visual arts and film, co-leads a series of major research grants on Decolonizing Water Governance and works with many Indigenous nations and communities on Indigenous relationships with and responsibilities to nibi (water). She plays an active role in international collaborations relating to transformative memory in colonial contexts and relating to the reclamation of Indigenous birthing practices as expressions of territorial sovereignty.
Breathing Life Into the Stone Fort Treaty, her award-winning book, focuses on understanding and interpreting treaties from an Anishinaabe inaakonigewin (legal) perspective. Treaty Words, her critically acclaimed children’s book, explains treaty philosophy and relationships.
She is past chair of the Aboriginal Law Section of the Canadian Bar Association and a current member of the Speaker’s Bureau of the Treaty Relations Commission of Manitoba.