This Friday, April 22nd is Earth Day, a day of global action which began in 1970 with the emerging environmental movement. The official theme for Earth Day this year is "Invest in the Planet," a phrase that evokes some of the corporate interests that do approach the planet through the lens of their investment portfolios. Alongside the greenwashing and corporatizing of Earth Day, the climate movement has grown to include radical demands and challenges to corporate destruction of the environment. In reclaiming Earth Day, Jan Haaken talks with Grace Dillon, Professor of Indigenous Nations Studies at Portland State University, about Indigenous visions of Earth Day, climate justice and the role of Indigenous Futurisms and Native storytelling in imagining that a better world is indeed both necessary and possible.
Grace Dillon is Professor of Indigenous Nations at Portland State University and coined the term Indigenous Futurisms, paying homage to Afrofuturism. As a literature scholar of Anishinaabe descent, Dillon's work weaves Native traditions and imagery into futuristic settings. She edited the anthology Walking the Clouds: Indigenous Science Fiction.
Time Travels Through Us: Photograph by Canadian Native artist Shelley Niro, courtesy of the National Gallery of Canada.
- KBOO