Dr. Ranco will examine the role of Indigenous Nations in Climate Justice movements and climate change impacts to the Wabanaki Tribal Nations and their cultural and policy responses. Emphasis will be on how climate change is threatening indigenous livelihoods such as agriculture, hunting and gathering, fishing, forestry, energy, recreation, and tourism, and in turn how these threats are already impacting the physical, mental, and spiritual well-being of Wabanaki and other Indigenous people. This program is presented through a Maine Speaks grant through Maine Humanities Council.
Dr. Darren Ranco has a joint appointment in the Department of Anthropology, the Senator George J Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions, and in Native American Programs at the University of Maine,, where he serves as Chair of Native American Programs and Coordinator of Native American Research. His research focuses on the ways in which indigenous communities in the United States resist environmental destruction by using indigenous diplomacies and critiques of liberalism to protect cultural resources, and how state knowledge systems, rooted in colonial contexts, continue to expose indigenous peoples to an inordinate amount of environmental risk. A member of the Penobscot Nation, he is particularly interested in how better research relationships can be made between universities, Native and non-Native researchers, and indigenous communities.