A piece of white paper with the word "2023" written on it. The paper is placed against a black background.

2023 Year in Review

Edge Effects editors look back on their favorite essays and podcast episodes published in 2023.
leaves of sago palm, the tips of the leaves are light yellow

Imagining New Futures in West Papua’s Plantation Forestscape

Jessica Richardson reviews Sophie Chao's book IN THE SHADOW OF THE PALMS, with a focus on indigenous groups' nuanced feelings and relations with plantation lifeworlds as well as their radical openness toward the future.
an image of the man-made island in the Maldives, Hulhumalé

Centering Islands in a Rising Ocean: A Conversation with Christina Gerhardt

Samm Newton interviews Dr. Christina Gerhardt about her 2023 book Sea Change, which is a collection of essays, a history of connection, and a window into island nations facing an uncertain future.
Excavator loads bauxite into truck at a mine in St. Ann, Jamaica

Saving the Forest to Secure the Mine in Jamaica’s Cockpit Country

Marie Widengård looks to critical border studies to understand how both extraction and conservation are at work in a contested area of Jamaica.
The Violence of Gated Communities in Buenos Aires's Wetlands

The Violence of Gated Communities in Buenos Aires’s Wetlands

Real estate developments emulating U.S.-style master-planned communities are popular in Buenos Aires. Mara Dicenta unpacks the violence such developments enact on the environment and the community, as well as the resurgence against them.
Fire burning through dead grass and smoke rising up.

When Aboriginal Burning Practices Meet Colonial Legacies in Australia

Aboriginal burning regimes have become popular as a solution to prevent catastrophic wildfires in Australia. Mardi Reardon-Smith argues that Aboriginal peoples’ fire knowledge is not static, as contemporary burning results from both colonial histories and the intercultural co-creation of environmental knowledges.
Rainbow-color shave ice in a blue cone

The Cold Never Bothered Native Hawaiians Anyway: A Conversation with Hi’ilei Julia Hobart

How do certain temperatures come to be normalized and idealized in Hawai'i? Dr. Hiʻilei Julia Kawehipuaakahaopulani Hobart shares critical insights at the intersection of Indigenous dispossession and resistance.
Small pale pink flower resting on a page of text that reads "Malva neglecta Wallr.—Common Mallow; Cheeses. A Eurasian weed...

A Love Letter to Weeds

Weeds are maligned as useless, or even harmful, plants. But Tabitha Faber has always had an affection for them, and thinks they can teach us something about how communities of all kinds can practice better relationships.
silhouette of a person wearing a narrow brimmed hat and holding a rake, backlit by the sun

Unearthing the Deep Roots of Regenerative Farming: A Conversation with Liz Carlisle

Liz Carlisle shares stories from her latest book, which uncovers the history of regenerative agriculture and the farmers of color who practice it.
Stylized globe centered on western North America overlaid with colored shapes over Indigenous territories

Faculty Favorites: Readings For an Anticolonial Environmental Syllabus

Traveling from the Pacific Islands to Lake Superior, six instructors share recommendations for thinking through the complex relationships between colonialism and environmental change.
Black and white photograph of two men drying wild rice on sheets.

What Minnesota’s Mineral Gaze Overlooks

Minnesota state agencies have a history of seeing the landscape with an eye toward extraction, writes Andrew Hoyt, ignoring water resources and Indigenous sovereignty in favor of risky mining.
Landscape with grassland in the foreground and trees, mountains, and clouds in the background

To Conserve Nature, Recognize Its Rights

The Biden administration wants to conserve 30 percent of U.S. lands and waters by 2030. Austin Miles asks: what might that conservation look like if it recognizes the rights of nature?
Who's Afraid of Wisconsin Wolves?

Who’s Afraid of Wisconsin Wolves?

With the future of wolf protection being debated on the national stage, Ground Truths editors Clare Sullivan and Marisa Lanker speak with local experts and advocates about wolf stewardship in Wisconsin.
Faculty Favorites: Books That Go Beyond the Classroom

Faculty Favorites: Books That Go Beyond the Classroom

Six scholars from campuses across the country recommend new environmental books about the blue humanities, environmental justice, the histories of bikes and blockades, and more.
Two people stand in front of a giant statue of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Ox.

Paul Bunyan and Settler Nostalgia in the Northwoods

Kasey Keeler and Ryan Hellenbrand think beyond tourism to show how logging and forestry have impacted a tribal nation in Minnesota—and how storytelling and placemaking can be tools of both colonialism and Indigenous resistance.
Golden maple leaves by the beach near blue waters of lake.

It’s Time to Decolonize the Great Lakes

Caitlin Joseph argues that Indigenous water governance practices are necessary to creating a more equitable Great Lakes.
Faculty Favorites: Books for a Return to Campus

Faculty Favorites: Books for a Return to Campus

Seven scholars from a variety of fields recommend new books and classics to read this fall, with topics ranging from Indigenous resistance and Afrofuturism to Irish coastal history and nineteenth-century surfing.
Waterfall and a rocky beach on a misty day

A Map of Point Reyes

In this genre-queer meditation on mapping, Tori McCandless interrogates the colonial ramifications of the map while exploring processes of embodied and intertextual mapping that account for the interwoven histories of California's coast. They ask: how can we know a place through touch and text?
Wolf River on a sunny day with a large stick in foreground and green treeline in background

At the Mouth of the Menominee River: A Conversation with Anahkwet (Guy Reiter)

Anahkwet (Guy Reiter) discusses how Menominee language, culture, and history shape his work protecting the Menominee and Wolf Rivers.
Smoke-filled sky over burning Cima Dome landscape

Seeing Beyond the Joshua Trees in the East Mojave

Tracing the ecological history of the Mojave National Preserve, Julia Sizek questions what was really lost in the Cima Dome Fire that killed swathes of Joshua trees.
Ojibwe protestors march against the Line 3 pipeline, carrying signs and chanting

On Ojibwe Lands, Protecting Water and Life from the Line 3 Pipeline

The new Enbridge Line 3 pipeline poses a slew of threats on treaty land. Ojibwe people lead the movement against its construction in Minnesota.
dense woods with vegetation and flowers on the ground

Beowulf in Teejop

The way early American scholars studied Beowulf reveals their investments in white Anglo-Saxonism and stolen land. Maxwell Gray considers the consequences of white settler scholarship on Native American lands.
Landscape with blue sky, bales of wheat, and a single tree

Eating with Relatives in the Fort Peck Reservation

European colonization dramatically altered the Montana landscape. Becca Dower, Turtle Mountain Ojibwe, shows how two community agriculture projects are restoring native ecologies and Indigenous food sovereignty.
Close up person wearing denim jacket that says "Sagebrush Rebellion"

Legacies of the Sagebrush Rebellion: A Conversation with Jonathan Thompson

Robert Lundberg talks with journalist Jonathan P. Thompson about land management, settler colonialism, and the legacies of the Sagebrush Rebellion in the American West.
Woman sits on green grass between a deer and a wolf. Lake and mountains in background.

How Wendy Red Star Decolonizes the Museum with Humor and Play

“When talking about Indigenous history you can just devastate yourself," says Apsáalooke artist Wendy Red Star. "And so, humor has been a way for me to cope with that." Drawing from an original interview with the artist, Nicole Seymour and Salma Monani examine how Red Star uses humor, play, and collaboration to subvert museum stereotypes of Indigenous peoples and reanimate Indigenous pasts—and futures—through art.
Purple and white beaded wampum belt

Colonial Theft and Indigenous Resistance in the Kleptocene

The term Anthropocene does not address centuries of violent colonial theft. Kyle Keeler proposes a new title: the Kleptocene.
San Miguel Cuevas

The Environmental Injustices of Forced Migration

Guadalupe Remigio Ortega shares her family's histories and describes how Mixtec forced migrations are part of a global story of environmental injustice.
La Lucha Yaqui: A Conversation with Mario Luna Romero

La Lucha Yaqui: A Conversation with Mario Luna Romero

In Spanish and English, activist Mario Luna Romero discusses the Yaqui struggle for water and land rights with Ben Barson and Gizelxanath Rodriguez.
Close up of ice crystals on glacier. Sunset in background.

Cryogenics

A poetic meditation on glaciers and glacial worldings in Eyak, Alaska, "Cryogenics" reflects on human and more-than-human kinships at low temperatures.
John Wesley Powell’s Settler-Colonial Vision for the West

John Wesley Powell’s Settler-Colonial Vision for the West

John Wesley Powell is celebrated for his proposed land use reforms in the American West. But his vision did not include Indigenous peoples.
The facade of the U.S. Supreme Court building, with the phrase "equal justice under law" carved into white stone

What Justice We Can Achieve: Five Questions for Dan Lewerenz

The Native American Rights Fund works toward multiple forms of justice: legal, environmental, and social. Staff attorney Dan Lewerenz explains how.
The Land Remembers Native Histories

The Land Remembers Native Histories

The University of Wisconsin–Madison was constructed through the erasure of Native monuments. But the land remembers. Graduate student Kendra Greendeer (Ho-Chunk) considers histories of settler erasure and contemporary efforts to commemorate Indigenous presence.
Still water reflecting trees with yellowing leaves on the Wolf River

The Land Is a Teacher: A Conversation with Jeff Grignon

In his decades of work in forestry and cultural heritage for Menominee Nation, tribal member Jeff Grignon reads the lay of the land to find an ancient trail system.
Drawing of people kneeling in pineapple plantation

In Hawaiʻi, Plantation Tourism Tastes Like Pineapple

The Dole pineapple plantation has a destructive history of transforming the Hawaiian Islands. Mallory Huard describes how that continues today in the tourism industry.
Police and protestors stand off at Turtle Island

Drone Warriors: The Art of Surveillance and Resistance at Standing Rock

Part of the Water Protectors movement against the Dakota Access Pipeline, the Drone Warriors use drone photography as a form of protest. An exhibit curated by Adrienne Keene and Gregory Hitch spotlights their work.
Map of the Oklahoma Territory

What One Court Case Could Mean for Tribal Sovereignty: A Conversation with Rebecca Nagle

Rebecca Nagle's podcast, This Land, examines tribal sovereignty and how the future of Muscogee (Creek) Nation may hinge on a case before the Supreme Court.
A river with steep banks and a sunny sky

Managing the Rights of Nature for Te Awa Tupua

The settlement over the Whanganui River, Te Awa Tupua, in Aotearoa New Zealand has been hailed as a victory for the "rights of nature." But context matters.
An aerial view of Haida Gwaii, an archipelago off the northern Pacific coast of Canada.

Who Gets to Have Ecoanxiety?

Anthropocene anxiety about uncertain climate futures is on the rise. For the Indigenous Haida Nation, ecoanxiety arrived 150 years ago.
A street lined with tents and palm trees

Plantation Housing Isn’t the Answer to Homelessness in Hawaiʻi

A "plantation-style community" might ease houselessness in Hawaiʻi. But it also erases violent histories of labor exploitation and Native dispossession. Leanne Day and Rebecca Hogue discuss Kahauiki Village and the dangers of plantation nostalgia.
Headshot of Dr. Hoover and book cover

Pollution Doesn’t Care About Borders: A Conversation with Elizabeth Hoover

An anthropologist uses community-based research methods to investigate environmental justice, reproductive health, and food sovereignty in Indigenous communities like the Akwesasne Mohawk in upstate New York.
A snowy desert plateau at sunrise

Weaving Diné Design from the Desert Landscape

A Diné (Navajo) artist finds inspiration in the Dinétah landscape of New Mexico where she grew up. Her artwork brings the language of Diné weaving to the fine art world.
Photo collage of rice, fields, and cotton plants

Plantation Legacies

The Anthropocene gives a name to human-caused environmental change. The Plantationocene puts colonialism, capitalism, and enduring racial hierarchies at the center of the conversation and asks what past and future modes of resistance might emerge.
Fishing subsidies Kiribati

Where Have All the Fish Gone?

Subsidized fishing fleets are rapidly depleting fishing stocks and harming communities in the Central Pacific. It’s time island nations get a seat at the negotiating table on global trade and climate change.
A collage of seven books covers to cite in the #metoo era

Citation in the #MeToo Era

An ecocritic had just finished a book chapter on Sherman Alexie’s poetry when accusations about his sexual misconduct went viral last spring. She asks if environmental humanities scholars should continue to engage with the work of abusers, and why certain writers and scholars come to dominate our archives in the first place.
Jaskiran Dhillon stands in the foreground of a blurry city scene with yellow taxicabs behind her

Indigenous Youth and the Changing Face of Settler Colonialism: A Conversation with Jaskiran Dhillon

An anthropologist and activist discusses her work with Indigenous youth and how social services and other state programs may be colonial intervention by another name.
An aerial view of Fordlandia

Five Reasons Why Henry Ford’s Failure in Brazil Still Matters Today

In this quick guide to Henry Ford's lasting impact in the Amazon, the director of Beyond Fordlândia shares the untold stories of violence, pollution, and activism he uncovered while filming the new documentary.
The Kickapoo River and geological features, as seen from a boat.

Citizen Management in a Contested Landscape

An ecologically diverse nature reserve in Wisconsin's famed Driftless Area thrives today because of state, tribal, and local collaboration.
Winona LaDuke stands in a field behind three tall stalks of hemp that reach two feet above her head against a cloudy sky,

We Are the Seventh Generation: A Conversation with Winona LaDuke

Two centuries ago, Ojibwe people planned for seven generations to come. Today that seventh generation is fighting for the treaty rights their ancestors established and a just, sustainable future.
A large red metal sign, shot from below against a cloudy sky. The title reads "Massacre of Wounded Knee," with the word "Massacre" carved onto a panel added to the top of the sign.

A History Buried at Wounded Knee: A Conversation with Louis Warren

A new history of the Ghost Dance shows Native Americans preparing to live within industrial capitalism and impoverished landscapes without succumbing to assimilation.
A haenyeo, floating in the water, holds up her catch. Photo from Wikimedia Commons.

Bittersweet Catch: Korea’s Diving Women and the Pitfalls of Cultural Preservation

While attending a school set up to train the next generation of haenyeo divers, one woman grapples with the historical and ongoing complexities of maintaining the traditional practice.
The camp at Standing Rock. Photo by Larry Nesper, November 2016.

Loaves and Fishes at Standing Rock

A senior scholar of North American indigenous history visits the Oceti Sakowin camp and finds cause for hope. Up to a point.
Arctic iceberg with its underside exposed

Is the Arctic Out of Time? A Conversation with Andrew Stuhl

Andrew Stuhl discusses how we can “unfreeze” the Arctic's history and gain new insight into climate change and future possibilities.
Black and white portrait of Laurent Savoy

The Land Doesn’t Hate: A Conversation with Lauret Savoy

A geologist turned award-winning writer reflects on the marks racism has left on the American landscape.
ceremony

The Ethics of Ceremony at Standing Rock

Activists at Standing Rock bring a sense of ceremony to environmental politics.
Where Land, Water, and Militants Meet: A Conversation with Nancy Langston

Where Land, Water, and Militants Meet: A Conversation with Nancy Langston

Dr. Nancy Langston speaks about the current conflict in Oregon's Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and about hopeful collaborations for conservation.
The Stories and Languages of Home: A Conversation with Robin W. Kimmerer

The Stories and Languages of Home: A Conversation with Robin W. Kimmerer

Dr. Robin W. Kimmerer speaks about indigenous knowledges, traditional science, and the stories and words that connect us to our nonhuman homes.
The Faces of Itaipu: Community, Memory, and Struggle in Rural Brazil

The Faces of Itaipu: Community, Memory, and Struggle in Rural Brazil

A photo essay explores the realities of life and struggle in rural Brazil.
Wooten wood-burning the treaty into the eighth bundle at the UW/Native Nations Summit on Environment and Health. Photo by Jim Escalante.

The Art of Offering: A Woodworker’s Lessons on Collaboration

What can art teach us about fieldwork? Sometimes the stories we tell belong to others.