Forests & Oceans for the Future Discussion and News

FieldNotes: for the Anthropology of British Columbia Taiaiake Alfred’s Review of Widdowson and Howard’s Disrobing

University of Victoria Aboriginal Governance Professor Taiaiake Alfred reviews Widdowson and Howard’s Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry. Much of the review takes on Widdowson and Howard’s Marxist inclinations. He writes:

Evidently, Widdowson and Howard get up in the morning and eat a dog’s breakfast of outmoded communist ideology and rotten anthropological theories washed down with strong racial prejudices inherited from their own unexamined colonial upbringings, all of which would turn anyone else’s stomach. Their ideas are, amazingly and unapologetically, the sort of “socialism from above” characteristic of 1930s vintage Stalinism listing upon a ragtag collection of theoretical frames which taken together form a methodological approach remarkable mostly for its inability, like the authors who employ it, to comprehend indigeneity outside of being the object of colonization and empire. To wit: elements of Darwinian evolutionary stages theory, bits of Hegelian historical determinism, and a reliably unsophisticated view of capitalism is a necessary destructive-progressive force leading to the realization of a communist utopia wherein exists a scientifically planned and state organized global society made up of human beings who are worthwhile only to the extent they are “productive”

re:place Magazine

by Mark Pickersgill

On Saturday November 29, 2008, the University of British Columbia’s First Nation Longhouse was a hive of excitement with more than 100 organizers, volunteers, speakers, artists, professionals, public officials, students, UBC administration and staff, farmers and community participants gathered for a revelatory day-long design workshop focused on the future of the UBC Farm

UBC Insiders

We Win! UBC Farm Saved!

After a number of secret meetings, it looks like the UBC Board of Governors has very wisely decided to protect the full 24 hectares of the UBC Farm. This decision is a direct result from literally years of tireless lobbying by students, faculty, and community members. The university administration had hoped to build market housing over the Farm and surrounding forest area, but it appears that the political pressure on the Board was simply too great. That market housing will now be transfered to other areas of campus (which could have its own problems). Here’s UBC’s press release:

UBC Board of Governors Requests New Academic Plan for Sustainable South Campus

The University of British Columbia Board of Governors has directed UBC administration to develop academic plans for a 24 ha parcel of South Campus land for teaching and research purposes that are “academically rigourous and globally significant” around issues of sustainability.

The Board directed that the new plans enhance UBC’s position as Canada’s most sustainable university and a recognized world leader in campus sustainability.

At the same time, the Board stipulated that no market housing will be pursued on the 24 ha parcel, which contains the UBC Farm, as long as the university’s housing, community development and endowment goals can be met through transferring density to other parts of campus. The 24 ha parcel is designated as “Future Housing Reserve” in the current UBC Official Community Plan, a bylaw of the Greater Vancouver Regional District created in 1997.

The Board also committed to the continuation of current land uses until academic plans are completed and a decision has been reached on density transfer.