Indigenous Peoples and Climate Scientists: Assessing Knowledge, Power, and Practices in Collaborative Climate Change Networks

Abstract

Indigenous peoples concerned about climate change have sought collaborative partnerships to address disproportionate impacts, and support their adaptations to environmental change. One emerging approach involves collaborative networks formed directly with climate scientists. Collaborations are often assumed to bring benefits, yet they also carry challenges and risks. There is a need to better understand how these environmental networks address issues of concern to Indigenous peoples. Employing a framework from Indigenous environmental justice studies and a mixed-methods social network approach, this dissertation analyzes dynamics of collaboration in US climate change boundary organizations along three lines of inquiry.

The first paper assesses not only knowledge transfers frequently found in climate change networks, but also integrated decision-making, policy, and place-based climate adaptation partnerships in a national scale case study organization formed specifically to bring together Indigenous peoples and climate scientists. Through measurements of relational ties and network structures, results indicate the network supported climate knowledge transfers. Types of collaboration well attuned to transfers of power such as joint decision-making and advocacy were minimally present. Though critical to strengthen Indigenous peoples’ climate change capabilities, place-based climate adaptation partnerships between participants in the network were scarce.

The second paper asks: how do central actors in the cross-cultural organization represent intersections of race, ethnicity, indigeneity, gender, and age? Climate change collaborations run the risk of reproducing some forms of inequality while challenging others due to interconnections between colonialism, racism, and patriarchy. This study analyzes central actors based on relational ties between participants and organizational leadership. In both cases, Indigenous women and youth were underrepresented in central roles. White women and elder Indigenous men held most central positions. However, Indigenous women consistently served as bridges between otherwise unconnected participants, and provided less visible labor to support the network. These did not translate to decision-making roles.

The third paper investigates how bringing together Indigenous peoples’ and climate scientists’ knowledges and practices carry benefits and risks for Indigenous collectives. It analyzes participant perspectives in the case study network, and organizational practices of eight climate change boundary organizations. A majority of collaboration members identified simultaneous high benefits and high risks to Indigenous peoples when sharing their knowledges with climate scientists. A noted minority was less convinced of the benefits involved. This paper reveals a wide range of approaches by boundary organizations at the intersection of multiple knowledge and practice systems. It found greater benefits and reduced risks when Indigenous peoples were among core governance positions in collaborative endeavors.

Overall, this research demonstrates how climate change boundary organizations variously resisted and reproduced socio-ecological injustices. The dissertation contributes to debates about how to assess environmental collaborations, and broadens conceptions that bring together climate science, climate justice, and adaptation to environmental change. Key recommendations call for climate change boundary organizations to deepen advocacy and place-based climate adaptation actions that benefit Indigenous peoples, and to ensure Indigenous participants—including diverse members such as Indigenous women and youth—are among central governance roles.