Public talk by Christianne Stephens, candidate for a faculty position in cultural anthropology - Feb. 25, 2013

Monday, Feb. 25, 4 p.m.
Beatrice McDonald Hall, Room 104

The Anthropology Department will be sponsoring a public talk by Christianne Stephens, Ph.D.,candidate for a faculty position in cultural anthropology. The title and abstract for her talk are as provided below.

"Toxic Talk at Walpole Island First Nation: Narratives of Pollution, Loss, and Resistance"
Drawing on seven years of ethnographic fieldwork and community engagement, Stephens discusses the striking differences between scientific and media contaminants discourses and local narratives of environmental threats to the Walpole Island First Nation, an ecologically diverse Native North American community threatened by decades of accidental chemical spills and legal discharges from industries on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border. From a critical medical anthropological perspective, Stephens draws attention to the important role of Indigenous knowledge and environmental narratives for assessing the broader impacts of toxic exposure on the health and well-being of indigenous peoples and refining the conceptual frameworks and language of risk employed by biomedicine, industries and regulatory agencies.