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Addressing unconscious coloniality and decolonizing practice in geoscience

Nature Reviews Earth & Environment volume 2, pages 745–746 (2021)Cite this article

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Unconscious coloniality reinforces inequity and exclusion of Indigenous peoples in STEM. Métis paleobiologist Az Klymiuk outlines ways individuals can become agents for cultural change by implementing decolonizing actions.

Like geoscience, Indigenous ways of knowing encompass an understanding of life, land, air and water as components of an integrated system. Global Indigenous cultures, while by no means monolithic, developed out of absolute reliance on intimate knowledge of Land. As geoscientists, we also value experience-based knowledge: there is a well-worn axiom in field geology that the best practitioners have seen the most rocks. Geoscience knowledge and systems thinking inherently accord with many Indigenous ways of knowing. Yet, Indigenous people are barely represented in geosciences.

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Acknowledgements

kinanâskomitin êkwa maarsii, Warren Cardinal-McTeague, for discussion and comments.

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  1. A.A.K.’s pronouns are they/them.

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  1. Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, IL, USA

    Ashley A. Klymiuk

  2. Department of Biological Sciences, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

    Ashley A. Klymiuk

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  1. Ashley A. Klymiuk
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Correspondence to Ashley A. Klymiuk.

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Klymiuk, A.A. Addressing unconscious coloniality and decolonizing practice in geoscience. Nat Rev Earth Environ 2, 745–746 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-021-00235-y

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