UPDATE 1.0

Sacred space where mountain waters and ocean waters meet. Photo credit: Angélica De Jesús, Borinkén, 2015.

Hola y gúau! Do I have an UPDATE.

Today, September 15th marks a new season! Well, it marks many seasons...pero, in terms of this blog today marks a new season of writing! While I'm still figuring out a name for this series*, I am very ready to share.

This past year has been full of visits with relatives, creations, and materials in digital, physical, and relational archives, including visiting the Smithsonian Institution Archives as a Climate and Culture fellow with the S.I. Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage (CFHC).

These visits are a part of my dissertation work, which is focused on vital role that relational and traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) systems - stewarded, cultivated and advanced, among Black and/or Indigenous (Taino) communities in Borinkén (Puerto Rico) and other Caribbean islands - play within larger climate adaptation strategies and practices in the Caribbean.

In an effort to apply relational methods to this work, I want to share some notes from the archive, along with links, and other resources.

These notes will likely focus on history of environmental, agricultural, and ecological knowledge production in the Caribbean; the estuarial spaces between cultural practices, sustainable development, and climate change solutions; the contemporary implications of racist, settler colonialism and chattel slavery on climate adaptation capacity (across various scales); reflections on working within both Black and Indigenous feminist studies to guide relational research methodologies and teaching; the socio-cultural, public health, and policy dimensions of environmental studies and urban planning; Black and/or Indigenous feminist philosophies of environmental governance, political ecology, climate and environmental justice; and EJ/CJ happenings around the Great Lakes, the Chesapeake Bay Water Shed, Sacramento River Watershed, the PNW, and the Caribbean. Okay. Check back very soon for more!

* ( #NotesFromTheBoricuaArchives is the current series name, but #EcORíCo, #Conuco , LoQuePasoEn, and #LaVidaPrima (Prima De Afuera) are a few others in the running).