A History of Violence: The Legacy of Environmental Racism in Canada

The Department of Geography & Planning’s Intersections Speakers’ Series is delighted to present a virtual lecture by Professor Ingrid Waldron (Professor & HOPE Chair in Peace and Health, Global PEace and Social Justice Program, Department of History, Faculty of Humanities, McMaster University). 

Canada was founded on enslavement and dispossession, most exemplified by its assimilationist ideologies and policies, the displacement, subjugation and oppression of Indigenous and Black peoples and cultures, and the expropriation of Indigenous lands. The colonial theft of land and accumulation of capital have been foundational to Canada's wealth. In this presentation, Dr. Ingrid Waldron uses settler colonial theory to examine environmental racism in Canada to highlight the symbolic and material ways in which the geographies of Indigenous and Black peoples have been characterized by erasure, domination, dehumanization, destruction, dispossession, exploitation, and genocide. She offers a historical overview of cases of environmental racism in Canada and outlines how she has been addressing environmental racism over the last 10 years in partnership with Indigenous and Black communities, and their allies.