Settler Colonialism, Ecology, and Environmental Injustice

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Reflection: Settler Colonialism, Ecology, & Environmental Injustice Article
Kyle Powys White is a professor at the University of Michigan in the Department of environmental studies and climate change. As an enrolled citizen of the Potawatomi Nation, his teachings and written work center largely on environmental injustice experienced by the uprooted members of indigenous communities in the United States. He established his identity as an Indigenous philosopher and environmental/climate justice scholar through his work. In his article, Settler Colonialism, Ecology, & Environmental Injustice, Kyle (125) sought to investigate the environmental injustice committed by settler colonialism through a philosophically one-dimension lens.
Among the key terms used in the article is collective continuance. It refers to a community’s or society’s capacity to self-determine how to adapt to changes within the environment in a manner that avoid preventable harm. This definition comes from the fact that there are always environmental changes, whether intended or unintended and that each community, having lived in a place for a long time, has the internal capacity to adapt to these changes. In the case of settler colonialism, however, the environmental changes brought about are too fast for Indigenous communities to adapt; therefore, such communities are exposed to otherwise preventable harm.
While there are several elements of collective continuance, I think migration is the most poignant. According to Kyle (134), migration, as a form of resilience and adaptation, allowed Indigenous communities to survive environmental changes. When they moved into a new place with food and water, their core task was establishing a reciprocal relationship with the flora, fauna, and land. However, in the context of US dominant colonial culture, these communities have been secluded into reservations confined within boundaries. They can no longer migrate as before to escape environmental or climate changes. As such, they are now the most vulnerable groups since their self-determination ability has been eroded by settler colonialism.
Kyle (135) argued that Settler colonialism is when one society seeks to move permanently into an ecosystem occupied by another society. It is a complex process aiming to undermine and ultimately uproot existing communities already deriving economic vitality from the land and flourishing cultures alongside political self-determination based on relationships already forged with the elements within that ecosystem. These elements include plants, animals, and other physical entities that sum up that ecosystem. One of the strategies deployed by colonial set...