WEAVING ECOCIDE IN INDIGENOUS ETHICS SYSTEMS (mini-lecture)
This video contribution examines the concept of Ecocide from an Indigenous perspective. The term Indigenous is employed in a broad and generic sense, intended to challenge and engage an academically uninformed curriculum that often assumes the authority to speak for Indigenous peoples, or that mere reference to Indigenous worlds amounts to genuine recognition. Such gestures frequently obscure the deeper structures of colonial solidarity embedded in research positionality: who benefits from speaking about otherness, and who profits from difference? While this critique is centered in the Netherlands, its resonance extends far beyond, echoing the persistent silencing of Indigenous perspectives across academic institutions. By colonial solidarity, I refer to the hollow diversity and inclusion policies prevalent in higher education, those that appear to believe that adding a touch of “color” can somehow compensate for centuries of oblivion and epistemic injustice. But can it, really?
Projecten
Project
Reimagining Constitutional Ecology
01-09-2025
tot 01-09-2027
Algemene projectbeschrijving
The RICE team has identified three pivotal themes and work packages for reimagining ecological constitutionalism: Time, Value(s), and Relationships & Responsibilities.
Time presents both a challenge and an opportunity for constitutional reform. The EU’s current framework prioritizes short-term interests and political cycles, which are ill-suited to long-term ecological and climate challenges. Project RICE explores how constitutions can embed long-term thinking and intergenerational justice through legal mechanisms and bottom-up citizen forums as tools for ecological listening and practice. It also draws from early societies and alternative European environmental knowledge to reimagine human–nature relations beyond dominant legal paradigms.
Value(s) refers to the guiding principles of policy. While human dignity is central, the EU’s market-driven growth model often undermines it by subordinating ecological and social concerns. RICE critiques this commodification of nature and proposes alternative constitutional principles grounded in relatedness and ecological well-being.
Relationships & Responsibilities argues that rights-based dignity alone is insufficient for environmental justice. Dignity must be understood through reciprocal relationships with the more-than-human world. RICE explores how constitutions might institutionalize responsibility, stewardship, and solidarity to ensure justice for all life forms and future generations. https://www.uu.nl/en/research/sustainability/reimagining-constitutional-ecology
Rol
Onderzoeksleider
Financiering
Anders
Project
Tackling gender inequality and sustainability in agribusiness
02-09-2024
tot 30-06-2026
Algemene projectbeschrijving
Cut flowers are one of the top export products of Colombia. It is also an industry that struggles with sustainability and health issues for the low-skilled, mainly female, labour workers. This depicts the complex interaction between gender, labour, social and environmental issues.
It is an example of the intricacies of global value chains that the research team of this 2024 Signature project focusses on.
Rol
Onderzoeksleider & uitvoerder
Financiering
Anders
Afgesloten projecten
Project
CONCEPTUALIZING ECOCIDE
02-10-2023
tot 31-10-2025
Algemene projectbeschrijving
Conceptualizing Ecocide calls for an approach that cuts across academic disciplines. This project brings together researchers from across the university and stakeholders and organizations beyond the university, whose work touches on any aspect of the problem of ecocide and its legal, ecological, scientific, political, sociocultural, criminological, philosophical, and historical dimensions.
Rol
Uitvoerder
Financiering
Anders