Indigenous groups facing environmental racism
Devin G. Atallah, Michael Ungar
Abstract
This chapter deals with an introduction to frameworks for understanding the psychology of human rights and environmental racism from decolonial perspectives. It identifies two distinct culturally centred themes that link resilience and resistance processes relevant to Indigenous understandings of the interdependence of people and place presented as two case examples. D. E. Miller describes settler colonialism as a unique form of environmental racism that includes interrelated processes of domination, development, displacement and erasures of Indigenous peoples in the creation of unique landscapes, or “settlerscapes”, which systematically disembody people from their environments. Tragically, the transnational forestry companies that surround many Mapuche communities are planting eucalyptus trees or non-native pine trees for paper products, lumber, woodchips and other uses. Truth-telling and opening dialogues with Indigenous groups on how ever-continuing territorial and cultural expansions through settler colonialism are contributing to the climate crisis may help to develop practices and policies that promote environmental rights and racial justice.