Global Friday Presents
Vanessa Sloan Morgan
Postdoctoral Fellow
Geography Department & Health Arts Research Centre
University of Northern British Columbia

ABSTRACT: Discussion about local decision-making tends to overlook rural and remote youth engagement. Resource extractive industries are, however, fixtures in many rural, remote, northern, and Indigenous communities in settler colonial British Columbia (BC), Canada. These industries shape youths’ perceived options for social and economic ventures when they are looking towards their futures. By engaging literature on climate change, settler colonialism, and critical Indigenous studies, and drawing on empirics from workshops conducted with youth from the Nechako Valley Lakes District in northern BC, we will explore how rural and remote northern and Indigenous youth engagement and perspectives can transform discussions on climate change and resource extraction. This talk will share how rural and northern youth have been engaged in environmental decision-making, particularly in light of resource extraction and the current climate crisis. We will also suggest that environmental decision-making has at times been extractive itself. We will conclude that when engaged meaningfully, youth desire to work collectively against social and environmental injustices.

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Global Friday gratefully acknowledges funding from the Dean of CASHS.