Everyone is welcome to attend Growing (With) Muskeg: Oil Sands Reclamation and Health, the first talk of the year in UNBC's Anthropology in Our Backyards Series.

The online talk, from 1 - 2:30 p.m. features Dr. Tara Joly, an assistant professor at UNBC's Department of Anthropology.

Oil sands companies in northern Alberta are required to reclaim land disturbed by their extractive activities. Reclaimed land is meant to resemble a natural occurring boreal forest, but reclamation has been criticized for 'desertifying' a landscape that, prior to extraction, consisted largely of muskeg (peatlands).

What is the social and cultural context for the creation of these landscapes? Of what value is muskeg anyways? And importantly, what does land reclamation mean for Indigenous rights and land use? 

Dr. Joly's talk will consider these questions by examining ways that muskeg and its reclamation appear in Indigenous, government and scientific discourses.

You can attend the online talk at: https://bit.ly/anthropology-in-our-backyards