Robin Wall Kimmerer, Reciprocity

Robin Wall Kimmerer, Reciprocity

Robin Wall Kimmerer on "Reciprocity" for the 28th Headwaters Conference topic “Science, Story and Justice.” Held by the Center for Environment and Sustainability at Western State Colorado University on October 6, 2017. Includes the slides from her presentation.

Robin Wall Kimmerer is a mother, scientist, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. She is the author of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teaching of Plants and Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses. She lives in Syracuse, New York, where she is a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology, and the founder and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment.

The 28th Headwaters:
This year’s topic is “Science, Story and Justice.” Kimmerer will speak as both a botanist and a native woman who learned plants through the stories of her ancestors and the inquisitive explorations of childhood. Topics will explore how language creates both justice and injustice as it unfolds in diverse ways of knowing—from scientific analysis to multicultural narratives.

The conference will feature tours of the Headwaters region, audience interaction and discussion, as well as exciting speakers like Robin Wall Kimmerer, Devon Peña, Mistinguette Smith (of the Black/Land Project), Aaron Abeyta, Michael Howard (of Chicago's Eden Place Nature Center), and Gavin Van Horn (all of whom are featured in the new anthology Wildness: Relations of People and Place).