Katie Youwe
LEADERSHIP IN ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY @ TRU
ONLINE PORTFOLIO
Extra-Curricular Knowledge Sharing
As part of the Youth Committee, I was asked to co-present at the Fraser Basin Council Board of Directors Meeting in June 2014 with Ruth Legg and Amy Greenwood. The presentation was on the importance of youth engagement within the realm of sustainability and the ability to encourage youth to be positive agents of change within their own communities. Please see a copy of the presentation below by clicking on the PDF icon.
I also presented as part of a group at the TRU Undergraduate Research Conference in Marchof 2014. For a 4th year anthropology course, two colleagues and I presented our interactive website on "Deconstructing and Exposing the Frontier Myth in BC." The purpose of the website was to create a space to share, learn, and teach about the reserve system in BC and create a conversation around confronting the frontier myth specifically, and racism more broadly. I believe that confronting our frontier myth and realizing that land is not "free for the taking" is a crucial starting point towards understanding land-based issues and sustainable land decisions. Click on the photo to take a closer look!
As part of a directed studies course in Anthropology, I gave a presentation at the TRU Undergraduate Research and Innovation Conference. Here is the abstract for my research.
The Ground Under our Skis – European settler imagery and the erasure of Indigenous Epistemologies at Sun Peaks
According to the website, Sun Peak is a place where, “guests enjoy award-winning downhill skiing, snowboarding and cross country skiing in the winter. Summer activities include hiking, golfing and downhill mountain biking. Sun Peaks ski resort's European-style village is nestled at the base of three mountains; Tod Mountain, Sundance and Mt. Morrisey” (Sun Peaks 2015). In this presentation I will explore the ways that European settler imagery is deployed at Sun Peaks in its production as a year-round resort destination. From there, I am interested in what this potentially means for Indigenous-Settler relations in the region. By analyzing the portrayal of European settler imagery we see how settler colonial ideals become hegemonic in the ways that mountains are perceived as exclusively a skiing landscape. The result is that any other ways of knowing and being is erased. Sun Peaks sits on highly contested terrain, and the erasure of indigenous epistemologies from the site results in divisive social relationships between Indigenous and settler peoples in the area. By examining how European symbolism is used at Sun Peaks to ‘naturalize’ this space as exclusively a skiing landscape, the hope is to uproot and critically examine the ways that colonial relationships are embedded into the very ground under our skis.
