The CHE-Alaska speaker for this call was Dr. Elizabeth Hoover, an Associate Professor of American Studies at Brown University who teaches about environmental health and justice in Native communities, indigenous food movements, and community-engaged research. She has written on all of these subjects, most recently focusing on food justice and food sovereignty by co-editing Indigenous Food Sovereignty in the United States: Restoring Cultural Knowledge, Protecting Environments, and Regaining Health(University of Oklahoma Press, 2019) with Devon Mihesuah, and writing an upcoming book From ‘Garden Warriors’ to ‘Good Seeds;’ Indigenizing the Local Food Movement. She joined us on our January CHE-Alaska call to discuss her first book, The River is In Us: Fighting Toxics in a Mohawk Community (Minnesota Press, 2017), and parallels with environmental health and justice issues on St. Lawrence Island, Alaska. The book, which earned the Labriola Center’s American Indian National Book Award and Julian Steward Award, delves into the effects of Superfund contamination in Akwesasne along the St. Lawrence River and the environmental health research projects undertaken by the community to try and protect their health and preserve their culture.
This call was hosted by the CHE-Alaska Partnership, which is coordinated by Alaska Community Action on Toxics (ACAT). It lasted for 60 minutes and was recorded for the call and webinar archive.