In the research analysis “We are Petroleum”, author Duskin Drum uses practices-as-research performances to view the Gwich’in-Caribou relations in terms of North American-Petroleum relations. The Gwich’in are an indigenous people home to modern day Alaska and Northwestern Canada who are heavily integrated with the Porcupine Caribou herd. The Gwich’in have been fighting political and legal battles to protect the sacred calving grounds from oil and gas extraction corporations. Drum uses actual testimony presented to the United States Congress and swaps the word “caribou” with “petroleum” to draw an emotional connection with the audience. The term “Nature” will be defined as any object that has not been produced by human beings. “Culture” will
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The Gwich’in ancestors have relied of the Porcupine Caribou herd for their “nutritional, cultural, and spiritual needs” (3); a relationship that lasts to this day. Drum illustrates the dependence of the Gwich’in on the Caribou to strengthen the kinship between humans and non-humans. In 2004, the Gwich’in Steering committee stated, “In our creation story, the Gwich’in came from the caribou when there was a separation of humans from animals” (14). The origin of the Gwich’in is centralized around the caribou also strengthening the spirituality between human and non-human entities. To combat threatening oil extraction corporations, the Gwich’in employed Sarah James, a tribal leader. Sarah James used her to relay their issues through diplomatic speech and to ultimately “exercise legal jurisdiction over human-caribou relations” (14). The threat an oil extraction corporation could pose to the Caribou population constituted as a human rights violation because the Gwich’in were “caribou people” (4). With a clear definition of the Gwich’in ontology a clear definition can be established to the “modern …show more content…
“Anthropo-not-seen” points out the construction of the human world contains an “unseen destructive dynamic” (?). This creates a direct link between the extraction of petroleum and the destruction of the porcupine caribou. Members of the United States congress are members of the North American human population mentioned by Drum. The term “We are Petroleum” provides a risk to society because as North Americans continue to extract petroleum and construct wonders of the world, species and the environment are suffering. As petroleum extraction projects continue in North-Eastern Alaska, the population of caribou will deplete as will the Gwich’in because of their dependence to the animal. The struggle between modern and non-modern is also emulated because North Americans view a separation between nature and culture, thus destruction to nature is not directly in their point of
The Gwich’in ancestors have relied of the Porcupine Caribou herd for their “nutritional, cultural, and spiritual needs” (3); a relationship that lasts to this day. Drum illustrates the dependence of the Gwich’in on the Caribou to strengthen the kinship between humans and non-humans. In 2004, the Gwich’in Steering committee stated, “In our creation story, the Gwich’in came from the caribou when there was a separation of humans from animals” (14). The origin of the Gwich’in is centralized around the caribou also strengthening the spirituality between human and non-human entities. To combat threatening oil extraction corporations, the Gwich’in employed Sarah James, a tribal leader. Sarah James used her to relay their issues through diplomatic speech and to ultimately “exercise legal jurisdiction over human-caribou relations” (14). The threat an oil extraction corporation could pose to the Caribou population constituted as a human rights violation because the Gwich’in were “caribou people” (4). With a clear definition of the Gwich’in ontology a clear definition can be established to the “modern …show more content…
“Anthropo-not-seen” points out the construction of the human world contains an “unseen destructive dynamic” (?). This creates a direct link between the extraction of petroleum and the destruction of the porcupine caribou. Members of the United States congress are members of the North American human population mentioned by Drum. The term “We are Petroleum” provides a risk to society because as North Americans continue to extract petroleum and construct wonders of the world, species and the environment are suffering. As petroleum extraction projects continue in North-Eastern Alaska, the population of caribou will deplete as will the Gwich’in because of their dependence to the animal. The struggle between modern and non-modern is also emulated because North Americans view a separation between nature and culture, thus destruction to nature is not directly in their point of