Ningwasum: A panel discussion on Indigenous climate futures with filmmaker Subash Thebe Limbu 2024.10.14

Phurwa Gurung is a PhD candidate in the Department of Geography at CU Boulder. A National Geographic Society Awardee and Explorer, his research focuses on Indigenous environmental governance in the Himalayas. Funded by the SSRC, his doctoral dissertation research takes caterpillar fungus as a lens to examine the ways in which state-led biodiversity conservation and resource extraction overlap and clash with Indigenous environmental governance. He is also the author of articles published in Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space and Geoforum.  

Clint Carroll is Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Ethnic Studies at CU Boulder, and ᏣᎳᎩᎯ ᎠᏰᎵ ᎨᎲᎢ (Citizen of Cherokee Nation). He works closely with Cherokee people in Oklahoma on issues of land conservation and the perpetuation of land-based knowledge and ways of life. His book, Roots of Our Renewal: Ethnobotany and Cherokee Environmental Governance (2015, University of Minnesota Press), explores how tribal natural resource managers navigate the material and structural conditions of settler colonialism, as well as how recent efforts in cultural revitalization are informing such practices through traditional forms of decision-making and local environmental knowledge. Dr. Carroll has received fellowships from the Ford Foundation, the Udall Foundation, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the National Science Foundation. He was also a 2014-2016 Fellow of the Native Investigator Development Program, funded by the National Institutes of Health. His work has been published in Ethnohistory, Geoforum, Environmental Research, EcoHealth, and numerous edited collections.

Jennifer Fluri is Professor and Chair in the Department of Geography at CU Boulder. She a feminist political geographer concentrating on conflict, security, and aid/development in Afghanistan. In Colorado, she co-directs the CU-Boulder Affordable Housing Research Initiative (CU-BAHRI), which focuses on community-driven and engaged research with organizations and individuals providing, working toward, or interested in affordable housing. Her book, Carpetbaggers of Kabul and Other Afghan-American Entanglements (2017, University of Georgia Press) is a critical study of the everyday politics of aid and development in Afghanistan. She is the author of articles published in Geopolitics, Geoforum, Annals of the American Association of Geographers, and others.

Shae Frydenlund is Assistant Teaching Professor, Center for Asian Studies at CU Boulder. Her research examines the relationship between forced displacement, labor exploitation, and capitalist frontier-making in Southeast Asia and the Himalayas. Her work is published in Geopolitics, Political Geography, and Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, among others. At CU Boulder, Dr. Frydenlund leads the Climate and Society in Asia curriculum and teaches courses on environmental politics, climate change, and development in Asia.