June 10-11: Climate Resilience Convening

Monday, June 10 - Tuesday, June 11, 2024
Phoenix, Arizona | Akimel O'odham | Hohokam Lands
Presented by LISC Phoenix

A two-day gathers, including book launch and curated conversation focusing on Indigenous perspectives on environmental justice and climate resilience. 

Arizona is on the frontlines of the climate crisis.  With increasing heatwaves, wildfires, and extended drought across the region, we are at a breaking point.  Indigenous communities and climate activists from the Global South have long-identified colonial intervention as the historical and ongoing driver of the climate crisis. In order to face the grave challenges that lie before us we must clearly identify the production and making of climate change as bi-products of extraction and land theft. To ensure "different political, environmental, and social outcomes, we must prioritize the perspectives, knowledges, research and practices of Indigenous people" (Curley, 2023).  

In 2023, LISC Phoenix joined the the Resilient Southwest Building Code Collaborative project to transform building construction practices across the southwest to achieve climate-resilient buildings and communities while preserving affordability and regional characteristics. LISC Phoenix's role is to ensure equitable engagement throughout the process, which centers Indigenous and Black leadership, and ensuring low-income and highly-impacted people are not priced-out of their homes, and combatting "resilience gentrification". 

To remain accountable to First Nations, Indigenous, Black, API and Latinx communities, LISC Phoenix is convening a 2-day gathering. The convening will begin with a public book launch on Monday, June 10 at 1 - 4:00 pm [register here], then a curated conversation with invited guests on Tuesday, June 11 at 9 - 1 pm. The book launch is in conjunction with the Federal Reserve's "What's Possible: Investing NOW for Prosperous, Sustainable Neighborhood" a collection of essays exploring the intersection of community development and climate resilience, is the result of a collaboration between Enterprise Community Partners, Local Initiatives Support Corporation, and the New York Fed.

June 11: Curated Conversation

On Tuesday, June 11, invited guests will gather in the morning at Liberty Wildlife to exchange ideas, strengthen partnerships, and foster community around important climate-related topics, including:

• What narratives from Indigenous and Black communities do we need to uplift to ensure culturally specific needs to combat the making of climate change?
• What past and present colonial practices and structures must be addressed to reconsider a future of Indigenous and Black people?
• What approaches to the built environment mitigate colonial entanglements^[1] and expand the spiritual and embodied lives of Indigenous, Black, Latinx, migrant, queer, mothers, refugees to survive/thrive in this moment of climate chaos?
• What strategies already exist that must be amplified, resourced, funded, and supported (including: Land rematriation, housing, placekeeping, food justice, water rights for Native people, Indigenous architectures, and more)?​

^[1] Dennison, Jean. Colonial Entanglement: Constituting a Twenty-First-Century Osage Nation. 2014. University of North Carolina Press

Conversation Guests

Confirmed

• Vanessa Nosie (Apache Stronghold - San Carlos Apache Preservation Department) 
• Amy Juan (International Indian Treaty Council)
• Dr. Kenny Wong (Housing Equity Lab, U of A)
• Dr. Chip Thomas (Physician / Artist)
• Diana Yazzie Devine (former ED - Native American Connections)
• Collette Watson (Black River Life)
• Dr. Tamika Saunders (Savvy Pen)
• Shayarah Jimenez (Cuadro Design Studios)
• Cristal Franco (International Sonoran Desert Alliance)

See full facilitator bios here.