About this Event
Join us for an evening of storytelling centered around different intersections on the topic of gender and environmental justice. From issues of migration, activism, leadership, and access to outdoor spaces, we will be exploring the various ways in which the effects of environmental (in)justice are shared unequally across the gendered intersectional spectrum.
Inspired by the PechaKucha storytelling format, we will be joined by four wonderful speakers who will each speak to their personal experiences and share unique insights on the disproportionate effects of environmental and climate (in)justice on gendered communities. Following our speakers’ presentations, audience members will have a chance to directly engage with our speakers through a moderated Q & A.
This event is part of our annual Climate Solutions Showcase. Our typical day-long event has been modified into a year-long event series, our theme this year is climate change, race and intersectionality.
We are excited to bring you this event in collaboration with UBC ORICE’s Collective for Gender+ in Research. We are honoured to receive support from PICS. Without their support this event would not be possible.
Panelists!
Niki Najmabadi
Niki is an Iranian migrant settler on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. A recent UBC graduate, Niki spent her time there involved with various grassroots student movements through the Women’s Centre, Social Justice Centre, and Sexual Assault Support Centre. Currently, she continues to focus on the intersections of race and gender through frontline anti-violence work as well as organizing for climate justice with Our Time Vancouver. She is committed to building a feminist, anti-oppressive, anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, and abolitionist world through the transformative power of relationships and prefigurative organizing.
Myia
Myia Antone is a proud youth from Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish Nation), with Ukrainian and Norwegian roots. Growing up in Squamish, she explored and loved taking care of the land that her ancestors have occupied since time immemorial. She is currently a student in an advanced Squamish language program and loves learning the language her ancestors spoke.
She is a Wilderness First Responder and has led canoe and hiking trips for Indigenous youth around BC and down the Yukon river. She currently sits on the Board of Directors for the Indigenous Life Sport Academy and learning how to mountain bike, climb and backcountry ski!
When she’s not in school, you can find Myia hiding in the mountains, swimming in the ocean, trying to pet everyone’s dog or falling asleep during a movie.
Evelyn
Evelyn Arriagada is a Ph.D. student at the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability (UBC), supervised by Professor Leila Harris. At UBC, she is a member of EDGES Research Collaborative (Environment and Development: Gender, Equity and Sustainability).
Her research interests include subjective experiences of environmental suffering, collective action, and political linkages, and gender-environment relationships in territorial conflicts. Her PhD thesis will be focused on women’s activism in water struggles in Chile. Following a Feminist Political Ecology approach, she wants to understand potential shifts in personal identities, gender dynamics, and relationships with water that women experiment through the process of becoming activists. Her Ph.D. program is supported by the Chilean Commission of Science and Technology by its scholarship program “Becas Chile”, as well as a supplementary scholarship from the Diego Portales University (Chile).
Evelyn is an anthropologist and MA in social sciences, both from the Universidad of Chile and also MA in Political and Social Sciences, from the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Spain). Before joining IRES, she has worked as an Assistant Professor and Academic Coordinator at the Sociology Department of the Diego Portales University (UDP). She is also a researcher at the Observatory of Social Inequalities UDP (Chile), where she co-coordinates a School of Female Leaders in environmental topics and participates in the Grupo de Investigación/Acción por el Agua(Action/Research Group for Water) – an initiative grouping community leaders, academics, and NGO members from central Chile. Evelyn is also an active member of the Feminist Coordination at SCAC-Chile, a citizen platform fighting for climate and environmental justice, and participates in the Political Ecology working group at the Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales (CLACSO).
Adriana
Adriana (she/her) is originally from Honduras, and is a queer, mixed race (half Black/half white) immigrant who is passionate about the intersections of climate change, race, gender and migration. She’s been an active member of the climate, youth and racial justice organizing community for 6 years now. She has helped inform climate policy in the city and developed her own policy proposals on climate change and migration. She also organized an international mutual aid project for Honduras in November after her community was hit by 2 hurricanes. She was a part of the video series ‘Racial Justice is Climate Justice’ with the David Suzuki Foundation.
This event will be moderated by
Dr. Tara Cookson
Tara Patricia Cookson is Assistant Professor at the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs (SPPGA) and an Associate Member of the Geography Department. She uses ethnographic and quantitative methods to study how power operates in development policy, with a focus on gender data, social protection, and care work. Her approach to public scholarship integrates academic research, practice-oriented publications, and direct engagement with international policy processes.
Dr. Cookson is the author of Unjust Conditions: Women’s Work and the Hidden Cost of Cash Transfer Programs (University of California Press, Open Access), winner of the Globe Book Award (American Association of Geographers), the Sarah A. Whaley Prize (National Women’s Studies Association), and a Development Studies Book Award Honorable Mention (International Studies Association). Her research has been published in Antipode, Gender Place & Culture, the International Journal of Feminist Politics, and Global Public Health. She regularly contributes commentary and analysis to outlets such as Devex, the Stanford Social Innovation Review, and the Toronto Star.
Dr. Cookson co-founded Ladysmith, a feminist research collective that connects academic scholarship to practitioner problem solving by helping international organizations collect, analyze and take action on gender data. She has collaborated with global development institutions such as UN Women, the International Labour Organization, UNICEF, Global Affairs Canada, USAID, Action Against Hunger, and the OECD-DAC Governance Network.