The End of Extraction as We Know It: A Roundtable Discussion

This roundtable brings together contributors to a timely and urgent conversation in light of the intensification and transformation of extractivism in the context of the energy transition and geopolitical conflict, crisis, and disorder. As states and corporations race to secure supply chains for critical minerals and position themselves as leaders in battery and electric vehicle production, new forms of extraction are proliferating, often under the banner of “green” development.

Yet these processes frequently reproduce longstanding patterns of violence, dispossession, and environmental harm, disproportionately impacting Indigenous and racialized communities. Centering voices and experiences from the front lines, the discussion foregrounds community-led resistance, resurgence, and alternative ways of knowing and relating to land and water. Bringing Indigenous, feminist, and decolonial perspectives into conversation, the roundtable explores how movements are not only contesting extractivist futures but also actively imagining and enacting more just and relational energy systems.

Moderator:

Dr. Sarah Marie Wiebe is an Assistant Professor in the School of Public of Administration, co-founder of FERN (Feminist Environmental Research Network), and author of Everyday Exposure: Indigenous Mobilization and Environmental Justice in Canada’s Chemical Valley and Life against States of Emergency: Revitalizing Treaty Relations from Attawapiskat.

Panellists:

Jasmine Dionne is an Assistant Professor in Justice Studies in the Department of Humanitarian Studies at Royal Roads University, and a PhD Candidate at the University of Victoria. Jasmine is Métis, nehiyaw, and Turkish. Jasmine comes from the Tremblay, Boucher, Cardinal and Mercredi families from Lac La Biche to Fort Chipewyan on their paternal side. Jasmine is a member of the McMurray Métis Local #1935 and the Métis Nation of Alberta. Their research reflects on the significance of community-led responses to the MMIWG2S+ crisis in Fort McMurray, AB. Their work seeks to further emphasize the role of kinship governance systems, historically and contemporarily, in the northeastern region of Alberta. Additionally, Jasmine is both a Trudeau and Vanier scholar.

Dr. Jen Gobby is a settler living on unceded Abenaki territory in the Eastern Townships of Quebec. Her work is at the intersection of climate justice, transformative allyship and community-led research. She has a Ph.D. from McGill University and is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the School of Environmental Studies, University of Victoria. She is the author of the book More Powerful Together: Conversations with Climate Activists and Indigenous Land Defenders and co-author of Decolonizing Climate Action: A Toolkit for ENGOs in so-called Canada. She founded and works with Research for the Frontlines, supporting the research needs of communities and movements fighting for environmental and climate justice.

Dr. Teresa A. Velásquez is a Professor of Sociocultural Anthropology at the California State University, San Bernardino, and the author of Pachamama Politics: Campesino Water Defenders and the Anti-Mining Movement in Andean Ecuador (University of Arizona Press, 2022). She has spent two decades accompanying water defenders organized in opposition to a Canadian gold mining project. Her current research follows Kichwa-Kañari and campesina women as they reimagine territorial defense through agroecology—an everyday practice in which subsistence garden plots and kitchen tables become critical sites for resisting settler extractivism.

Financial support for this event by the Bieler School of Environment's Seed and Branch Grant

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