Michael Simpson (University of St Andrews) & Rueben George
It Stops Here: Standing up for Our Lands, Our Waters, and Our People (Penguin 2023)
Friday 18 October 2024 | 19:00
An Talla Mòr, Sabhal Mòr Ostaig
This seminar will not be available to view online
It Stops Here: Standing up for Our Lands, Our Waters, and Our People (Penguin 2023) is the story of the Tsleil-Waututh People, their deep connections to their ancestral lands and waters, the colonial violence they experienced as the city of Vancouver, British Columbia was built upon their lands, and how they are today drawing on their cultural teachings and ceremonial practices to heal from the intergenerational harms of colonization.
It is the memoire of Rueben George, a prominent Indigenous land defender and Sundance Chief who spent much of the last decade fighting the Trans Mountain Pipeline, which transports crude bitumen from the tar sands in Alberta to tidewater on their territory. The book is co-authored by Michael Simpson, who is a non-Indigenous settler Canadian and Senior Lecturer in the School of Geography & Sustainable Development at the University of St Andrews.
Rueben and Michael wrote the book over the course of four years, often while spending time out on the land, visiting sacred sites, practicing ceremony, or visiting relatives as Rueben shared his story orally. In this discussion, we will talk about our collaboration, addressing methodological questions related to the co-production of knowledge, while also touching on themes of land, culture, dispossession, intergenerational trauma, healing, and decolonial resistance.