"The best journeys in life are those that answer questions you never thought to ask." - Rich Ridgeway, American mountaineer and environmentalist
Nothing about us without us
Washington Kiriri (Kiriri) is an Anthropology student at the Federal University of Southern Bahia in Brazil. He aspires to end the objectification of Indigenous people as anthropological case studies and to create new opportunities for Indigenous people to tell their stories. He is also part of the United Movement of Peoples and Organizations of Bahia, which seeks to guarantee Indigenous territorial rights, women's rights, 2SLGBTQ+ rights, and climate justice. Kiriri offers a reflection on his experience as a bisexual person in Brazil.
For Indigenous Peoples, gender has always been transcendent and fluid, interconnected to our lands, languages, cultures, spiritualities, and worldviews. The separation occurred during colonization and acts of genocide that regulated sexuality with the aim of eliminating gender diversity in Indigenous communities.
On May 6, 2023, as England was coronating a new king after weeks of mourning the passing of their previous ruler, Mashpee Wampanoags were also taking the day to fill the void of leadership left by the death of Vernon “Silent Drum” Lopez, the chief of Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe for the last 25 years of his life.
The following is the Opening Statement of the International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change (IIPFCC) at the UNFCCC SB58 meeting in Bonn, Germany, made on June 5, 2023.
The UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders is a position that is well known by activists from all around the world.
In Gordon, Nebraska, a small border town on the grassy expanse of the northern Great Plains, there is a gravestone in the town’s cemetery etched with one word: “Unknown.” It rests on the grave of an Indigenous woman whose body was found underneath a stone bridge in 1970 and, like many Native women before and after her, was never identified.
People of Red Mountain (PRM), is an Indigenous grassroots organization that was formed to protect the sacred site, Peehee Mu’huh – Thacker Pass. People of Red Mountain has raised significant and urgent concerns regarding human, religious, and Indigenous Peoples' rights violations by the proposed mine.
“After many years of paralysis of Indigenous land demarcation and rights violations (by former governments), we are now back to having our rights recognized, our lives valued, and our territories defined,” said Brazil’s first Indigenous State Minister, Sonia Guajajara, in a social media post.
Land Acknowledgement
We acknowledge that we are headquartered on Massachusett land, in Cambridge, MA, and we thank the past, current, and future Indigenous stewards of this territory.
