 This program is brought to you by cable franchise V's and generous donations from viewers like you Hello and welcome. I'm Claire Healy and you're watching the Amherst weekly report from Amherst media We're breaking down the news in Amherst, Massachusetts for you every Friday at 6 p.m. a One night only outdoor projection exhibit took place on the back of Amherst cinema in the parking lot behind AJ Hastings on Friday, October 23rd from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. The exhibit titled larger than life was hosted by the Amherst survival center common wealth murals and the Amherst senior center Larger than life which broke down into the front steps project and becoming featured the photography of Isabella DeLolio Who moved into the area a little over 20 years ago from Italy? DeLolio started as a graphic designer and slowly transitioned into photography a longtime passion of hers She says she likes to photograph people Becoming was a project about older adults where she spent time with eight people before the pandemic and photographed their everyday lives Another two she photographed during the pandemic And two people Two of the ten that I photographed would become project I photographed them after the pandemic and so we only met outside and you know You can tell if you see the forces that masks and very different Thing but I thought it was interesting to see the you know the before and after Is really strange time The project was originally meant to show in the fall at the Amherst senior center But due to COVID-19 it was postponed The front steps project started when the pandemic began and more specifically when the quaren the first quarantine started in march I came across an article from a photographer close to boston And she created the project she started the project and she did exactly What I did well, I did exactly what she did actually So she photographed family for a very short time of like 10 minutes outside their homes with no Physical contact no interaction really no physical interaction and from very very very safe distance and free of charge she didn't make any money and In exchange for a for a for a couple of photos The families would donate to a local charity And I I had and I started and I said well we'll see you know I had no idea it was Going to be you know Become what it did that I had no idea that so many people would participate And donate so much money to the survival center the project raised around 19 thousand dollars for the amherst survival center Delolio says the exhibit went really well and that it was a great night. It was it was really an amazing experience To you know To be able to share All the photos with the people that participated in both projects all together it's yeah, it was it was and and you know It was even I think it was even better than just having an exhibition Like the you know the like the like photos on a wall right in a frame The fact that it was like a slideshow, you know with the music and It was really like a like like a nice long story To watch and it was like someone was telling you a story So I had a really beautiful feeling a really beautiful feeling The university of massachusetts amherst has announced its intentions to allow a significant number of students To live on campus starting in the spring semester of next year A press release from umas news and media relations explains that in addition to students with face-to-face courses And those dependent on university housing and dining all first-year students and entering transfer students will be granted the opportunity to live on campus Even if they do not have in-person classes The proportion of students welcomed back constitutes roughly 60 of umas's typical residential population umas amherst has upheld its testing program as a determinant in its decision making The university stated it has the fourth largest testing and contact tracing program In the state only behind the cities of boston wuster and cambridge You must add it it has conducted over a hundred thousand tests since august and only has had accumulative positivity rate of 0.15 percent With only one positive case detected among the on-campus population The rest 160 positive cases in total have primarily come from off-campus students in the amherst area With a small fraction of infections coming from staff and faculty For those who will live on campus. They are required to adhere to a number of protocols These include mandatory twice a week testing daily self-monitoring Use of face coverings prohibition of guests from residence halls and limited travel away from the greater campus area The racial equity task force in amherst has declined the town's offer to participate in the selection process For the creation of a community safety working group We spoke to isolde or tega bustamante a founding member of the task force about this decision and the group itself The racial equity task force formed in amherst following the death of george floyd Not as a single issue organization, but as a community based group hoping to address a number of disparities around amherst It started with a focus on town council meetings and a desire to increase the support and representation Of demographics in amherst that may not have had as much of a chance to give substantive input She detailed a number of elements of the screening committee that the group is critical of And said that while the task force is quote in no way against the committee They were not in a position to participate and wanted to focus elsewhere When the town council meeting was held at which the town manager presented the plan for this group Um The document detailing the plan had been released. I believe the midnight or The night before or that morning So there hadn't really been a chance for residents to have substantive input in the plan for one three group Made the point that they did not want to have the um the police Officers or the police chief participate on that commission because residents would be intimidated to express themselves fully about their experiences and that was heard that was changed But what didn't change was a screening committee Which would essentially have Two sl- only two slots that were not designated by the town There were as uh four one three invited to be one of those and um The racial equity task force invited to be another, you know, we started to see this very top down managerial approach which is setting up a screening process and then There would be a report written the report goes to the town council and they decide whether or not to have a commission Now, um, that doesn't mean that there won't be some valuable work going on there but when we look at all of us who work full-time are raising families and have You know a limited amount of time to volunteer And where we are an umbrella for a large spectrum of issues And you have other organizations specifically focused on policing It didn't make sense for our time to serve on that Screening committee the focus of the task force right now Is on the one hand to very much stay in touch with um, the national movement against anti black racism And in solidarity with uh, black, uh, indigenous Asian-american latinx and other people of color Um at the same time Um, you know for foreground for younger people that Movement that's been here the history of these movements in amorphous all the work that's preceded us and then create a space Create a space for young people for newer populations for others to begin to express these concerns and that work takes time And so it didn't it didn't feel at this moment That the screening committee was really the best use of our time She said the group welcomes residents to join them and that they can keep updated with the group's activities on their facebook group Continuing last week's series of spotlights of local professors in indigenous studies We interviewed professor manuela pick professor of international relations at universidad san francisco de quito and lowenstein fellow at amherst college She researches indigenous politics in international relations and world politics As well as sexuality in world politics and she says she often works at the intersection of indigenous women and world politics She has written three books vernacular sovereignty's indigenous women challenging world politics Sexualities in world politics and querying narratives of modernity 2004 I've been very involved with indigenous peoples and politics. There is an indigenous political party in ecuador pachacutic That has led many indigenous activists lawyers intellectuals peasants to the forefront of politics to congress to the foreign affairs ministry And as presidential candidates and since 2008 i've been coming to amherst on and off Teaching as a visiting scholar in the departments of political science and sexuality and women and gender studies and often at the intersections of indigenous politics and indigenous women in world politics When asked what she would like people to understand about that field of indigenous peoples and world politics She said that quote indigeneity is important to everybody And not just indigenous people Indigenous peoples in the u.s. Have been erased everywhere. We have had genocided but in north america There's a specific narrative of erasure Right the last of the mohicans This narrative implies that indigenous peoples are something from the past. They don't exist in the present And they're certainly not political actors in the national or international realm in latin america It's a little different. We do have a very strong indigenous presence in many countries They have political parties and in some countries. They're even presidents, right evo manales was president for three terms in bolivia So it's much more visible contemporary and contestatory in the south of the continent In either case what makes indigeneity important whether they're actively participating in politics or actively or tangibly visible by the dominant society Is that indigeneity is a relational category of analysis It doesn't exist in and of itself indigenous peoples are not indigenous what we call indigenous, right? What states call indigenous are maya, maya kakchikel, maya kakchi, kichwa guarani, yanoma, michero, ki shumash, right? So the Native peoples refer to themselves with their own nations names and indigeneity is a very homogenizing category that was created through colonial processes She reflected on the experience of watching different students learn their positionality and the positionality of indigenous women in world politics in her classes And then there are other people Who you think would not care And yet who identify and so one example is that I've last time I taught a class on indigenous women. They were indigenous women in the room and they were Two veterans of war white men heterosexual men veterans of war And I would have think thoughts that the these two guys would not get as easily The positionality of indigenous women and their experience in how they matter for world politics Yet they were the first ones after the native women to understand Because as veterans they understand firsthand by experience what it means to be a disposable body right to be sent to the front to be sent to war just to die so There was actually a really interesting connection among unexpected actors And switch in their heads to think the political to think borders and the role of the use of force The two areas she focuses on that she said are urgent and increasingly prevalent in world politics are violence against native women And the issue of water rights So the first topic would be violence against women and in north america in particular The missing and murdered indigenous women In latin america we speak more in terms of famicide and indigenous women are the forefront of those famicides it's a really important topic because There is a correlation between bodies and territories right the body is the first territory or the last territory depending from where we start but the rape and killing of native women is Part of the process of the appropriation of land and the land grab the dispossession Right, it's part of the politics of conquest. So i'm very interested in in sexuality and and why The sexual violence against native women is so invisible In every context you look at the united states in 2016 There were five over 5,700 cases of missing and murdered indigenous women reported But there are only 116 that were logged into the database of the department of justice So there is an active erasure of the violence right, so What does that mean right and what does it say about the states we inhabit which we assume are democratic states we assume are Promoting human rights from their narratives, but then you realize they're actively disappearing entire populations and the second topic that's interrelated and that was at the forefront with the Standing Rock protests a couple of years ago is the issue of water the theory the dispossession of indigenous territories which has been ongoing for the last four centuries five centuries is particularly tangible in the Expropriation and the dispossession of water because even when indigenous people can remain on their territories The their lands or the rivers or nearby rivers are being sold to extractive industries Whether it's a mega dam an oil pipeline an oil extraction or fracking plant Or mega mining Right, there is a pollution of water and the pollution of water is uh, it's it's a politics of killing your To your extracting resources and damaging right sending death and pollution Toxic waste into nature into the communities into the bodies of children and mothers Pick says in activism around these issues what is indisputably necessary is self-determination Which she calls a fundamental political tool to move forward the self-determination of indigenous nations over their rivers, right The Maori in New Zealand have been defending one of their rivers For 160 years and they finally got authority over the river And they say I am the river the river is me this notion that we are part of nature and we are not masters of nature, which is a philosophy that most All indigenous nations share in all of their diversity right is Very it's anti-extractive and it's only by Promoting and respecting indigenous rights to self-determination Right to prior consultation to prior consent over any mega projects on their territories Right to ask them if they're willing to have a mega dam to have an oil plant on their territories To let them protect the rivers only that way we will be able to protect rivers For anyone hoping to learn more about violence against native women Water rights or any of the issues discussed pick as one clear recommendation Read native authors watch native films Listen here and learn Watch native native films listen to native music. You'll feel through the arts through poetry through ideas the thickness of The history the perspectives and the value of their knowledge to face the climate crisis that we're all inhabiting now We all have a responsibility as non-indigenous peoples to Learn to listen. It's not that indigenous stories and experiences have not been told. They have been unheard They're not untold. There's a resistance to listen to hear in these narratives of indigenous erasure right in the politics in the genocidal politics of erasure So the first thing non natives can do is to listen to hear And to learn in her current work She's working on a book she co-wrote on the significance of indigenous state relations And says she has been writing recently about indigenous sexualities and the defense of water rights in indigenous communities Because we're a lot of political scientists in theory in international relations In comparative studies. They're discussing the collapse of sovereignty the crisis of the nation states They talk about globalization about the european union and everybody's discussing how the state is in crisis because the capitalist crisis because of extractivism because of globalization And yet there's another perspective. We're not looking at which are indigenous perspectives which are relocating state sovereignty and forcing changes in the essence of what legal authority is But from within Right because in indigenous nations are not competing to be other nation states. They want to be a different political system Finally election day is next week november 3rd If you have not yet voted voting on tuesday is open from 7 a.m. To 8 p.m Following today's episode. We will be airing a special edition of the amherst weekly report Which focuses on a restorative justice program being implemented in western massachusetts. So stay tuned This has been the amherst weekly report from amherst media. I'm claire healy and we'll see you again at the same time next week