Diné-centered Research Reframes the Gold King Mine Spill: Understanding Social and Spiritual Impacts Across Space and Time.

This paper explores how Indigenous-led research reframes the impacts and response to environmental disasters in the context of acid mine spills in rural communities of the Southwest United States. The collaborative research project addressing the Gold King Mine Spill (GKMS) designed qualitative methodologies that center Indigenous worldviews and contribute to broader understandings of environmental justice. The research team, led by Diné scholars and community leaders, gathered qualitative responses from 123 adult participants in twelve focus groups from three rural communities on the Navajo Nation.

Development of a Culturally Anchored Qualitative Approach to Conduct and Analyze Focus Group Narratives Collected in Diné (Navajo) Communities to Understand the Impacts of the Gold King Mine Spill of 2015.

The Gold King Mine Spill (Spill) occurred in August 2015 upstream from Silverton, Colorado and released three million gallons of contaminated water into the Animas River, a tributary to the San Juan River that flows across the Navajo Nation. Using principles of community-engaged research, the Gold King Mine Spill Diné Exposure Project co-developed a culturally anchored approach to conduct focus groups and analyze narratives collected in three Diné (Navajo) communities along the San Juan River within 9 months of the Spill. Focus group questions were designed to document the socio-cultural impacts of the Spill.

The tragedy of the commodity and the farce of AquAdvantage Salmon.

The US Food and Drug Administration is expected to approve AquAdvantage Salmon as the first genetically modified animal for human consumption. The genetic modifications allow the proprietary fish to grow at a rate twice as fast as a wild salmon, leading to greater ‘efficiency’ in terms of reduced costs and reduced time to market. This article provides an analysis of the ways in which AquAdvantage Salmon exemplifies capitalist market forces controlling and guiding the terms of salmon recovery and conservation.

Economic growth and marine biodiversity: influence of human social structure on decline of marine trophic levels.

We assessed the effects of economic growth, urbanization, and human population size on marine biodiversity. We used the mean trophic level (MTL) of marine catch as an indicator of marine biodiversity and conducted cross-national time-series analyses (1960-2003) of 102 nations to investigate human social influences on fish catch and trends in MTL. We constructed path models to examine direct and indirect effects relating to marine catch and MTL.