As we welcome new people to the FEELed Lab, we want to make space for longer introductions to project team members and research affiliates joining us this year. This profile is on Jamie Stevens, who has been working with us as a community partner on the Better World Club and is now joining the lab as an MA student in the IGS Sustainability program at UBCO.
- Can you tell us about your work/research?
The ancient forests of the Inland Temperate Rainforest, along the western slopes of the Columbia and Rocky Mountains, formed as the glaciers retreated across B.C.. The forests stood for millennia until they were logged over the last century. I want these lands to be healed. I want crisp clean waters, red salmon runs that nourish big bears long into the winter, and ancient forests that pool at valley bottoms where the snowpack melts deep into the summer. Alas, for our generation, we can only know and love the remnants of the ancients. We are the ‘stop the bleed, hold the line, save the sliver of degree from warming’ generation. What keeps me going in this work is that while we hold the line, we can also plant the seeds for healed lands for future generations. Literally and figuratively.
I want my work to answer the question of Dr. Jennifer Grenz, principal investigator at the Indigenous Ecology Lab (UBC), “how can I get my hands and the hands of others upon the lands and waters?” My research will explore possibilities for mobilizing community-engaged land care in rural communities. I have a sneaking suspicion that before/while we get to the action, there are underlying stories that need attending. My research will explore stories that polarize and paralyze as well as stories that ground and give. What grounding stories are there that challenge dominant framings and invite relational ways of knowing and living, as a way to nurture collective belonging, wellbeing and action in a time of climate and biodiversity crises? My research will also engage in how grounded stories can be shared and lived expansively.
I am committed to engaging in and communicating my research in ways that uproot the academic norms and practices that reinforce distrust of academia in marginalized communities. My research is in service to the expansive communities – humans and beyond – who hold us and call us back to right relationship.
2. Why did you want to work with the FEELed Lab?
The FEELed lab embodies the values of community-connection, hospitality, curiosity, and figuring out life – together. For a year, it has been the cozy home for a group that I mentor at PEC – the Better World Club, a middle school community-action group working to raise awareness for the protection of the rare Okanagan ecosystem. After I worked with the FEELed Lab as a community partner, when I decided to pursue a masters, there was no other place I wanted to study than the FEELed Lab, under the supervision of Astrida.
I have a series of sticky-notes on my wall beside my desk, my commitments to myself of how I want to engage in my studies.
YES TO: boldness. relationships. responsibilities. Nos. rage. joy. cripping. outside. furry beings. slowness. tears. complexity. reweaving.
NO TO: niceness. silencing. rushing. obligations. extraction.
The FEELed Lab holds space for all of this. A real ‘elbows up’ ecofeminist power move.
3. Why are expansive engagements with environmental issues important?
TLDR: Narrow and siloed engagements are how we got into this mess in the first place (eg: the ‘enlightened’ anthropocentric ethics in Descartes’ Nonhumans as machines).
During my Restoration of Natural Systems diploma (UVIC), it became clear that the main sticking point of restoration is not that we lack the science of how to restore ecosystems, it is that the harm continues. Scientists on the ground and professors in the classroom made clear, “we need to change hearts and minds.” Within this call for transformation for the purpose of land protection and restoration is an opportunity for expansive community transformation, which echoes the calls from indigenous folx. White settlers need to get our act together in order to dismantle the oppressive systems and practices that continue to perpetuate violence against the environment and beyond. This is our work.
I envision my masters research contributing to a foundation for fostering spaces and networks where the action of repairing the Land is entwined with collective action that centers truth, (re)builds trust, honours healing relationships, and cultivates collective responsibility and community wellbeing. As Grenz writes, “community and healing the land go together. We are the land. If we heal ourselves, we heal the land” (Grenz, 2024).
References:
Grenz, J. (2024). Medicine Wheel for the Planet. Knopf Canada.
The FEELed lab 