PhD defence by Nina Swen

For her analysis, Swen carried out extensive ethnographic research with Quechua, Kichwa, Achuar and Cocama Indigenous federations, whose territories have been affected by five decades of oil extraction.

In her thesis she shows how these federations created their own monitoring programme that integrates territorial knowledge with digital technologies, including smartphones, GPS devices and drones.

Swen reflects on the ethical as well as political challenges of engaged scholarship, particularly her own positionality as an active participant in the politics of knowledge production.

Concretely, Swen explores:

1. How Indigenous conceptualisations of contamination have evolved, from the initial sensing of harm in the forest to encounters with scientific knowledge and environmental regulation.
2. The administrative trajectory of a single, ordinary oil spill to examine how Indigenous monitors engage with regulatory science.
3. The encounters between Indigenous federations and NGOs and focuses on drones to examine the narratives and optimism surrounding the use of monitoring technologies in struggles for environmental justice.
4. How Indigenous federations understand the ambivalence of environmental remediation as an imperfect yet tangible effort within their ongoing refusal of extractive dispossession and impunity.

Doctoral Board

Chair

Professor Wil Hout

Doctoral dissertation supervisor

Professor Wendy Harcourt
Dr Julien-Francois Gerber

Full Doctoral Committee

• Dr Eduardo Romero Dianderas, McGill University
• Professor Jennifer Gabrys, University of Cambridge
• Dr Iva Pesa, University of Groningen
• Professor Arul Chib, ISS
• Dr Roy Huijsmans, ISS