Hilding Neilson: Astro-colonialism and honoring the stories of our night skies
Green Dreamer: Seeding change towards collective healing, sustainability, regeneration
Kaméa Chayne
4.8 • 694 Ratings
🗓️ 14 December 2023
⏱️ 40 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In Green Dreamer's episode 413, we welcome Dr. Hilding Neilson, who shares with us his knowledge of the night skies and expertise as an astronomer traced by his Mi’kmaw lineage. Trained in the Western-scientific sphere of astrophysics and shaped by Mi'kmaq methodologies, Dr. Neilson aims to disrupt the Euro-centric claim on the night sky as codified through historical and modern Astro-colonial pursuits of objectivity, discovery, nomenclature.
In demanding that Indigenous stories and systems of knowledge not only be heard but given a leading role on the stage of public policy making, Hilding invites us to reflect upon the value of night sky knowledge and ponder how it reflects and shapes life on earth, as well as how we choose to ethically engage with this knowledge moving forward.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I have a quick but important ask. As you're probably aware, Green Dreamer is an independent |
| 0:07.9 | podcast and we don't take on corporate advertisers to fund our work because we don't want those |
| 0:13.7 | considerations to influence our curiosities or our abilities to question whatever it is that we want to question. |
| 0:22.3 | So if you value and believe in our work, this is our call out. |
| 0:26.8 | We need your direct support in order to continue this podcast. |
| 0:30.7 | And you can help us out so, so much through a paid substack subscription to my newsletter at |
| 0:37.3 | camaya.substack.com or through a one-time |
| 0:40.4 | donation at greendreamer.com slash support. It really means a lot to have you here and we're so |
| 0:47.6 | grateful for whatever form or level of support that you're able to share with us. |
| 0:55.0 | We can lose some of that perspective of just how special that we can be on earth. |
| 1:00.0 | The more we try to be not special, I think we kind of lose a little bit of ourselves |
| 1:04.8 | and a little bit of this perspective of how life on earth is in a very special place. |
| 1:12.0 | You're listening to Green Dreamer and I'm your host, Kamehashane. |
| 1:16.1 | Today we are speaking with Dr. Hilding Nielsen, an interdisciplinary scientist working |
| 1:21.5 | on astrophysics and on the intersection of science, astronomy, and indigenous knowledge. |
| 1:29.1 | As a Mi'kma person, he strives to embrace and integrate indigenous knowledges and methodologies to better understand |
| 1:34.8 | the physics of stars and the universe and our place in it. |
| 1:43.2 | Thank you for having me here today. |
| 1:46.0 | I am currently in Newfoundland, also called Tharnguk. |
| 1:49.7 | The island of Newfoundland is on the eastern seaboard of Canada and is the ancestral homeland |
| 1:54.6 | of the Mingma peoples, as well as the extinct Biathe peoples. |
| 1:58.4 | And the prominent time in Newfoundland, Labrador, is also home toence I'm in Newfoundland Labrador is also home |
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