This summer, I worked with the Centre for Indigenous Conservation and Development Alternatives (CICADA) as a research intern, under the supervision of Professor Colin Scott in the Department of Anthropology, Dr. Iván Vargas, and LucÃa Justo.
My interests in an ARIA project were initially sparked through a class that I took in the Winter 2022 semester under Prof. Scott, ANTH 339 – Ecological Anthropology. In it, I learned about the research and projects that CICADA, an organization that Prof. Scott is a part of, carries out along with Indigenous communities around the world. As I have always been passionate about environmental issues, having grown up hiking, skiing, and trail running – in addition to my studies at McGill as an international development student - I saw CICADA’s work as situated at the intersection of these two fields. I had heard of ARIA projects before this internship, but following Prof. Scott’s advice, I applied for funding along with him and was accepted.
For this internship, my learning objectives were primarily to gain knowledge on the type of work and projects that CICADA does, in the hopes of informing my future studies and career choices. In this, I succeeded. The main body of work that I did with CICADA was compiling relevant sources, creating literature reviews, and organizing meeting transcriptions for various projects that they are involved in. Through this work, I was able to gain an inside view into the process of working with Indigenous communities on a range of issues, from carbon cycling and storage to ecosystem management.
One project I had the opportunity to help on was organizing materials for the Leadership for the Ecozoic, which is a graduate student program associated with CICADA at Ï㽶ÊÓƵ and the University of Vermont. For this program, I assisted with transcriptions of meetings, learned about their ongoing and proposed projects, and compiled information and literature as needed for these projects. This included creating literature reviews on topics related to ecosystem management of the Chateauguay River watershed in upstate New York and Quebec, as well as on Indigenous Territories of Life. The chance to work on these various projects exposed me to a very wide and exciting range of topics in the fields that CICADA research, which was extremely helpful as I gained the opportunity to learn a great deal of new knowledge that is not necessarily taught in undergraduate courses.
Further, I was assisted with the initial process of beginning my own research project, which will be assisted and performed under the guidance of CICADA staff, for a future undergraduate honours thesis. In this, I was given advice and direction by my supervisors to research and study land management practices among Indigenous Abenaki communities in the state of Vermont, and how they can be used in tandem with Geographic Information Systems for community mapping and landscape modelling for addressing industrial logging and forestry concerns. This project will be an ongoing process beyond the internship period, and I am looking forward to further collaborating and interacting with the organization.
The main challenge of this internship was in its structure, by which I was left free to complete the work required as I saw fit. In this, I struggled at times with determining formats and approaches for some tasks, such as the literature reviews, which I had never done before the start of the internship. However, I did appreciate this challenge, as it forced me to seek help from both my supervisors and learned a valuable skill that I am sure will be useful in the future.
The ARIA internship experience has been invaluable to me. Through this internship, I was able to learn much more about the Indigenous, environment, and development issues that I was exposed to, as well as experience the process of approaching these issues - from researching to assisting with grant application meetings. I believe that the exposure I gained within these fields is a valuable complement to the material that I have and will continue to learn in my studies. Due to this internship, I have decided that I would like to continue to research these topics as well as carry these interests in my professional career. In the remainder of my undergraduate studies, I plan to write an honours thesis inspired by the topics that I have been researching with CICADA, and hopefully, plan to continue this journey further along into graduate studies.
Finally, I would like to extend my appreciation to my supervisors for this experience, as well as Dr. Leah Pope and Mr. Clayton Pope, through whom I received funding for the ARIA internship. I am grateful for their contribution, and for allowing me to pursue this research as an undergraduate student, which would not have been possible without their support.
