Abstract
Environmental problems like the current climate crisis are making it more clear than ever that our relationship with the Earth needs to change. This implies, among the other things, questioning how we make decisions that affect the environment, recognizing that the methods we are using—and still teaching!—are problematic, and considering alternatives.

These alternatives do not need to be invented from scratch. Indeed, we are already surrounded by them. Once we realize that society is pursuing economic ideas that are, in most cases, a Western product that has been spread through colonization, it is logical to come to the conclusion that non-Western perspectives represent alternatives worth considering. These alternative ways of interacting with the Earth have a quality that newly developed ideas cannot have: They have, in many cases, been developed and used over centuries, even millennia, hence, they have already been repeatedly “tested”.

The research that will be presented in this seminar is a Ph.D. thesis still in progress, based at McGill University (Canada), and developed within the Ecological Economics project Economics for the Anthropocene. This research is focused on questioning Economics and quantitative decision making in the light of Indigenous perspectives—mostly, Indigenous perspectives from Canada. The reason why this research is focused on Indigenous perspectives only, rather than on all non-Western perspectives, is that Indigenous cultures have been the most oppressed ones, and have already partially disappeared because of this, and thus they are the ones that most urgently need attention and recognition, also in the light of Reconciliation.

In practical terms, this research consists in a review of Indigenous perspectives, mostly coming from Indigenous-made sources (newspapers, documentaries, speeches), and in a study of how these perspectives challenge mainstream economic ideas and suggest alternative methods to use and principles to pursue. 

Biography
Alice Damiano is a Ph.D. candidate in Renewable Resources, Department of Natural Resource Sciences, McGill University (Montreal, Quebec, Canada), and a fellow of the Ecological Economics project Economics for the Anthropocene (e4a-net.org).

She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Statistics and a Master’s Degree in International Development, Cooperation and Environmental Studies, major in Environmental Economics and Policies, both from the University of Turin, Italy. She worked as consultant in the data warehouse field for four years, during and after her Master’s studies.

Alice is interested in interdisciplinary research, and in her Ph.D. she is working on the idea of learning from Indigenous peoples — with respectful recognition and not unfair appropriation — how to establish a better relationship with the Earth, especially in a context of natural and environmental disasters. She is passionate about climate change, natural catastrophes and the idea of going beyond the concept of homo oeconomicus through both Behavioural and Ecological Economics.