Dino Siweck

Student Fellow

Title

Masters Candidate

Department/School

Educational Studies

Faculty

Education

University

UBC

Geographic Location

Vancouver, BC

Dino Siwek is a Brazilian anthropologist and educator working at the intersections between the climate and nature emergency (including humanity as part of nature), systemic and historical violence and settlers’ responsibilities. 

His current work draws attention to colonialism in mainstream climate mitigation (i.e. the negative effects of wind farms and carbon trading on Indigenous communities in Brazil), and supports Indigenous-led climate debt reparation initiatives. Dino has long standing collaborations with the Tremembé and the Huni Kui Indigenous groups in Brazil around food sovereignty, water security, climate mitigation and territorial protection projects.

Dino’s previous work has addressed the challenges and possibilities for ethical engagement and collaborations with Indigenous communities and knowledge systems. Throughout his educational project “Terra Adentro” he has raised awareness about the historical and ongoing impact of colonialism in ecological and social collapse.

Primary Recipient Awards

Dino Siweck – Catalyst Fellows – 2022

The Wall Catalyst Student Fellow cohort will first come together to engage in the online, interdisciplinary Facing Human Wrongs course and subsequently work together on a number of public-facing projects.

The course content touches upon systemic, historical and ongoing violence, unsustainability, our complicities in social and ecological harm, and our tendency to address complex problems, such as biodiversity loss, food insecurity, economic and political crises, and the potential for social and environmental collapse, with simplistic solutions. The course requires students to be willing to be uncomfortable and to have their perspective challenged.

Dino Siwek – Catalyst Collaboration Fund – 2023

Indigenous Just Transition – Strengthening global north/south relations

A long-term collaboration with chief Ninawá Huni Kui, supporting his work on protecting the Amazon forest, the lives of Huni Kui People and Indigenous led alternatives to climate crisis. With Portuguese-English and contextual translations, we are also co-writing articles and investigating ways to promote indigenous cosmologies and proposals to address climate change in non indigenous context in a way that these knowledges are not appropriated and used in ways that can be harmful for Indigenous people.