Global eco-feminist and environmental activist Vandana Shiva, who was named by Forbes magazine in 2011 as one of the seven most influential feminists in the world, will be at York University on Wednesday, Feb. 29, at 6pm, in 102 Accolade East, in a speaker series organized by the York Federation of Students.
Shiva will be joined by Clayton Thomas-Muller of the Mathais Colomb Cree Nation in Northern Manitoba. Thomas-Muller is a research officer with Canada’s National Aboriginal Health Organization and an environmental activist, poet and spoken-word performer. Shiva and Thomas-Muller will be at York University to discuss agricultural and food production practices in the 21st century.
Vandana Shiva
Shiva, who received her PhD from Western University in London, Ont., is a philosopher by training. Based in Delhi, India, she has been a catalyst in creating an alternative discourse that challenges the practices and paradigms of how agriculture and food are produced in the world. Her particular focus is on biotechnology and the patenting of seeds, and the effort by multinational corporations to control global food and pharmaceutical supplies. In 1991, she founded Navdanya, a political movement dedicated to protecting biodiversity and the integrity of living resources, such as native seeds, from being patented or genetically altered by multinational corporations. She is the author of more than 20 books and 500 papers. She was awarded the Right Livelihood Award in 1993.
Clayton Thomas-Muller
Thomas-Muller is an Aboriginal activist, tar sands campaigner, co-founder of Manitoba’s Aboriginal Youth with Initiative organization and the co-founder of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs Youth Council. He was also a native energy organizer for the Indigenous Environmental Network, working on the front lines to defend First Nations’ treaty and environmental rights against unsustainable energy policies and trans-national energy corporations. He has been named by Utne magazine as one of the top 30 under 30 young activists in the United States. Currently he is working on creating a national database of Canada’s Aboriginal health professionals to advance the cause of culturally competent and safe health-care delivery and reform for Aboriginal peoples.
All are welcome. Tickets are $2 for York University students and $5 for faculty, staff and non-York students, and they are available at the York Federation of Students Member Services Office, 106 Student Centre, Keele campus. For more information, contact Alastair Woods, vice-president of campaigns & advocacy for the York Federation of Students, at vpcampaigns@yfs.ca.