Images

Karen Winter Ed.D., is a 2024 graduate of the Ed.D. program in Educational and Professional Practice at Antioch University.

Dissertation Committee:

  • Gary Delanoeye, Ed.D., Committee Chair

  • Richard Khan, Ph.D., Committee Member

  • Sarah Bexell, Ph.D., Committee Member

Keywords

wolf conflict, compassion, conservation conflict transformation, critical thinking, lethal predator control, critical animal studies, settler colonialism

Document Type

Dissertation

Publication Date

2024

Abstract

This largely conceptual multi-article dissertation centers settler colonial theory in a critical interrogation of Wolf eradication and management policy (WEMP) toward the ultimate goal of dismantling injurious structures and systems that brutalize Wolf and other Indigenous animals. Wildlife policy and practice are contemporary manifestations of the long-standing historical project of settler colonialism and its quest for acquisition and ultimate control of Land. Thus, the ongoing hegemonic control of systems of wildlife management and the propensity toward lethal control are also inextricably linked to the oppression of Indigenous worldview about human relationship with the natural world. Settler colonialism, as the nexus of a critical analysis of the concepts explored in this work, reveals essential understandings of WEMP for combatting the hegemony of this normalized, extremist violence. Essential understandings include the convergence of oppression of Indigenous animals and peoples and the need for solidarity building, the utility of settler colonial theory to engage stakeholders in Wolf conflict transformation, the importance of standardizing and operationalizing the concept of compassion in humane pedagogy, inclusive of individual and social psychological barriers to compassionate response to this cruelty. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA (https://aura.antioch.edu) and OhioLINK ETD Center (https://etd.ohiolink.edu).

Comments

ORCID No.: 0009-0003-2539-8588

Download

Share

COinS