Our Program
A SHARED Future is a CIHR-funded program of research that brings forward stories of healing and reconciliation in an innovative context: intersectoral partnerships associated with renewable energy projects. The program examines how these partnerships bring to light new/restored understandings of integrative health and offer opportunities for a new era of nation-to-nation collaborations between Indigenous peoples and Canadian governments.
Our Governance
A SHARED Future is governed by a Programmatic Steering Committee, Executive Body, and International Advisory Committee that work together to ensure all projects and program activities remain consistent with A SHARED Future’s goals and objectives. We strive to Ensure transparency, consistency, and clarity in our purpose, striving for consensus at all times. At times, we turn to our Team’s Elder for guidance when consensus cannot be achieved.
Our Projects
A SHARED Future supports ten thematically-linked projects across Canada that study various types of intersectoral partnerships, with an overall focus on Indigenous peoples’ leadership in renewable energy conservation, efficiency, and development
Program Updates
Click here to view past bi-monthly updates and recent news and media about A SHARED Future.
A SHARED Future
The Achieving Strength, Health, and Autonomy through Renewable Energy Development for the Future (A SHARED Future) program of research is about reconciliation between knowledge systems; it must be foundational to our work together. From this premise, renewable energy is our chosen platform for exploring reconciliation and moving towards healing our relationships with each other and the world around us. Our goal is to bring forward stories of reconciliation and healing in intersectoral partnerships under the umbrella of renewable energy conservation, efficiency, and development. In doing so, we wish to bring to light new and restored understandings of integrative health by sharing our stories, resources, and tools with Indigenous and Settler governments, industries, ENGOs, universities, and beyond. The A SHARED Future Research Program supports several thematically-linked projects across Canada that will study various types of intersectoral partnerships, with an overall focus on Indigenous peoples’ leadership in renewable energy conservation, efficiency, and development.
Porcupine Podcast
This spring, A SHARED Future Co-Directors Diana Lewis and Heather Castleden were interviewed for Porcupine, a podcast series hosted by Merrell-Ann Phare and Michael Miltenberger that explores reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canadians. The theme of this episode is ‘Exploring Reconciliation through Clean Energy in Indigenous Communities”, focusing on Indigenous and non-Indigenous partnerships in the context of renewable energy and the importance of TRC Call to Action #92. You can listen to through Spotify, Apple Music, and any other major podcast streaming service.
Research Objectives
1.
Explore Intersectoral Strategies
Explore intersectoral strategies being used to implement renewable energy development in Indigenous jurisdictions (i.e., Indigenous-led, joint venture, co-operative, or ‘business as usual’ models) and natural boundary areas (i.e., watershed governance) in order to generate a framework for understanding what ‘successful’ intersectoral partnerships look like.
2.
Assess Knowledge Implementation
Assess whether intersectoral partners engaged in this program are applying Indigenous knowledge systems in renewable energy development in both Indigenous and settler contexts and, if so, identify and document how and why, and if not, why not, while providing tools to help them do so.
3.
Identify Health Impacts
Identify and monitor the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health impacts of such development, in relation to existing extractive industries’ cumulative impacts in Indigenous territories over time, across the gender spectrum, through the life course, and from the individual to the community level.
4.
Consider Gendered Dimensions
Consider gendered components of our research, particularly culturally-relevant sex and gender-based analyses (CRSGBA) in each of the various projects within the A SHARED Future program, and nominate and consult with two CRSGBA co-champions to ensure uptake of this objective.
5.
Advance and Share Knowledge
Advance new knowledge and share insights generated through our program with communities, industry, and government knowledge users through conventional and innovative channels.