Indigenous Whaling Rights and the IWC: Two Rhetorics
Location
PANEL: Voices of Resistance & Resilience
CELA Moffett
Moderator: Jennifer Fraser
Document Type
Presentation - Open Access
Start Date
4-25-2025 4:00 PM
End Date
4-25-2025 5:00 PM
Abstract
Building on the verifiable presupposition that whaling is an essential part of material, communal, and spiritual life in the indigenous communities that practice it today, this research examines differing rhetorics indigenous advocates use/have used to argue for the maintenance of these practices. While invoking historical and ongoing trauma was the de facto tact of indigenous arguments to the International Whaling Commission from the beginning of indigenous presence at the IWC in the 1970s through the twenty-first century, some indigenous advocates today have shifted to an approach that asserts lasting rights rather than asking for compassion. Analyzing four indigenous testimonies to the IWC, then addressing two rhetorical arguments central to the conversation, this research examines the dialectics of requests and assertions, memory and progress, and theories of trauma versus rights in the negotiations with the IWC to continue indigenous whaling practices and go toward an sovereign indigenous future.
Keywords:
Indigenous sovereignty, Environmental policy
Recommended Citation
Nobel, Lily, "Indigenous Whaling Rights and the IWC: Two Rhetorics" (2025). Research Symposium. 19.
https://digitalcommons.oberlin.edu/researchsymp/2025/presentations/19
Major
Environmental Studies
Project Mentor(s)
Swapna Pathak, Environmental Studies
2025
Indigenous Whaling Rights and the IWC: Two Rhetorics
PANEL: Voices of Resistance & Resilience
CELA Moffett
Moderator: Jennifer Fraser
Building on the verifiable presupposition that whaling is an essential part of material, communal, and spiritual life in the indigenous communities that practice it today, this research examines differing rhetorics indigenous advocates use/have used to argue for the maintenance of these practices. While invoking historical and ongoing trauma was the de facto tact of indigenous arguments to the International Whaling Commission from the beginning of indigenous presence at the IWC in the 1970s through the twenty-first century, some indigenous advocates today have shifted to an approach that asserts lasting rights rather than asking for compassion. Analyzing four indigenous testimonies to the IWC, then addressing two rhetorical arguments central to the conversation, this research examines the dialectics of requests and assertions, memory and progress, and theories of trauma versus rights in the negotiations with the IWC to continue indigenous whaling practices and go toward an sovereign indigenous future.
