Canadian Studies is pleased to announce that Aaron Gregory is the latest recipient of an Edward Hildebrand Research Fellowship. Aaron is a Ph.D. student in regional planning with an emphasis on Indigenous energy sovereignty.
Aaron’s research explores the social, technical, and regulatory impacts of a renewable energy system developed by a First Nations community in Beecher Bay (British Columbia). He examines this project as an emergent approach to Indigenous environmental governance, an infrastructural solution responding to the problem of Indigenous energy sovereignty, and a regulatory provocation designed to challenge a provincial monopoly on energy production and distribution. His Hildebrand Fellowship will provide funding for fieldwork analyzing new ‘kinship infrastructures’ articulated through the social, technological, and environmental elements of Indigenous energy sovereignty, anticipating the decolonization and decarbonization of energy production and distribution in British Columbia.
Aaron’s research builds upon his training in regional planning, political ecology, Indigenous studies, critical infrastructure studies, and science & technology studies (STS). His current project expands upon prior investigations of an Indigenous-led solar MicroGrid system in northern California, an Indigenous land restitution program in South Africa, and an Indigenous land rights program in Chile. Aaron received his interdisciplinary M.A. from Brandeis and Tufts University before joining the University of California, Berkeley, and has worked with a variety of Indigenous communities, non-governmental organizations, and community organizations to strengthen and support Indigenous and environmental interests.