Shirley Roburn

she/her 

Assistant Professor, Department of Communication Studies, York University 

Shirley Roburn researches the public storytelling strategies used by indigenous communities and their civil society allies in order to reframe controversies over infrastructure development in terms of issues of land and water, food, and cultural sovereignty. Her work to date has focused on energy infrastructures, including campaigns related to the Arctic Refuge and to proposed pipelines, ports, and hydro projects in northern and western Canada, and has appeared in peer reviewed journals including the International Journal of Communication and the Canadian Journal of Communication. Her active research areas include indigenous communications and legal orders; environmental justice and environmental humanities; and sound studies. 

Projects

Shifting Stories, Changing Places: Being Caribou and the fight to protect the Arctic Refuge 

This book examines uses the lens of the Being Caribou expedition, and the film, book, children’s book, website, blog posts, slideshows, and speaking presentations that emerged from it, to better understand the decades long coalition work of Gwich’in and other Indigenous nations, and their civil society partners, in opposing oil and gas development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.  

Sounding a Sea-Change 

Through a contemplation of sound and the changing sonic environments of the Salish Sea over the last several hundred years, this research project considers the historical trajectory of entanglements between southern resident orcas, Indigenous communities, and various iterations of non-indigenous settlements and state formations. The project brings this historical analysis to bear on current conflicts over the Trans Mountain Pipeline project, and other related oil and gas infrastructure projects and proposals in the region.   

Selected Publications 

Couture, Sadie, Jonathan Sterne, Mehaw Sawhney, Shirley Roburn, Andy Kelleher Stuhl, Burç Köstem, Hannah Tollefson, Randolph Jordan, Landon Morrison, Allyson Rogers, Michael Nardone. “Sensate sovereignty: A dialog on Dylan Robinson’s Hungry Listening.” Amodern.net. August 2020. http://amodern.net/article/sensate-sovereignty/#pdf  

Roburn, Shirley. “Learning from caribou people: Gwich’in and Inuvialuit perspectives on the Being Caribou project”, ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, Vol 26, No 1 3, Summer 2019, Pages 518–539. https://academic.oup.com/isle/article/26/3/518/5430187 

Roburn, Shirley. “Power from the north: the energized trajectory of Indigenous sovereignty movements.” Canadian Journal of Communication. Vol 43, No. 1. (2018). 167-184. https://www.cjc-online.ca/index.php/journal/article/view/3310 

 Roburn, Shirley. “Beyond film impact assessment: Being Caribou community screenings as activist training grounds.” International Journal of Communication 11 (2017): 2520-2539. https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/5796 

Roburn, Shirley. “Sounding a sea-change: Acoustic ecology and Arctic ocean governance,” in Chen, Cecelia, Janine MacLeod and Astrida Neimanis Eds. Thinking With Water. Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 2013. 106-128 

Under review 

Roburn, Shirley. “Infrastructure that sings: Social media for wild salmon in the Broughton Archipelago” Canadian Journal of Communication.