ROOTS, ROUTES, AND TIPPING POINTS
Janis Steele, PhD
From an early age, something stirred me to have a strong passion for exploring connections between people and their natural and social environments. Throughout my life, this passion has found expression in my studies, work in documentary film, teaching, farming, and in the nonprofit sector. It led me to seek a BA in Human Ecology at College of the Atlantic, and following an internship with the National Film Board of Canada's renowned women's Studio D, I wrote a senior thesis proposing a documentary series on international women's issues. Following graduation, I worked for several years in the documentary film sector as an associate producer, based out of Berkeley, CA and London, England. The experiences I had during those years fed my curiosity about the relationship between theory and practice; I decided to return to school to pursue an MA & PhD in Cultural Anthropology. A research assistantship creating and hosting an international film festival with indigenous filmmakers laid the foundation for my Master's thesis on the politics of representation in ethnographic and indigenous film. My doctoral ethnographic fieldwork took me back to my hometown of Montreal where I studied cultural mediaries navigating belonging, migration, and nationalism with newcomers in Quebec. Since that time, these themes of co-creation of knowledge and the interstitial "Third Space" have remained central to my praxis.
For more than two decades, Brooks and I supported our family as forest farmers. This gave us experience and insights into the crises of local and global food systems, especially as these impact biocultural diversity. During that period, Brooks and I cofounded the international nonprofit organization Island Reach Foundation to engage crises of collapsing biocultural diversity and the climate emergency. Having passed our forest farm on to a new farm family, we now live off-grid in Unama'ki/Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. We actively ally with international partners as co-directors of Island Reach Foundation and have created IR Biocultural Services, a consulting partnership that draws from decades of actions, research, and creative collaboration.
For more than two decades, Brooks and I supported our family as forest farmers. This gave us experience and insights into the crises of local and global food systems, especially as these impact biocultural diversity. During that period, Brooks and I cofounded the international nonprofit organization Island Reach Foundation to engage crises of collapsing biocultural diversity and the climate emergency. Having passed our forest farm on to a new farm family, we now live off-grid in Unama'ki/Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. We actively ally with international partners as co-directors of Island Reach Foundation and have created IR Biocultural Services, a consulting partnership that draws from decades of actions, research, and creative collaboration.
Brooks McCutchen, PhD
I grew up in the rural Berkshires of Western Massachusetts. Instead of attending high school, I forged a connection to the earth through physical work on small artisanal farms and with a mentor, learned about forested landscapes. These experiences led me to pursue a BA in Human Ecology in Maine, and then an MA & PhD in clinical psychology in Berkeley, California, with focus on cross-cultural and community practice. Returning to Massachusetts to go into therapeutic practice brought me back to the hilltown of my teens to reanimate a life of physical engagement with soil and forest. Gradually, Janis and I built an agroforestry farm, the Berkshire Sweet Gold Maple Farm. This direct-market enterprise went on to provide our primary source of livelihood as we raised our threes sons who worked alongside us. During these years, we hosted interns, taught locally, and spoke widely about food systems, agroecology, alternative markets, biocultural diversity and climate change.
A tipping point came for me in 2009 with the book Sea Sick which presented the science of our planet's oceans in collapse. With Janis, we launched Island Reach and I became a blue-water skipper and engineer, navigating with family and occasional crew the steel, ketch-rigged motor-sailer Research Vessel Llyr as a dive-capable service vessel in the Atlantic, Caribbean and Pacific. A decade of working alliances in Melanesia and South Asia, engaging accelerating climate crises and the collapse of biocultural diversity, along with my professional degrees and other work experience, now provide a wellspring to draw upon in this new social enterprise of Island Reach Biocultural Services.
Janis' Resume Brooks' Resume
A tipping point came for me in 2009 with the book Sea Sick which presented the science of our planet's oceans in collapse. With Janis, we launched Island Reach and I became a blue-water skipper and engineer, navigating with family and occasional crew the steel, ketch-rigged motor-sailer Research Vessel Llyr as a dive-capable service vessel in the Atlantic, Caribbean and Pacific. A decade of working alliances in Melanesia and South Asia, engaging accelerating climate crises and the collapse of biocultural diversity, along with my professional degrees and other work experience, now provide a wellspring to draw upon in this new social enterprise of Island Reach Biocultural Services.
Janis' Resume Brooks' Resume