Innovation September-October 2023

F E A T U R E

WORK IN PROGRESS: DECOLONIZATION IN ENGINEERING AND CONSTRUCTION Working with Indigenous knowledge keepers on projects, engineers will discover a different perspective of respecting the land, rather than controlling it. Danilo Caron, EIT, explains how starting a project with a knowledge keeper's wisdom on natural elements creates a more balanced outcome.

ROBIN J. MILLER

D anilo Caron, EIT, is of mixed heritage. Through his Italian father, he was introduced to the art and craft of masonry and the world of construction. Through his mother, a member of the Sagamok Anishnawbek First Nation, he was exposed to ways of thinking about the land and how structures should be placed on the land that, he later discovered, were distinctly at odds with his own training as an engineer. It is that dichotomy that has led Caron to projects that explore how architects, engineers, and builders can decolonize their practice.

Currently a PhD candidate in civil engineering at UBC and a consulting engineer with Urban Systems, Caron explained that, while his definition of decolonization continues to evolve, “to me, in the pure sense, it means to look at the systems and structures that exist today and to critically examine them to try to understand the underlying reasons behind them. Is this structure or system the best or is it just what we have inherited? Is it based on assumptions that make up a worldview?”

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