This interview, conducted in August 2026, features Professor Kyle Whyte of the University of Michigan. Professor Whyte is the George Willis Pack Professor in the School for Environment and Sustainability, University Diversity and Social Transformation Professor, Professor of Philosophy, and Faculty Director of the Tishman Center for Social Justice and the Environment. His research focuses Indigenous philosophy, environmental justice, and the relationships between societies and the environments they inhabit.

I was joined by T&Q Writer, Roshelle Patterson, whose piece “From Resource to Relation” inspired the podcast. In it, she explores how Indigenous approaches to the land might inform contemporary debates around domestic mining. Professor Whyte’s scholarship provided an important foundation for that piece, particularly his writing on the concept of collective continuance.

In this conversation, we dug more deeply into that idea and others. What does it mean to think of our relationship with land, resources, and other people in terms of kinship rather than simply ownership or exchange? What responsibilities follow from those relationships?

Prof. Whyte brought up the idea of responsibility several times as something that sounded more like a sacred duty than a mundane obligation, and the importance that this sense of responsibility had in organizing indigenous tribes and individual lives.

As the conversation progressed, it became apparent that these ideas apply beyond mining and have a lot to say about living a fulfilling and wholesome life more generally.

There is much more to explore here, and we hope to have more conversations with Prof. Whyte in the future. For now, we hope this conversation offers a useful introduction to Professor Whyte’s work and to a different way of thinking about some of the questions we regularly explore at Tusk & Quill. We hope you enjoy it.