Full Name: Victoria M. Massie
Affiliation: UC Berkeley
Victoria M. Massie is a writer and Ph.D. Candidate in Sociocultural Anthropology with a designated emphasis in Science and Technology Studies at UC Berkeley. Her dissertation, “Assembling Genetic Ancestry: Race, Return, and the Materiality of Home examines how the contemporary ideas around race and the politics of belonging through genetic ancestry shift as this biotechnology is mobilized to forge diasporic ties in Cameroon. Her work has been supported through the Wenner-Gren Foundation, Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Award and National Science Foundation, as well as awards from the UC Center for New Racial Studies, UC Berkeley Chancellor’s Fellowship, and the UC Berkeley Center for African Studies. She was also awarded lifetime membership to the West African Research Association in 2015. Additionally, Massie is an essayist and editor whose work has been featured on The Intercept, Vox, Complex Magazine, and Catapult.
SCHOLARS
THE RED ATLANTIC RE-CENTERS AND HIGHLIGHTS SCHOLARSHIP PRODUCED BY CONTEMPORARY INDIGENOUS SCHOLARS AND ARTISTS
PLEASE COMPLETE THIS FORM IF YOU WOULD LIKE YOUR WORK TO BE FEATURED IN OUR PROJECT
Full Name: Jodi Byrd
Affiliation: University of Illinois; Chickasaw Nation
Jodi A. Byrd is a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma and associate professor of English and Gender and Women's Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign where she is also a faculty affiliate at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications.
Her research focuses on Critical Indigenous studies and governance, critical technology studies, indigenous feminisms and sexualities. She wrote the book The Transit of Empire: Indigenous Critiques of Colonialism.
Full Name: Kyle Whyte
Affiliation: Michigan State University; Potawatomi
Kyle Whyte holds the Timnick Chair in the Humanities in the Department of Philosophy at Michigan State University and is a faculty member of the Environmental Philosophy & Ethics graduate concentration. His primary research addresses moral and political issues concerning climate policy and Indigenous peoples, and the ethics of cooperative relationships between Indigenous peoples and climate science organizations.
Kyle's work has been funded by the National Science Foundation, Bureau of Indian Affairs, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Northeast Climate Science Center, Great Lakes Integrated Sciences and Assessments Center, the Sustainable Michigan Endowed Program and Spencer Foundation. He is involved in Climate and Traditional Knowledges Workgroup, Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition, Everybody Eats: Cultivating Food Democracy, Humanities for the Environment, the Consortium for Socially Relevant Philosophy of/in Science and the American Philosophical Association Committee on the Status of Indigenous Philosophers. He is affiliated faculty at Michigan State for Peace and Justice Studies, Environmental Science and Policy, the Center for Regional Food Systems, Animal Studies and American Indian Studies.
Full Name: Courtney Baker
Affiliation: Occidental College
Courtney R. Baker is Associate Professor of American Studies. Prior to her arrival at Occidental in 2016, she was an Associate Professor in English and Director of Africana Studies at Connecticut College. She teaches courses on black film, African-American literature, race and ethnicity in American Studies, cultural studies, and critical theories of the human and the visual. Her classes are designed to give students the language to discuss what they encounter in everyday interactions. Her teaching philosophy encourages students to build upon what they know, to discover their interests, and to dig deeply as they work to cultivate the skills that will enhance their lives and the world we live in. Dr. Baker identifies as African American.
Full Name: Nick Estes
Affiliation: University of New Mexico; Citizen of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe
Nick Estes is Kul Wicasa and a citizen of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe. He is an Assistant Professor in the American Studies Department at the University of New Mexico. For 2017-2018, Estes was the American Democracy Fellow at the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History at Harvard University. His research engages colonialism and global Indigenous histories, with a focus on decolonization, environmental justice, anti-capitalism, and the Oceti Sakowin.
He also co-founded The Red Nation, an organization dedicated to Native liberation
https://americanstudies.unm.edu/about-us/people/faculty-profiles/nick-estes.html
Full Name: Dr. Fred Shore
Affiliation: University of Manitoba
Dr. Shore's experiences and research areas are vast but primarily include Metis history and political issues of Indigenous people throughout Canada. He is our second longest serving faculty member and has been with the department since 1985. He is now half-time and teaches mostly undergraduate courses. Dr. Shore is also nearing completion of a book, titled Threads in the Sash: The Story of the Metis People.
http://umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/departments/native_studies/people/shore.html
Full Name: Dr. Emma LaRocque
Affiliation: University of Manitoba, Cree and Métis descent
Dr. Emma LaRocque: Dr. LaRocque's interests include colonization and decolonization, Indigenous-White relations, Aboriginal resistance in literature, identity, and many other fields related to Indigenous representation. Dr. LaRocque is the department's longest service faculty member and has been with the department since 1976. A poet and writer, Dr. la Rocque has created or redesigned many of our core courses (such as on Native Women) and is the author of two books: Defeathering The Indian and When the Other Is Me: Native Resistance Discourse 1850-1990, as well numerous academic articles or chapters. In 2005 Dr. La Rocque received an Aboriginal Achievement Award for education.
http://umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/departments/native_studies/people/larocque.html
Full Name: Dr. Warren Cariou
Affiliation: University of Manitoba.
Warren Cariou is a writer and Professor of English at the University of Manitoba. He received a BA(Hons) from the University of Saskatchewan and an MA and PhD from the University of Toronto (1998). In 1999 he published a book of short stories: The Exalted Company of Roadside Martyrs with Coteau Books. This was followed up in 2002 with his memoir Lake of the Prairies, which gained him a wider audience. It won the 2002 Drainie-Taylor Prize for Biography and was shortlisted for the Charles Taylor Prize. In 2005 he served on the jury for the prestigious Scotiabank Giller Prize. He is currently working on a novel titled Exhaust.
Full Name: Dr. Marlene Atleo
Affiliation: University of Manitoba, Ahousaht First Nation
Marlene Atleo, a member of the Ahousaht First Nation, B.C., came to adult and post-secondary education after a career in the West Coast salmon fishing industry. Atleo's work in the design, development, delivery, and evaluation of Aboriginal education, training and research gave her insight into the intractability of the “dirty, rotten problems” in Aboriginal education. Her dissertation about the Nuu-chah-nulth “Provider”, Umeek, earned the Thomas Greenfield Award from the Canadian Association for the Study of Educational Administration. The currency of research on such Indigenous learning themes as well their relationship to Indigenous Peoples' standpoints, orality, language and achievement, resulted in SSHRC supported research about the central role of Aboriginal heritage language in attainment. The opportunity to conduct research with diverse and non-traditional community needs in the academy (especially through adult education) is her current application of a passion for lifelong learning as a philosophy.
http://umanitoba.ca/faculties/education/directory/Atleo.html
Full Name: Dr. Laara Fitznor
Affiliation: University of Manitoba, Nisichawaysihk Cree Nation in Manitoba
Laara Fitznor, a member of the Nisichawaysihk Cree Nation in Manitoba was raised in the boreal forests of Wabowden, Manitoba. She pursued her dream of a university education once she learned that with a university education she was in a position to embrace ways to challenge and counter acts of oppression while advancing Aboriginal/Indigenous knowledge(s), perspectives, histories, experiences, spiritualities, and realities through her community work and career. She assisted professionals (teachers, educators, social workers, police officers, and others) to understand the uniqueness of Aboriginal peoples’ histories, philosophies, cultures, knowledge(s), and contributions to Canadian society.
She incorporates decolonizing and bridging pedagogies in her work where people learn to challenge past wrongs and coexist in a way of respect, reciprocity, and responsibility. Laara has served as a member on boards, councils, committees, grassroots, and working groups where the focus of the work was to advance principles of diversity, equity, and Aboriginal/Indigenous leadership, rights, knowledge(s) toward culturally relevant growth of Aboriginal people’s needs and aspirations. Laara began her academic career with the University of Manitoba’s Access Programs (1982-1992), holding positions as Academic Counsellor and Director. From 1992 to 1998, she joined the Faculty of Education teaching Cross-Cultural/Aboriginal Education. In 1998, she joined the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto to develop a newly established position of Aboriginal Education. She returned to the Faculty of Education, University of Manitoba in 2003 to teach Aboriginal/Indigenous Education.
http://umanitoba.ca/faculties/education/directory/Fitznor.html
Full Name: Loriene Roy
Affiliation: University of Texas at Austin; Anishinabe; White Earth Reservation; Minnesota Chippewa Tribe
Dr. Roy is a Professor at the School of Information at the University of Texas at Austin. Her writing, research, and service are centered on indigenous cultural heritage development. In addition, she advocates for the inclusion and study of formal and informal service learning opportunities for graduate students. She is founder and director of “If I Can Read, I Can Do Anything,” a national reading club for American Indian students.
She was the 1997-1998 President of the American Indian Library Association (AILA) and the 2007-2008 President of the American Library Association (ALA). Her professional awards include the 2009 Leadership Award from the National Conference Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums; 2007 State of Texas Senate Proclamation No. 127; 2006 ALA Equality Award; 2007 Library Journal Mover & Shaker”; Outstanding 2002 Alumna from the University of Arizona’s School of Information Resources and Library Services; the 2001 Joe and Bettie Branson Ward Excellence Award for Research, Teaching, or Demonstration Activities that Contribute to Changes of Positive Value to Society, two Texas Exes Teaching Awards; and two James W. Vick Texas Excellence Awards for Academic Advisors. She is Anishinabe, enrolled on the White Earth Reservation, a member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe. She is the 2012-2013 Chair of ALA's International Relations Round Table and the 2008-2013 Convener of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institution's (IFLA's) Special Interest Group on Indigenous Matters. She is a Trustee Emeritus of the LeRoy C. Merritt Humanitarian Fund. She teaches graduate courses in basic reference, library instruction and information literacy, reader’s advisory, indigenous librarianship, and information in social and cultural context. She has written widely and delivered over 500 formal presentations in venues around the world.
Full Name: Alice Te Punga Somerville
Affiliation: Manukura School
Dr Alice Te Punga Somerville's people are from Taranaki and Wellington in New Zealand. Born in Wellington, Alice was raised in Auckland and lived in the United States for five years in order to pursue doctoral studies. After teaching Māori, Pacific and Indigenous Literatures in English at Victoria University of Wellington (New Zealand) for several years, Alice moved to the University of Hawai'i- Mānoa to take up a position as Associate Professor of Pacific Literatures.
Dr. Te Punga Somerville's first book, Once Were Pacific: Māori Connections to Oceania was published in 2012 and she is working on two book projects at present: Kānohi ki te kānohi: Indigenous-Indigenous Encounters and Ghost Writers: the Māori books you've never read. Alice also writes the occasional poem.
At its heart Alice's research is about locating, contextualizing, and analyzing texts written by Māori, Pacific and Indigenous people. Dr Te Punga Somerville's work is underpinned by her belief that (Māori, Pacific and/ or Indigenous peoples) are constrained when the stories about them are limited. In Alice's scholarship, she therefore focus on written texts as evidence, sites and foundations of stories that are far more complex than those that are told about us by other people or even those that are generally told by ourselves. Dr Te Punga Somerville's MA (Auckland) and PhD (Cornell) focused on the written literatures of her own Māori community, and as she deliberately sought broader contexts for exploring this writing she developed a twin interest and expertise in Indigenous and Pacific studies.
Full Name: J. Kēhaulani Kauanui
Affiliation: Wesleyan University; Kanaka Maoli
J. Kēhaulani Kauanui is Professor of American Studies and an affiliate faculty member in Anthropology at Wesleyan University, where she serves as the current Chair of the American Studies Department, and the current Director of the Center for the Americas. She also serves as co-producer and co-host of an anarchist radio program, “Anarchy on Air,” broadcast through WESU.
She earned her PhD in History of Consciousness at the University of California, Santa Cruz, in 2000. After transferring from community college (Irvine Valley) in 1989, she earned her B.A. in Women’s Studies at the University of California, Berkeley in 1992.
She is the author of Hawaiian Blood: Colonialism and the Politics of Sovereignty and Indigeneity, also published by Duke University Press, and editor of Speaking of Indigenous Politics: Conversations with Activists, Scholars, and Tribal Leaders.
Full Name: Sarah Montoya
Affiliation: University of California, Los Angeles
Broadly, I am interested in the relationships between colonialism, settler colonialism, and the creation and maintenance of computer technologies with an emphasis on its attendant infrastructures. I argue that colonialism, settler colonialism, and thus the erasure of indigenous sovereignty, lifeways, and design has always been a key factor in the development of computer technologies.
I focus on iterations of colonialism in the development of computer technologies and how this relates to the continues dispossession of Native peoples. I examine the development of Geographic Information (GIS) in relationship to the U.S. military-industrial complex and the surveillance State. My project includes a consideration of how to expansion of GIS infrastructures and programming languages impose settler colonial ontologies and how the colonial cartographic gaze manifests in digital mapping practices. I am interested in how we might articulate notions of space in cyber studies that are attentive to the material legacies of colonialism and how alternative spatial visualization models might aid in the realization of social and spatial justice.
Full Name: Dr. Kim TallBear
Affiliation: University of Alberta
In August 2015, Kim TallBear moved to the University of Alberta Faculty of Native Studies where she is an Associate Professor. She came to the University of Alberta to work with one of the strongest groups of Indigenous Studies scholars anywhere in the world. There are 1100 Aboriginal students at the university and many Native faculty and staff in multiple faculties on campus. In 2016, the Government of Canada awarded her a Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Peoples, Technoscience, and Environment. She is excited to build a research and training program at the University of Alberta that is focused on indigenous peoples’ engagements with science and technology as those fields and projects serve Indigenous self-determination.
TallBear is interested in the historical and ongoing roles of science and technology (technoscience) in the colonization of indigenous peoples and others. Yet because tribes and other indigenous peoples insist on their status as sovereigns, she is also interested in the increasing role of technoscience in indigenous governance. How do U.S. tribes and others resist, regulate, collaborate in, and initiate research and technology development in ways that support self-governance and cultural sovereignty? What are the challenges for indigenous peoples related to science and technology, and what types of innovative work and thinking occur at the interface of technoscience and indigenous governance?
Full Name: Chadwick Allen
Affiliation: Ohio State University
Professor Allen’s work centers around studies of contemporary Native American and global Indigenous literatures, other expressive arts, and activism. He is one of the leading scholars in Indigenous studies, and is highly recognized for the quality and intellectual rigor of his work. He brings a rich academic and administrative background, as well as a great deal of energy to his work. He served as editor for the journal SAIL: Studies in American Indian Literatures between 2012 and 2017, and he served as the 2013-2014 President of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA). In addition to his primary work on Indigenous self-representation, Professor Allen has a strong secondary interest in US frontier literature and the popular western, and he has written extensively on the Lone Ranger and Tonto.
Allen received a Ph.D. in comparative cultural and literary studies from the University of Arizona, a master’s degree in writing from Washington University and a bachelor’s degree, magna cum laude, in the comparative study of religion from Harvard University.
Full Name: Deborah Lee
Affiliation: University of Saskatchewan
Deborah Lee is a Cree-Métis librarian, originally from Treaty 6 Territory, near Edmonton. The Sturgeon River, extending from Lac Ste. Anne to St. Albert, sustained her family for generations.
She has worked in libraries since the spring of 2000, starting out at the National Library of Canada (which later merged with the National Archives of Canada to become Library and Archives Canada) in Ottawa, and, in 2007, moving to my preferred vocation of academic librarianship at the University of Saskatchewan. She has been involved with many Indigenous librarianship initiatives, including the development and growth of the well-used and well-received Indigenous Studies Portal; subject librarianship in Indigenous Studies; and numerous community initiatives and partnership activities such as building and delivering (with the assistance of Library and University colleagues) the Library ReconciliAction Employee Development Program.
Full Name: Danika Fawn Medak-Saltzman
Affiliation: Syracuse University
Danika Medak-Saltzman (Turtle Mountain Chippewa) is thrilled to be joining the Women’s and Gender Studies Department, and her work focuses on Indigenous Feminisms, Native histories, Indigenous thought and theory, transnational Indigeneity, Indigenous futurisms, and visual culture—including film and cultural production. She also examines the transnational movement of American colonial policies–particularly in the case of Japan—which is a subject explored in her forthcoming book, Specters of Colonialism: Native Peoples, Visual Cultures, and Colonial Projects in the U.S. and Japan, with the University of Minnesota Press.
Her articles have appeared in American Quarterly and The Journal of Critical Ethnic Studies, and Studies in American Indian Literature. In her scholarship, as in her teaching, Medak-Saltzman seeks to reevaluate representations of Native people to underscore how Native peoples have always worked to negotiate difficult situations and visualize/create/manifest Indigenous futures in spite of persistent colonial actions and narratives that mandate Native disappearance. She is a member and co-founder of the “Just Futures Project,” and alongside Iyko Day and Antonio T. Tiongson, Jr. she is co-editor of the “Critical Race, Indigeneity and Relationality” book series for Temple University Press.
http://thecollege.syr.edu/people/faculty/pages/wgs/medak.saltzman-danika.html
Full Name: Camille Callison
Affiliation: University of Manitoba; Tahltan Nation
Camille Callison is the Indigenous Services Librarian and Liaison Librarian for Anthropology, Native Studies and Social Work and a Member of the Indigenous Advisory Circle at the University of Manitoba.
She is proud to be from Tsesk iye (Crow) Clan of the Tahltan First Nation located in Northern BC, the Yukon and Alaska. and holds a B.A. (Anthropology) and M.L.I.S. First Nations Concentration from UBC. She is pursuing a PhD at the University of Manitoba.
Currently, she is the Canadian Federation of Library Associations/Fédération canadienne des associations de bibliothèques (CFLA-FCAB) Indigenous Representative; Chair of the Indigenous Matters Committee; member of the Copyright Committee and Chair of the Truth & Reconciliation Committee.
She is dedicated to the preservation of Indigenous knowledge, culture and cultural material in a variety of mediums for future generations. She is actively involved in promoting Indigenous libraries and archives as well as identifying and making recommendations on library and information needs of Indigenous peoples through involvement in local, national and international professional associations.
Her research interests involve the role of libraries, archives and other cultural memory institutions in preserving and respecting traditional knowledge and languages while contributing to their recovery, revitalization and copyright protection.
Full Name: Te Paea Taiuru
Affiliation: Chair of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) Indigenous Matters Section
Te Paea Taiuru (tribal affiliations to Waikato and Ngāti Porou) provides insight in her capacity as Chair of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) Indigenous Matters Section. IFLA Indigenous Matters section is endorsing the project and their ongoing support is appreciated.
Te Paea is also immediate past president of Library and Information Association of New Zealand Aotearoa (LIANZA) and Customer Services Manager, Learning Teaching and Research at the University of Canterbury Library. She is deeply appreciative of the ongoing work that Te Paea has undertaken to help develop the project and foster the project’s relationship with IFLA Indigenous Matters Section. Her leadership work in Indigenous librarianship brings valuable insight to the project and her incredible work in these areas is greatly appreciated.
https://sr.ithaka.org/blog/a-new-project-on-indigenous-studies-scholars
Full Name: Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
Affiliation: Ryerson University, Dechinta Centre for Research & Learning; Alderville First Nation
Leanne Betasamosake Simpson is a renowned Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg scholar, writer and artist, who has been widely recognized as one of the most compelling Indigenous voices of her generation. Her work breaks open the intersections between politics, story and song—bringing audiences into a rich and layered world of sound, light, and sovereign creativity.
An independent scholar using Nishnaabeg intellectual practices, Leanne has lectured and taught extensively at universities across Canada and has twenty years experience with Indigenous land-based education. She holds a PhD from the University of Manitoba, is currently a Distinguished Visiting Scholar in the Faculty of Arts at Ryerson University and faculty at the Dechinta Centre for Research & Learning in Denendeh.
Leanne's books are regularly used in courses across Canada and the United States including Dancing on Our Turtle’s Back, The Gift Is in the Making, Lighting the Eighth Fire (editor), This Is An Honour Song (editor with Kiera Ladner) and The Winter We Danced (Kino-nda-niimi editorial collective). Her latest book, As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom Through Radical Resistance was published by the University of Minnesota Press in the fall of 2017, and was awarded Best Subsequent Book by the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association.
Full Name: Sarah Deer
Affiliation: University of Kansas
Sarah Deer (Muscogee (Creek) Nation) has worked to end violence against women for over 25 years and was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2014. Her scholarship focuses on the intersection of federal Indian law and victims' rights. Prof. Deer is a co-author of four textbooks on tribal law. Her latest book is The Beginning and End of Rape: Confronting Sexual Violence in Native America, which has received several awards. Her work on violence against Native women has received national recognition from the American Bar Association and the Department of Justice. Professor Deer is also the Chief Justice for the Prairie Island Indian Community Court of Appeals.
Deer is a Native American lawyer, professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality studies and Public Affairs and Administration at the University of Kansas. She advocates for survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence in Native American communities. She has been credited for her "instrumental role" in the 2013 reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, as well as for testimony which is credited with the 2010 passage of the Tribal Law and Order Act. Deer co-authored, with Bonnie Claremont, Amnesty International's 2007 report Maze of Injustice, documenting sexual assault against Native American women.
Deer received her B.A. and J.D. from the University of Kansas.
Full Name: Michelle Dayai Vasquez-Ruiz
Affiliation: University of Southern California
Michelle Vasquez Ruiz is a graduate student in the department of American Studies and Ethnicity at USC. As a daughter of Oaxaqueño immigrants who reside in Los Angeles, her academic work is dedicated to furthering an understanding of Indigenous diaspora, histories of displacement, immigration and survivance.
She is interested in looking at how Indigenous communities who migrate across borders maintain culture and community. Through her current role as co-curator with the Boyle Heights Museum, she is dedicated to preserving and sharing the histories of underrepresented communities. She actively encourages community members and students to construct their own historical narratives through various mediums. Vasquez-Ruiz received her BA in political science from the University of California in 2014, and her MA in history from California State University Los Angeles in 2017.
https://dornsife.usc.edu/cf/ase/student_display.cfm?Person_ID=1078200
Full Name: Aileen Moreton Robinson
Affiliation: Queensland University of Technology
Distinguished Professor Aileen Moreton-Robinson is a Goenpul woman from Minjerribah (Stradbroke Island), Quandamooka First Nation (Moreton Bay) in Queensland, Australia. As Dean of the Indigenous Research and Engagement Unit her primary responsibilities include Director of the National Indigenous Research and Knowledges Network (NIRAKN) and to Implementation of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Research Strategy.
Research interests Professor Moreton-Robinson has researched and published in anthologies and journals in Australia and abroad in the areas of law and sovereignty, whiteness, race and feminism. She was the founding President of the Australian Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Association. As one of Australia’s leading Indigenous academics, Professor Moreton-Robinson receives numerous invitations to give keynote presentations nationally and internationally. She has been invited to and presented at the University of Washington, University of California Los Angeles, Oberlin College, University of London, University of Geneva, University of Illinois, Dartmouth, Wesleyan University, University of Hawaii, University of Michigan and the University of Alberta.
Full Name: Mary "Tuti" Baker
Affiliation: Brown University
Mary Tuti Baker is a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Political Science at Brown University, where she teaches courses in Indigenous Political Theory. A Kanaka ʻŌiwi (Native Hawaiian) scholar, she earned her PhD in Political Science from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa with specializations in Indigenous Politics and Futures Studies. Her work examines the relationship between Kanaka ʻŌiwi values and practice and the politics of decolonization. The questions that drive her work include: How are Kanaka ʻŌiwi stepping away from the trauma of colonialism and the toxic culture of neoliberal capitalism? How do we - Kanaka ʻŌiwi and settler - collectively transform structures that work to eliminate the kinship relationships between people and the ʻāina (that which feeds us physically, spiritually and intellectually) – relationships that have developed over millennia in Hawaiʻi?
She is currently working on a book project based on her dissertation “Hoʻoulu ʻĀina: Embodied Aloha ʻĀina Enacting ʻŌiwi Futurities” that refines her thinking on Indigenous ideologies. She argues that through resurgent practices Indigenous peoples develop Indigenous ideologies that provide the springboard for enacting indigenous futurities. Indigenous ideologies emerge out of discursive and material practices that are anchored in place and worldviews that honor the kinship relationship between humans and ʻāina. Her most recent publication is a chapter in The Routledge Handbook on Postcolonial Politics entitled “Waiwai (Abundance) and Indigenous Futures” in which she tells the story of two communities in Hawai’i that are a part of a global network of native spaces whose diverse practices coalesce around the organizing principles of anarcha-indigenism, a world-view grounded in indigenous land-based practice and knowledge systems that articulate with anarchist principles of fluid leadership and horizontal power structures.
Full Name: Jennifer Nez Denetdale
Affiliation: University of New Mexico
Denetdale is the first Diné/Navajo person to earn a Ph.D. in history. She is an Associate Professor of American Studies at the University of New Mexico. She teaches courses in Critical Indigenous Studies, Indigenous gender and sexuality, Indigenous feminisms and gender, and Navajo Studies. She wrote Reclaiming Diné History: The Legacies of Navajo Chief Manuelito and Juanita, which was published by University of Arizona Press in 2007.
She also wrote The Long Walk: The Forced Exile of the Navajo, a book published in 2007 for young adults. She has also written essays, articles, and chapters in books. She is a consultant for museum exhibits on Native culture and can act as a witness for the Navajo Nation. She acts as director of the UNM's Institute for American Indian Research (IfAIR) and chairs the Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission, where she advocated for Navajo women and members of the LGBTQ+ community. She has received the Rainbow Naatsiilid True Colors Award, the UNM Faculty of Color Award, UNM Sarah Brown Belle, and has been recognized by the Navajo Studies Converence, Inc. for Excellence in Diné Studies. She gave the inaugural address at the inaugural address of the the 23rd Navajo Nation Council in January 2015. She received the UNM Presidential Award of Distinction in 2017.
https://americanstudies.unm.edu/about-us/people/faculty-profiles/jennifer-nez-denetdale.html
Full Name: Joseph Lewis Erb
Affiliation: University of Missouri
Joseph Lewis Erb is a computer animator, film producer, educator, language technologist and artist enrolled in the Cherokee Nation. He earned his MFA degree from the University of Pennsylvania. Erb created the first Cherokee animation in the Cherokee language, “The Beginning They Told.”
He used his artistic skills to teach Muscogee Creek and Cherokee students how to animate traditional stories. Most of this work is created in the Cherokee language. He has spent many years working on projects that will expand the use of Cherokee language in technology and the Arts. Erb teaches at the University of Missouri in Digital Storytelling.
Full Name: Chris Finley
Affiliation: University of Southern California
Chris Finley received her PhD in American Culture from the University of Michigan in 2012 and a Postdoctoral Fellowship in Race and Gender from Rutgers University from 2015-2016.
In Chris Finley’s research, writing and teaching, she critiques how dominant U.S. popular culture sexualizes Native bodies as culturally and, therefore, racially unable to conform to white hetero-reproductive norms. Finley argues that in order to provide a successful critique of settler colonialism within American studies, Native studies must address the negative implications of biopower through the relationship between sexuality, Native peoples, and gender.
https://dornsife.usc.edu/cf/ase/faculty_display.cfm?person_id=1074693
Full Name: David Chang
Affiliation: University of Minnesota
David Chang is a historian of indigenous people, colonialism, borders and migration in Hawaii and North America, focusing especially on the histories of Native American and Native Hawaiian people. My second book, The World and All the Things Upon It: Native Hawaiian Geographies of Exploration was published in 2016 by the University of Minnesota Press. It speaks to a foundational imperative in Indigenous studies: the need to not just understand Indigenous people from their own perspectives, but to understand the world from their perspectives as well. It traces the ways that Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiians) explored the outside world and generated understandings of their place in it in the century and half after James Cook stumbled on their islands in 1778.
In doing so, this book examines indigenous people as the active agents of global exploration, rather than the passive objects of that exploration, broadening our understanding of geographical knowledge production and power in the context of colonialism. The book draws on Hawaiian-language sources—the stories, songs, chants, texts, and political prose—to reveal Kanaka Maoli reflections on the nature of global geography and their place in it.