Schedule
Imagining Indigenous Futurities
2022 AIIC Symposium
Friday, April 22 - Sunday, April 24, 2022
Please note that all times are in Pacific Time.
Please note that our schedule is subject to change, so check back for updates.
Click here for a downloadable and printable Symposium schedule.
Friday, April 22
9:45AM - 4:30PM
9:45AM
Symposium Welcome and Land Acknowledgement
Conference Co-Coordinators:
Sage Gerson and Kendall Lovely
10:00AM
The Intersections of Land, Life, and Indigeneity: Forms of Global Indigenous Resistance
Moderator: Gary Colmenar
Attaqua Ethel Williams Herandien, “Born Extinct: Talking My People out of Extinction”
Jarita Chen, “Land is Life": Settler Colonial Governance of National Parks and Hunting in Taiwan”
Rosie Ojeda, “Understanding Oaxaqueño Student Experiences as Indigenous Experiences”
George Ygarza, “Mapping Refusal: The Submerged Archipelago of Indigenous Resistance”
11:15AM
15 minute break
11:30AM
Futurity and Indigenous Storytelling
Moderator: Sylvia Faichney
Marisa de la Peña, “"To Create a Haunting: Indigenous Horror in Film and Art”
Laura Anderson, "Recognizing the Visual Discourses of Native Images: Decolonizing the Institution of Hollywood
Through Emerging Indigenous Filmmaking Practices”
Elena Cortes Farrujia, “An NDN Home Is Like a Dandelion”: Queer Indigenous Futurities in Joshua Whitehead’s
Jonny Appleseed (2018)”
Emersen Parker Pehl, “To Choose Responsibility: (Queer) Indigenous Existentialism in A History of My Brief Body”
12:45PM
Lunch break
1:45PM
Strategies and Stories for Land-Based and More-than-Human Futurities
Moderator: Aili Pettersson Peeker
Meghan Zarentske, “We are Guests Here: Desettling Place-Based Education through Kuuyam”
Alesha Clavaria, “Integrating Temporalities: Native Conceptions of Time Liberating Ecological Reformation”
Angie Tucker, “nikâwiy Used to be Proud: Oral Stories Surrounding the Difficulty of Being Métis on the Prairies
1940-1960”
Camille Roberge, “Transontology and Stories: A tale of Human and more-than human relationships”
Abel Gómez, “(Re)Riteing the Land: Indigenous Ceremony and Futurity in Northern California”
3:15PM
15 minute break
3:30PM
Keynote:
Dolly Kikon
Saturday, April 23
9:30AM - 5:45PM
9:30AM
Chumash Family Singers Welcome
9:45AM
Native California: Futurity Praxis, LandBack, and Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge I
Moderator: Sam Orndorff
Sierra Hampton, “Implications of Federal Recognition Status for Native Americans’ Use of Fire”
McKalee Steen and Annalise Taylor, ”Mapping for Indigenous Futures: how geospatial tools are being used to
restore access, stewardship, and relationship with land”
Melinda Adams, “FireBack: Indigenous Cultural Fire Toward our Collective Climate Survivance”
11:00AM
15 minute break
11:15AM
Native California: Futurity Praxis, LandBack, and Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge II
Moderator: Lydia Heberling
Sarah Banopour, “ITEK Digital Storytelling Workshops: a Collaborative Method of Promoting Indigenous Place-Based
Knowledge”
Chimaway and Casmali Lopez, "Beyond Extinction: Practicing Chumash Futurity through Cultural Resurgence,
Language Reclamation, and Traditional Foodways"
Julie Bongers, “Singing sleeping stewardships of lands and waters awake — via new paths and traditional practices
of building relations”
12:30PM
Lunch break
1:30PM
Keynote:
Dina Gilio-Whitaker
2:30PM
15 minute break
2:45PM
Land Acknowledgement
UCSB American Indian and Indigenous Student Association (AIISA)
3:00PM
Chumash Cultural Representatives Panel
Featuring Lele Lopez and Maura Sullivan
4:15PM
15 minute break
4:30PM
UCSB Undergraduate and AIISA Panel
Moderator: Margaret McMurtrey
Native Education Talks (N'Edx Talks):
Jeanine Lomaintewa, "Where has our water gone? The death of Owens Valley”
Cameran Bahnsen, “TEK and PBE ????”
Creative Projects from English 34NA:
Arlette Melendez, “A Healing Song for Mother Elephant: Learning from the Power of Story"
Leila Kalliel, "Only Arab at the Airport”
Eliciana Jensen, “Generational Imposter Syndrome”
Jeanine Lomaintewa, "Still Here”
Sunday, April 24
9:30 AM - 3:00PM
9:30AM
Land Acknowledgement
AIIC Planning Committee Organizers:
Sylvia Faichney and Sam Orndorff
9:45AM
ITEK from Northeast India
Moderator: Maisnam Arnapal
Lianboi Vaiphei, “Traditional Ecological Knowledge and livelihoods among the Indigenous tribes in North East India”
Samzeila Seneca, “Sustainable Future through the Lens of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK)”
Roderick Wijunamai, “Reviving Indigenous Lifeways Through Fictional Narratives”
11:00AM
15 minute break
11:15AM
Land as Pedagogy
Moderator: Kendall Lovely
Mae Hey, “Listening to Land to lead us in community mobilization, actualization, and transformation”
Antoinette Konia Fretas, “The value of place, story and language in planning and disaster management”
Haliehana Stepetin, “Qaqamiiĝux̂: Performing Unangax̂ Subsistence Protocols of Sustainability”
Natasha Myhal, “Tracking Transformations: Indigenous Restoration Science and Anishinaabe Philosophies of Land”
12:30PM
Lunch break
1:30PM
Keynote:
Grace Dillon
2:30PM
15 minute break
2:45PM
Awards Ceremony and Closing Remarks
Conference Co-Coordinators:
Sage Gerson and Kendall Lovely
Related Events
Small Island Big Song,
An Oceanic Songline
(Film screening)
Wed, Apr 20, 6:00 PM
MCC Theater
Filmed over three years on 16 Island nations across the Pacific & Indian Oceans, this grassroots musical follows the ocean highways uniting ancient musical lineages. From Madagascar to Rapa Nui/Easter Island, Taiwan to Zenadth Kes/The Torres Strait. A heartfelt plea for environmental awareness and cultural preservation from those on the frontline of the climate crisis.
For more information visit the UCSB Multicultural Center's Event Calendar.
Small Island Big Song (Concert)
Tue, Apr 26, 6:00 PM
MCC Theater
REGISTRATION ON SHORELINE IS REQUIRED
Drawing on a roster of respected first nation islander artists, the concert features musicians performing irresistible oceanic grooves to soulful island ballads engaging audiences from huge festival stages to intimate theaters. Combining music, spoken word and live cinema with AV projections featuring footage collected during a 3-year film trip across 16 countries guided by the artists on their homelands.
These unique lineages mixed with their diverse contemporary styles - roots-reggae, beats, grunge, RnB, folk & spoken-word, establishing a contemporary musical dialogue between cultures as far afield as Madagascar, Aotearoa (New Zealand), Taiwan, Mauritius, Marshall Islands, Papua New Guinea, Tahiti and Rapa Nui (Easter Island).
For more information visit the UCSB Multicultural Center's Event Calendar.
Environmental Justice
Around the World
Thu, Apr 28, 6:00 PM
MCC Lounge
A student-facilitated conversation about environmental justice around the world. The goal of this panel is to de-westernize the narrative surrounding environmental justice and center diverse student perspectives, ultimately, calling to question who is actually at the center of the environmental justice movement?
For more information visit the UCSB Multicultural Center's Event Calendar.
Hawaiian Soul
Wed, May 11, 6:00 PM
UCSB MCC Theater
Against the backdrop of the 1970s native rights movement, George Helm, a young Hawaiian activist and musician must gain the support of kūpuna (community elders) from the island of Maui to aid in the fight of protecting the precious neighboring island of Kahoʻolawe from military bombing.
For more information visit the UCSB Multicultural Center's Event Calendar.
Tufawon
Thu, May 19, 6:00 PM
UCSB MCC Theater
REGISTRATION AT SHORELINE REQUIRED
Tufawon (2 for 1) is a Dakota/Boricua hip hop artist from Minneapolis, Minnesota. His name is a representation of his mixed identity, and his music is an honest reflection of his life experiences and personal struggles, his hopes and dreams for the future, spirituality and connectedness to the land, love, and the realities of the world we live in. He has put his life on the line to protect water and our planet. His style is an embodiment of intricate lyricism with complex vocabulary balanced by a very clear, smooth, and concise delivery. With a socially aware approach, he touches on topics such as Indigenous resiliency, politics, health, defending Mother Earth, and fighting against oppressive systems. Another common vibe in his music is humor and lighthearted, fun and catchy songs that are intended to bring a level of happiness to the listener. The underlying message in his music is always connected to freedom.
For more information visit the UCSB Multicultural Center's Event Calendar.
Imagine 2200: Climate Fiction for Future Ancestors
Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Our goal is to use the power of storytelling to illuminate the way toward a better world, inspire millions of people to walk that path with us, and show that the time for action is now.
Fix, Grist's solutions lab, amplifies bold, equitable ideas for our climate future, and the people working towards them, in an effort to shift the climate narrative toward possibility. Through creative storytelling, network-building, and events, Fix explores the paths to a clean, green, just future, and brings together a growing community of climate visionaries - we call them Fixers - who are leading the way to a planet that works for everyone.
Submissions are now being accepted for Imagine 2200: Climate Fiction for Future Ancestors, the annual climate fiction contest from Fix, Grist's solutions lab. There is no fee to enter. Submit your short story by May 5, 2022, at 11:59 p.m. PST.
Imagine 2200 seeks unpublished short stories of 3,000 to 5,000 words that envision the next 180 years of clean, green, and just futures. Judges include Hugo Award-winning writer Arkady Martine, esteemed editor and author Sheree Renee Thomas, and professor Grace L. Dillon, who coined the term "Indigenous futurism." Imagine 2200 draws inspiration from Afrofuturism, as well as Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, disabled, feminist, and queer futures, and the genres of hopepunk and solarpunk.
While we're looking for hopeful stories, we also don't expect you to be overly optimistic or naïve. One hundred and eighty years of equitable climate progress will require hard work, struggle, and adaptation, and we invite you to show those as well.
In addition, we're especially interested in cultural authenticity (a deep sense of place, customs, cuisine, and more), rich characters with intersecting identifies, and stories that challenge the status quo in which wealthy and power are built on extraction, oppression, and violence.
The top three winners will be awarded $3,000, $2,000, and $1,000, respectively, and nine finalists will receive a $300 honorarium. Those 12 authors will be published in an immersive digital collection this fall. Conjure your wildest dreams for society - all the justice, resilience, and abundance you can imagine - and put those dreams on paper.
There's no fee to enter, so if you're ready to get writing, you can find Grist's submissions portal here. If you'd like to get in touch, you can reach Grist at imaginefiction@grist.org.
Heartfelt thanks to our 2022 AIIC Symposium co-sponsors:
American Cultures in a Global Context Center (ACGCC); The Blum Center; The Bren School of Environmental Science and Management; Center for Black Studies Research; The Global Latinidades Project; Hemispheric South/s Research Initiative; Hull Professor and Chair of Women's Studies Program; Interdisciplinary Humanities Center (IHC); the IHC’s American Indian and Indigenous Collective Research Focus Group (the IHC AIIC RFG); Literature and Environment Research Initiative; Literature and the Mind Research Initiative; UCSB College of Letters & Science; UCSB Department of Asian American Studies; UCSB Department of English; UCSB Department of Environmental Studies; UCSB Department of Feminist Studies; UCSB Department of History of Art and Architecture; UCSB Graduate Division; UCSB Graduate Student Association; UCSB Office of Equal Opportunity & Discrimination Prevention; UCSB Office of the Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.