TENTH ANNUAL SYMPOSIUM
IN PERSON & VIRTUAL
Friday 21 - Sunday 23, April 2023
McCune Conference Center
Interdisciplinary Humanities Center, HSSB 6th Floor
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Zoom Link: https://ucsb.zoom.us/j/87146095700
We welcome you to UCSB while acknowledging the region's traditional custodians, the Chumash people. We pay our respects to Chumash Elders past, present and future for they hold the memories, the traditions, and the culture of this area, which has become a place of learning for people from all over the world.
When: Friday Evening through Sunday, April 21-23, 2023
Where: This year's symposium will be held in person and virtually.
To attend, please register: https://forms.gle/7AG536Pzahyhy6D47
Abstract: The purpose of this presentation is to highlight work that centers land, water, language, and Indigenous lived realities in an effort to bridge the gap between western academic paradigms and Indigenous knowledge traditions. Examples will include Indigenous methodologies in research, community conceptualizations of Indigenous languages, Native common sense, and privileging orality and relationship over the standard academic process. In order to address the incongruity of contemporary academic research and Indigenous ways of being, Dr. Windchief will present examples of scholarship that are intended to avoid an internal crisis of relevance experienced by many indigenous peoples in higher education. All of the examples presented are with and for Indigenous peoples by using relationality, and lived experience as opposed to ‘othering’ our communities by using standard academic means of scholarly production such as research 'on' or 'about' Indigenous communities, which often historicizes, demonizes, and exoticizes the people of the land.
Dr. Sweeney Windchief (Fort Peck Assiniboine) is an Associate Professor in Department of Education at Montana State University who specializes in Indigenous Methodologies and Critical Race Theory in Education. Dr. Windcheif's research is on the critical examination of race in higher education, leadership development in tribal colleges and universities (TCU's), Indigenous peoples and higher education. Dr. Wichief's teaching areas are Higher Education Leadership, Law and Policy and Higher Education, Theoretical Foundations of College Students, Critical Race Theory, Indigenous Methodologies.
Shelbi Nahwilet Meissner (she/hers) is Payómkawichum (Luiseño) and Kuupangaxwichem (Cupeño) and a first-generation descendant of the La Jolla Band of Luiseno Indians. Meissner is an assistant professor of philosophy at Georgetown University who specializes in Indigenous philosophy, feminist and non-western epistemology, and philosophy of language. Meissner researches, consults, publishes, and teaches on Indigenous research methodologies, language reclamation, epistemic and linguistic sovereignty, climate justice, Indigenous feminisms, and critical Indigenous interventions in social work.
Abstract: Upstream homelands were heavily impacted by development projects to bring water and power downstream to feed larger cities. These projects altered lands and waters, impacting ecology, culture, and language. Work to restore rivers by removing dams, and to restore upper watersheds with cultural fire, is revitalizing health and relationships, and restoring hope in bringing back places and practices that have been inundated or overgrown. This is a moment of reckoning-- not only with monuments, but with infrastructure projects that were installed in contexts of injustice.
Dr. Beth Rose Middleton Manning (Afro-Caribbean, Eastern European) is a Professor of Native American Studies at UC Davis. Beth Rose’s research centers on Native environmental policy and Native activism for site protection using conservation tools. Her broader research interests include intergenerational trauma and healing, Native land stewardship, rural environmental justice, Indigenous analysis of climate change, Afro-indigeneity, and qualitative GIS. Beth Rose received her BA in Nature and Culture from UC Davis, and her Ph.D. in Environmental Science, Policy, and Management from UC Berkeley. Her first book, Trust in the Land: New Directions in Tribal Conservation (University of Arizona Press 2011), focuses on Native applications of conservation easements, with an emphasis on conservation partnerships led by California Native Nations.
SPECIAL PANEL ON GLOBAL INDIGENEITY
Governmateriality and Indigenous Religions: Fraught Categories, Failed Technologies, and Novel Methods
Sponsored by
Governmateriality of Indigenous Religions (GOVMAT), Research Council of Norway, and
Walter H. Capps Center, UCSB
Greg Johnson
Global Connections, Local Issues
Abstract: In his brief opening remarks, Johnson will introduce this international panel and the larger project the team is involved with, The Governmateriality of Indigenous Religions (GOVMAT). Turning to local and institutional matters, Johnson with provide a brief update on UCSB repatriation work and the status of the TMT project in Hawai`i.
Greg Johnson is Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he is also director of the Walter H. Capps Center for the Study of Ethics, Religion, and Public Life. He also serves on the UCSB campus Repatriation Review Committee and on the faculty council for American Indian and Indigenous Studies. Johnson’s research focuses on the intersection of law and religion in contexts of indigenous struggles over burial protection, repatriation, and sacred land. His work has focused primarily on Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) and Native American contexts but also on emerging forms, expressions, and networks of global indigeneity.
Bjørn Ola Tafjord
Land Back / Language Back / Religion Back?
Abstract: Which perspectives appear if religion is added to the heading of this symposium, alongside land and language? What might ‘religion back’ stir up or bring about? What could such a claim mean in practice? How does religion relate to land and language, historically, today, and in preparations for the future? The reactions to these questions are likely to vary a great deal, depending on the cases and contexts that we address. In some communities, they may generate discomfort and worries, whereas in other communities, they may come across as pertinent and even urgent. The topic is complicated and challenging. I will offer three very brief accounts of situations or events that show different ways in which questions of ‘religion back’ have emerged as entangled in or disentangled from discussions about Indigeneity, land, and language. The first is about what I have learnt as a student of Bribri intellectuals in Talamanca, Costa Rica. The second is about a consultation with the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief in Oslo, Norway. The third is about the Indigenous Peoples pre-assembly to the World Council of Churches in Karlsruhe, Germany. All three cases clearly demonstrate that Indigenous religion is far from a straightforward matter. It is formulated in diverse attempts at governing histories, territories, translations, identities, and futures.
Bjørn Ola Tafjord is Professor of the Study of Religions at the University of Bergen, Norway. Between 2007 and 2021 he worked at UiT, The Arctic University of Norway, in Tromsø. His research addresses methodological issues and the politics of religions and indigeneities in Talamanca (Costa Rica), in Sápmi (northern Scandinavia), and in different international fora (globally). He is a co-author of the book Indigenous Religion(s): Local Grounds, Global Networks (Routledge 2020). Currently, he coordinates a collaborative research project funded by the Research Council of Norway (2020–2025) titled The Governmateriality of Indigenous Religions (GOVMAT).
Liudmila Nikanorova
Sakha oiuun: Embodying Shamanism and Primitivism at the American Museum of Natural History
Abstract: In 1897–1902, the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York organised the Jesup North Pacific Expedition with the aim to find commonalities between Native peoples of North Asia and North America. As a result, a wide range of artifacts and objects, including a clothing attire of a Sakha oiuun, were collected and brought to New York making the AMNH the owner of one of the biggest Sakha collections in the world. These ethnographic materials became valuable research sources and led to numerous academic publications. Sakha practitioners oiuun were translated into ‘shaman,’ who were described by scholars as ‘hysterical, crazy and wacky devil-worshippers’. For over a hundred years, the mannequin and clothes of Sakha oiuun were embodying and materialising shamanism at the AMNH until they were recently attacked and eaten by moths. All of the materials from the display are now frozen to prevent further damage. Shamanism was introduced as ‘the religion of Siberian tribes,’ and Sakha as one of the ‘primitive peoples’ of Asia. The Hall of Asian Peoples, where Sakha exhibits are placed, is situated between the halls of “Birds of the World” and “Asian Mammals”, and above, there is a hall on “Primates.” Drawing on this example, I discuss the continuous coloniality of museums, the use of Sakha bodies to materialise shamanism and primitivism at the AMNH, as well as the narrative of Western museums having ‘advanced preserving technology’, and its failure.
Liudmila Nikanorova (Sakha) is a University Lecturer in Religious Studies at the Open University UK who specializes in Indigenous Religions. Nikanorova’s research interests are in the critical study of religion, frictions of Indigenous and colonial knowledge productions, the role of scholars in religion-making processes, and Indigenous methodologies. Liudmila obtained a Ph.D. in Religious Studies from UiT-The Arctic University of Norway and a Master of Philosophy in Indigenous Studies from the University of Tromsø. Nikanorova researches translations and uses of ‘religion’ in the Sakha context, and how Sakha bodies and materials have been employed to materialise ‘Siberian shamanism’. AMNH, as well as the narrative of Western museums having ‘advanced preserving technology’, and its failure.
Arkotong Longkumer
Graphic Novel as Method: Animating Naga Repatriation
Abstract: In this presentation, I will discuss the recently published A Path Home. A Graphic Novel on Naga Repatriation. It will explore the graphic narrative, which brings up significant questions regarding land, tradition, ecology and the role of a storied landscape. What does repatriation look like in the Naga context? The graphic novel examines the role words, narratives, and visuals play in animating the process and imagining how repatriation might be. I explore how the graphic novel as method brings to light the multimodal ways in which the capacity for engagement is brought to light.
Arkotong Longkumer (Naga) is Senior Lecturer in Modern Asia at the University of Edinburgh, UK. He is the author of The Greater India Experiment: Hindutva and the Northeast published by Stanford University Press (Indian edition, Navayana 2022), which was long-listed for the Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay New India Foundation Book Prize 2021. He is also the co-author of an Open Access book, Indigenous Religion(s): Local Grounds, Global Networks (Routledge 2020). He is the recipient of the British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship (2017-18), and Visiting Fellowships to The Arctic University of Norway. He was the Principal Investigator on a 3-year funded project by the Leverhulme Trust on Gurus and Media, and from November 2022 he is the Principal Investigator on a 4-year research funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, Decolonising the Museum: Digital Repatriation of the Gaidinliu Collection from the UK to India.
Heartfelt thanks to our 2023 AIIC Symposium co-sponsors:
Bren School of Environmental Science and Management; The Global Latinidades Project; UCSB Walter Capps Center; UCSB Interdisciplinary Humanities Center (IHC); English Department’s American Cultures in a Global Context Center (ACGCC); Hull Professor and Chair of Women's Studies Program; American Indian and Indigenous Collective Research Focus Group (AIIC RFG); English Department’s Literature and the Environment; The Blum Center ; UCSB Department of Environmental Studies; UCSB Department of Asian American Studies; UCSB Department of Chicana/o Studies; UCSB Department of English; UCSB Department of Feminist Studies; UCSB Department of Global Studies; UCSB Department of History; UCSB Department of Linguistics; UCSB Department of Religious Studies; UCSB Graduate Division; UCSB Office of Equal Opportunity & Discrimination Prevention; UCSB Office of the Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion; UCSB Executive Vice Chancellor’s Office; UCSB Associated Students (AS); AS Food Bank
