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.

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.

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.

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.