Director's Note
The anticipation of another fall semester grows as our campus prepares for a return to in-person classes, lively conversations and reconnections this fall. This month is often a time of transition between the fun and more relaxed summer months and preparing for the intensity of the academic year. We have some transitions at NAISI, as well, to share ...
The first is the announcement of our new Core Steering Committee. Joe Meisel (who served during the 2020/21 year) will be joined by Geri Augusto and Paja Faudree for the upcoming year. Both Dr. Augusto and Dr. Faudree have served NAISI over the years, contributing to the expanding academics and community that is the focus of our office. We are excited to welcome them to the NAISI Core Steering Committee!
We want to thank our inaugural Tribal Community Member in Residence, Dr. Karen Craddock, for all she has contributed this past year. As TCMR, Dr. Craddock has served as an important support person and mentor for Native and Indigenous students at Brown, and has contributed guidance on how we can continue this work moving forward over the coming year (and beyond). We are very grateful for the year she has been with NAISI.
Another transition has been one of new growth: the revitalization of the NAISI garden plot at Brown's Urban Environmental Lab (UEL)! Thanks to ambitious and energetic undergraduate students Raelee Fourkiller, Kaliko Kalāhiki, Laney Knudson (and friends), the garden is again thriving and we can look forward to a fall harvest of some fresh vegetables! Watch for more pictures in the September newsletter of our harvest, hopefully accompanied by an early fall gathering to enjoy some of the harvest and celebrate our return to campus.
We hope everyone can find some time to enjoy the tail end of summer during the month of August. We will see you back at 67 George St. soon!
Rae Gould and the NAISI Staff
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Banner Image: The banner of this month's newsletter is an image of the NAISI garden, which a team of undergraduates is revitalizing this summer to grow tomatoes, squash, zucchini, beans, and more. [Photo by Kaliko Kalāhiki.]
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Dr. Patricia E. Rubertone recently spoke with New Books Network host Ryan Tripp about her latest book: Native Providence: Memory, Community, and Survivance in the Northeast (University of Nebraska Press, 2020). Listen to the podcast episode here.
Dr. Mark S. Cladis recently completed the book, In Search of a Course (Regal House Publishing, 2021), which, among other things, narrates the education he received from Diné (Navajo) and Blackfeet educators. In late September, Dr. Cladis will be visiting Haskell Indian Nations University and presenting a lecture on the intersection between environmental spirituality and environmental justice among the Diné (Navajo) and other indigenous peoples.
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Fall 2021 Course Offerings Related to Native American and Indigenous Studies
While NAISI does not yet host classes with our own course code, our visiting instructors and affiliated faculty teach the following Native American and Indigenous Studies courses in departments across Brown. See our website for the Fall 2021 line-up and previously taught courses.
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The Native American and Indigenous Studies Initiative garden plot at Brown's Urban Environmental Lab is up and running!
Raelee Fourkiller (they/she) Cherokee Nation ‘22 writes: "The garden has become an important space for me, to hold some love in. I’ve enjoyed gathering with my community, to share in laughter and patience. The last year has been rough for a number of reasons, but lately I’ve been reflecting on the amount I’ve grown - especially mentally and spiritually. I see this garden plot as a metaphor for the little seeds of hope we plant and nourish, watching their tendrils reach for the sun, I’m reminded of how our bodies are nourished by the sun and rain in the same way. I love getting dirt stuck under my fingernails, feeling like I’m using my body in meaningful ways. To cultivate the soil and (hopefully) harvest in the late summer months, but even so, connecting back with my community and sharing in the teaching of slowness that gardening always offers us."
[Photos by Raelee Fourkiller and Kaliko Kalāhiki.]
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External Events & Opportunities
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Oak Lake Writers' Society to Host Virtual Event With Lakota Author Joseph Marshall IIII on August 5, 2021
The Oak Lake Writers' Society, a tribal group for D/N/Lakota writers, is hosting a virtual event for Native students and allies with Lakota author Joseph Marshall III. During this special session, Mr. Marshall will speak with students about culture-based writing and using literature to empower our tribal nations and communities. See the attached flyer for more information.
This special event is scheduled Thursday, August 5th from 5:00 PM to 6:00 PM CST. It is free and open to all high school and college students. Space is limited! Please register here: Emerging Tribal Writers RSVP (google.com).
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October 20-22, 2021
The Third Barry Lawrence Ruderman Conference on Cartography: Indigenous Mapping
The conference, to be held digitally, is hosted by the David Rumsey Map Center at Stanford Libraries, which sits on the ancestral land of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe. It is sponsored and co-organized by Barry Lawrence Ruderman Antique Maps Inc., whose shop is located on the ancestral land of the Kumeyaay peoples. Register here
[Left: Taken from Antonio Garcia Cubas, "Cuadro historico-geroglifico de la peregrinacion de las tribus Aztecas que poblaron el Valle de Mexico. Num. I," 1858. David Rumsey Map Collection, David Rumsey Map Center, Stanford Libraries.]
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Tuition Assistance and Other Support from Rhode Island Indian Council
The Rhode Island Indian Council, a Regional Urban Indian Center, is a contractor of the US Department of Labor headquartered in Providence. They help Native American graduates, students, and non-students navigate the worlds of higher education and job training by assisting with tuition expenses, book and supplies expenses, and more.
Students interested in their services should email the Providence location case manager, Chester Bliss at cbliss@rhodeislandindiancouncil.org.
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Call for Papers: Indigenous Borderlands in North America
Nov. 3-4, 2022 - University of New Mexico
Scholars of borderlands have made important contributions to our understanding of contingent identities and encounters, the historical roles of local actors, and the ambiguous nature of power in North America. In recent years, scholarship on Indigenous sovereignty, kinship, and relationality has fostered new conversations about Native territoriality, place-making, and ways of belonging. Indigenous ideas of place and community are reframing how we understand histories of border spaces, boundaries, crossings, and border towns in North America. Together, scholars and Indigenous communities are making important interventions from the intersections of Indigenous histories, epistemologies, and politics in historical and contemporary borderlands in North America.
This symposium invites paper submissions to develop new borderland and border-crossing approaches that center Indigenous peoples, homelands, political concerns, and related dynamics--temporally and spatially expanding borderlands frameworks. We particularly encourage papers that approach borderlands around a broad array of themes including (but not limited to):
- Migrants and mobilities, including Indigenous peoples as migrants, exiles, and refugees engaged in expansion, relocation, and diasporas.
- Kinship and intimacy, including issues related to gender, identity, families, and other-than-human relatives.
- Shared and contested spaces, including networks and entangled spaces, protected spaces of nature (parks, national forests, marine sanctuaries), and environmental concerns (toxicity, petrochemical development, climate change).
- Sovereignty and self-determination, including spaces of plural or nested sovereignties, political and spatial boundaries, jurisdictional issues, and political organizing.
- Violence, unfreedom, and resistance, including border town violence, slavery, and the carceral state.
- Frameworks and language that move beyond the settler-Indigenous binary to include Black, Asian, Asian American, Latinx, Pacific Islander peoples, and various other communities in the borderlands.
We are particularly eager for proposals from tribal nations and Indigenous organizations or scholars working with Indigenous communities. We are also open to non-traditional proposals and formats that encourage us to think critically about Indigenous borderlands.
We plan for this conference to be the first iteration of a set of symposia around the topic of Indigenous borderlands. These will include workshop experiences for the presenters and will result in an edited volume or special issue of a journal. Additional outcomes tied to the needs of Indigenous communities and Native nations will also be pursued.
Paper abstracts of around 350 words and a two-page CV or resume (one per participant) should be submitted by November 10, 2021, to cntrsw@unm.edu. Abstracts will be reviewed and all participants notified by November 30, 2021. Accepted papers of 7,000-10,000 words should be submitted in early October 2022, and will be distributed in advance to symposium participants. They will be presented and workshopped at a scholarly colloquium at the University of New Mexico on November 3-4, 2022. Limited travel and accommodation support will be available.
Symposium Coordinating Committee
- Rani-Henrik Andersson, Department of Cultures, University of Helsinki
- Boyd Cothran, History Department, York University
- Elizabeth Ellis (Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma), History Department, New York University
- Nakia D. Parker, History Department, Michigan State University
- Joshua L. Reid (Snohomish Tribe of Indians), History and American Indians Studies Departments, Director of the Center for the Study of the Pacific Northwest, University of Washington
- Samuel Truett, History Department, Director of the Center for the Southwest, University of New Mexico
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![[Image Attribution: Taken from Antonio Garcia Cubas, "Cuadro historico-geroglifico de la peregrinacion de las tribus Aztecas que poblaron el Valle de Mexico. Num. I," 1858. David Rumsey Map Collection, David Rumsey Map Center, Stanford Libraries.]](https://mcusercontent.com/db0b2fc1739c7a3c1c5bdc1c2/images/69e4f909-5485-8c6c-080c-c23563466827.jpg)
