Indigenous Studies Commons^™

Introduction, Daniel Coleman, Ki'en Debicki, Bonnie M. Freeman

WLU Press Books

This is the introductory chapter of Deyohahá:ge:: Sharing the River of Life, edited by Daniel Coleman, Ki'en Debicki, and Bonnie M. Freeman.

Deyohahá:ge:, “two roads or paths” in Cayuga language, evokes the Covenant Chain-Two Row Wampum, known as the “grandfather of the treaties.” Famously, this Haudenosaunee wampum agreement showed how Indigenous people and newcomers could build peace and friendship by respecting each other’s cultures, beliefs, and laws as they shared the river of life.

Written by members of Six Nations and their neighbours, this book introduces readers not only to the 17th-century history of how the Dutch and British …

Decolonizing Health In Madagascar: A Francophone Perspective, Delaney K. Brenner

CISLA Senior Integrative Projects

No abstract provided.

Modeling Wild Rice Bed Health: A Dual Metric Approach For Bed Strength And Invasive Impact, Seth Sisneros-Martinez

Journal of Earth and Life Science

Wild rice (mannoomin; Zizania palustris) is an aquatic grain that grows in slow-moving rivers and shallow bays throughout northern Minnesota. In Headquarters Bay on Leech Lake, wild rice has served as a cultural staple for Indigenous communities for centuries. However, its population has declined in recent years due to multiple environmental issues. One potential contributor is Eurasian watermilfoil (Myriophyllum spicatum; EWM), an invasive species that forms dense mats capable of outcompeting native aquatic vegetation, including wild rice. EWM was first recorded on the southern shoreline of Leech Lake in 2005 and has since become widespread. This study …

La Razón De Ser De Los Metodistas Hoy: Una Lectura Del Sermón “La Gracia Libre” De Juan Wesley Para Nuestros Tiempos, Philip Wingeier-Rayo Ph.D.

Apuntes: Reflexiones teológicas desde el margen hispano

Almost three hundred years have passed since John Wesley began the Methodist movement in England, and some may question its relevant to our current context. This article explores the role of Methodism through a contemporary re-reading of John Wesley's sermon "Free Grace." In dialogue with the current state of social, economic, and spiritual crises, the author compares the Wesleyan doctrine of universal grace and free will with the Calvinist doctrine of predestination and affirms the live-giving doctrine of free grace, which offers hope and social responsibility in the face of inequality and social injustice. By affirming these Wesleyan doctrines, Methodism …

Assessing Understory Along The Elk River (Hikshari') In Headwaters Forest Reserve, Humboldt County, California, Julie R. Meyers, Aliyah M. Ingram, Caleb N. Larkin, Joshua L. Carpenter

Environmental Science & Management Senior Capstones

Northern California’s extensive logging history and lack of forest management has altered old-growth coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) forests, leaving dense, homogenous second and third-growth forest stands. This has led to the use of modern restoration techniques such as variable density thinning (VDT) which aims to rehabilitate old-growth forest conditions by improving stand heterogeneity and light availability for understory species. Our study was done in Headwaters Forest Reserve (HFR) along the Elk River (Hikshari’) Trail in Humboldt County, California. Initially, the project was supervised by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Arcata Field Office. However, the 2025 U.S. government …

The First International Study Into The Characteristics And Statistical Effectiveness Of Treatment For Indigenous And First Nations People Who Have Sexually Offended: A Meta-Analysis And Survey Of Routine Practice, James Finney

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Psycho-criminological literature has continued to examine post-treatment recidivism outcomes homogeneously for people who have sexually offended. Because results indicate clear differences between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people who have sexually offended, this project set out to understand the characteristics and effectiveness of treatment for Indigenous and First Nations people from four jurisdictions: Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States. A strategic three study strategy was implemented and resulted in a systematic narrative synthesis, meta-analysis and survey of sexual offender treatment organisations in Australia. The systematic review used a comprehensive and scientifically rigorous approach to identify studies (k = 14) that …

Drip Hoses And Discipleship: Rethinking The Future Of Theological Education With Justo González, Benjamin D. Wayman Ph.D.

Apuntes: Reflexiones teológicas desde el margen hispano

In early February 2020 I spent a day with Justo González at his home in Decatur, Georgia, to discuss the future of theological education. The following piece showcases the disciplined imagination of one of the greatest church historians of our generation as he explains how drip hoses, worship, baptism, online learning, and more could guide the next generation of theological educators. In what follows, the reader will get a sense for why González thinks theological education is in a place of promise rather than peril.

A principios de febrero de 2020, pasé un día con Justo González en su casa …

Letter From The Editor, Elias H. Lopez D.Min.

Apuntes: Reflexiones teológicas desde el margen hispano

No abstract provided.

Place-Based Learning Practices: A Diptych Case Study Of Human And More-Than-Human Relationality At The Tribal And Western Academic Institutional Interface, Karley M. Rojas-Vienneau

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

The ‘Place-Based Learning Practices Project’ is a graduate project under the Native American Studies Department Rou Dalagurr Food Sovereignty Lab and Traditional Ecological Knowledges Institute (FSL). Making contributions at the intersection of Western academia and Indigenous science, it imagines and realizes content, policies, and protocols surrounding two case studies and the larger cal poly humboldt (cph) institution which respect, honor, and uplift Indigenous sovereignty and resurgence in partnership with the Blue Lake Rancheria Tribe and the greater regional tribal community. Encompassing two projects internal and external to the institution, I aim to address the construction of controlled and protective environments …

Kelp Guardians Can Save The World: A Food Sovereignty Lab Report Of The Ghvtlh-K’Vsh Shu'-Srnelh-'I~ (Kelp Guardians) California Sea Grant, Delaney A. Schroeder-Echavarria

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

As partners of the Ghvtlh-k’vsh Shu'-srnelh-'i~ (Kelp Guardians) California Sea Grant project, the Rou Dalagurr Food Sovereignty Lab and Traditional Ecological Knowledges Institute has actively engaged with local educators, Tribal organizations, and Tribal Nations to create youth-centered curricula, researched through a community-based participatory research lens. This is demonstrated through an innovative approach to recruiting and retaining Indigenous youth and community interest in coastal and marine ecosystems and resources by connecting with Indigenous cultural practices, Indigenous sciences, and community-based programs to encourage future careers. The Kelp Guardians project is led by the Tolowa Dee-ni’ Nation (TDN or Nation) and includes various …

Poesía Mapuche Y Vasca Como Herramienta De Resistencia Cotidiana, Paula Ruiz Santamaría

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

This dissertation examines the work of contemporary Mapuche poets Adriana Pinda, Maribel Mora Curriao and Roxana Miranda Rupailaf, alongside Basque poets Leire Bilbao and Miren Agur Meabe, who write partially or entirely in their native languages— Mapudungun and Basque— as a form of resistance against the historical and ongoing imposition of Spanish. Through their poetry, these poets defend their identities and cultural heritage, invoking their matrilineal lineage to remember and heal. They also subvert traditional Catholic prayers by modifying them into invocations to Goddesses, casting spells of liberation of the female body, denouncing patriarchal violence and recreating alternative worlds. Their …

The Masa That Holds Us: Indigenous Epistemologies And The Food We Share, Necahual Gamboa

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

The U.S. higher education system is built on histories and infrastructures of colonization, white supremacy, and western imperialism. Among many of the institutions produced from a history of domination and genocide, the systems of higher education need to shift their focus to decolonial frameworks including Indigenous epistemologies (ways of knowing and being) in order to work toward true reparations between these imperial systems and the Indigenous people they have displaced and disregarded. This project brings these systems into question, but also uses art, prose, and storytelling to better align with what it means or what it could look like to …

Campesino World-Building: Stories Of Migration, Memory, And Care In The Tension Of The Colonial Frame, Chelsea Ríos Gómez

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Campesinos, often reduced to the label of “farmworkers”, are too often seen only through the lens of their labor within profit-driven systems. This thesis disrupts that limited narrative by illuminating the rich, expansive nature of vivencias campesinas, ways of being that transcend capitalist measures of value. These vivencias are lived, embodied experiences rooted in campesino lifeways, encompassing cultural, spiritual, and relational practices that nurture and sustain life.

My research is guided by four central questions: (1) In what ways have campesinos in pixley resisted exploitative labor systems, and how can this resistance be understood as a form of care labor? …

An Overview Of Nagpra And The 2024 Revisions, Emily V. Owens-Barber

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Section 11 of the National Museum of the American Indian Act (NMAIA) was added to public law in 1989. This required the Smithsonian Museum to repatriate any human remains or funerary objects associated with Native American Ancestry back to their tribes. In 1990, The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) was added to federal legislation expanding on this section and requiring that every federally funded institution in the United States that held Native American Remains or funerary objects in their collection must follow this regulation to continue to receive federal funding. Nearly 33 years later in the autumn …

Huchum: The Legacy Of Fire Suppression, Indigenous Land Management, And Media Representation, Carolyn Coyne

Pomona Senior Theses

In my thesis, I examine how various forms of news media from the 1900s to present day in Ohlone territory have framed a particular hegemonic ideology around fire that matches early colonial journal entries – an ideology that is fueled by fear, sensationalism, and exclusion and directly commits violence against the Ohlone people. I investigate this time period because this is when modern news corporations, like The New York Times, rose into prominence. Specifically, I question how media representations of fire inform regulations over controlled burns; what are the similarities in discourse between media framing and policy? What tactics are …

[Review Of The Book Inscribing Sovereignties: Writing Community In Native North America, By P. H. Round]., Drew Lopenzina

English Faculty Publications

[Introduction] Phillip H. Round's new book follows in a line of intellectual enquiries over the last 20 years, including Hilary Wyss’ Writing Indians (2003), Lisa Brooks’ The Common Pot (2008), my own Red Ink (2012), and Round's previous monograph, Removable Type (2010), that delve into the nature of the written word and how it worked within the context of settler colonialism to transform Indigenous lives on the North American continent. As established by these previous works of scholarship, western literacy was not the miraculous portal into civilization that settler colonial agents often purported it to be. Because Native peoples already …

Indigenous-Industrial Heritage: Centering Indigenous Voices In Minnesota's Iron Range, Larissa A. Juip

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Industrial heritage refers to the material remains, sites, landscapes, and practices associated with industrial and extractive activities. As a field, it has historically been concerned with the conservation, management, and interpretation of industrial sites and activities and forms a central narrative within Minnesota's museums. Yet such accounts often privilege object-centered narratives while silencing the presence, knowledge, and contributions of Indigenous and Descendant communities, obscuring their enduring relationships to extractive landscapes. In recent decades, critiques of traditional industrial heritage approaches have identified gaps in the discipline related to the exclusion of marginalized populations, including Indigenous Peoples. Minnesota is home to eleven …

Plantation Matters: The Black Production Of Space In Southeastern Louisiana, 1830 To 1912, Noura Jabir

Pomona Senior Theses

Taking one Louisiana sugar plantation as a starting place, I demonstrate how African-descended laborers created life-sustaining spaces within/beyond the death-driving plantation complex during and after slavery.

Occupied Lands, Occupied Histories: Activist-Historians And The Red Power Movement, Elena Rose Paz Thompson

History - Master of Arts in Teaching

I. Synthesis Essay.............................4

II. Primary Document Collection......25

III. Textbook Critique........................37

IV. New Textbook Writing.................42

Cultural Model Of Indigenous Custom Marriage, Maria G. Stapleton

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This thesis examines and documents the tradition of Indigenous Custom Marriage (ICM) practiced in a semi-rural community in central Mexico. The arrival of Spaniards to Mesoamerica during the sixteenth century brought new forms of marriage to the region, those of the Christian religion and of the Spanish crown’s laws. While these new forms slowly gained acceptance, the traditional pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican form of getting married has endured over the intervening centuries up through the present. This traditional form of marriage is not monolithic, but shows variation across the diverse ethnic groups, communities, and geographic regions of Mesoamerica. The community studied, Tlanalapa, …

Feminine Felons: Violent Offenders' Intersectional Experiences In Twentieth-Century Montana, Cassidy Ann Vander Voort

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This paper explores the treatment of violent female offenders in Montana in both the media and prison system from 1900-1960. Women of all races faced gender discrimination from both the carceral system and popular media. Local newspapers sensationalized crimes committed by female offenders, portraying them as women who lived outside of the expectations of womanhood in the twentieth century. Newspapers and courts placed women into two categories: “mad/sad” female offenders, who received forgiveness for their crimes; or unforgivable, “bad” offenders. Crime did not determine these categorizations; instead, gender expectations of the white middle class shaped female criminals’ treatment. If these …

Indigenous Access And Use On Private Land: A Toolkit For Heart Of The Rockies Land Trust Members, Ian James Craighead

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

"A Changed Understanding Of Our Present": Moby-Dick As Prophetic Ecological Activism, Katie Ann Schini

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Moby-Dick: Or, The Whale is a classic of American literature, spanning multiple genres and remaining culturally relevant nearly 175 years after its original publication. Though on the surface Moby-Dick reads as an adventure story of a man who experiences the whaling industry firsthand, Herman Melville’s text continues to invite new generations of readership through the framework of the twenty-first century climate crisis.

In this thesis, I position Moby-Dick as a text that can be used to understand our modern society’s current dispositions of ecological grief. My thesis operates at the intersection of three main literary critical theories: ecocriticism, affect, and …

America's Highest Stage: Utopians, Capitalists, And Trail Runners On Pikes Peak, Mitchell Morris

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Since ancient times, Pikes Peak’s prominence on the land has endowed it with prominence in the minds of all who have lived around it. This ancient dynamic was reinforced in the nineteenth century by the famed expedition of Lieutenant Zebulon Pike in 1806 and the Pike’s Peak Gold Rush in 1858. Since then, the mountain has become a stage. Standing tall, visible from hundreds of miles around, and known from coast to coast, Pikes Peak is a platform that has attracted diverse historical actors to come and perform, elevate their endeavors to new heights, and demonstrate what they, and people …

The Devil In The Forest: How Le Guin Subverts A Tired Trope, Andrew Debella

UKL: The Journal of Ursula K. Le Guin Studies

Scholars understand Ursula K. Le Guin's 1972 The Word for World is Forest as a critique of settler-colonial history, but no academic interest has been given to how this novel also comments on the American religious imagination. This article reveals that Le Guin's allegory to Vietnam replicates the 'devil in the forest' trope to expose how a religiously inspired good/evil dichotomy shaped xenophobic attitudes toward the Vietnamese during the 1970s. By tracing the depictions of Native Americans through American fiction and Captivity Narratives, this article further demonstrates how Le Guin’s novel deploys similar tropes to expose and critique their influence …

Art/Place Making In A Settler Colonial Context: A Critical Place Inquiry On The Haldimand Tract/Kitchener-Waterloo From A White Settler Perspective, Haley Sheppard

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Although critical place scholars implicate artists in settler colonial processes of placemaking, there is little information on how white settler artists (WSAs) might use their creative practice to support practices of accountability and solidarity with Indigenous resurgence. This research responds to this gap by investigating the creative practices of WSAs located on the Haldimand Tract/in Kitchener-Waterloo (KW), and how they might approach critical, contextual practices in their creative work. A critical place inquiry was combined with ethnographic research principles and a transformative critical research paradigm. Six WSAs participated in mobile interviews, which took place in a location significant to them. …