Indigenous Studies Commons^™

To Whom It Does Not Concern, Kylee A. Conriquez

Toyon: Multilingual Literary Magazine

Not published.

The Curse Of El Dorado: How The Californnia Gold Rush Shaped The History Of Hawai'i, Ernesto Coronado

Theses and Dissertations

In the discourse of Western historiography, we fail to account for the importance of the Hawai’ian Islands. American imperialism did not stop with the occupation of the Pacific Coast but continued into the Pacific. In the mid-nineteenth century, Hawai’i and its monarch, King Kamehameha III, stood at the center of a dispute between Britain, France, and the United States. King Kamehameha III used the California Gold Rush and Hawai’i’s location to his advantage to garner capital and prevent the imperial powers from annexing his kingdom. However, even he knew he could not stop the mass wave of Hawai’ians leaving the …

Issue Cover Art: Homecoming Collage, Rhi N. Soto

Amplify: A Journal of Writing-as-Activism

This piece is a found poem/collage made from different magazine cut-outs glued onto red construction paper. What inspired its creation is the book Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi. In this book, Gyasi describes colonialism's over 400-year impact on the continent of Africa, the Indigenous people to those lands, and their ancestors. She does this by writing a historical fiction story of a family that started in what is now considered current-day Ghana, taking place from the mid-1700s to the early 2000s. The family starts with the mother of two sisters, Maame, who leaves her first daughter (Effia) while her village …

Access To Augustana’S Ascension Chapel: Who Gets To Worship?, Jaycee C. Bythewood

Race, Ethnicity, & Religion

This poster seeks to educate readers about the challenges disabled students would face in attending a service in Augustana College’s Ascension Chapel and how inaccessible this actually is using maps crafted by the author with hand-gathered data.

Los Muxes De Juchitán: Resistance, Identity, And Expressions Of Gender In The Zapotec Culture, Leah Mack

Audre Lorde Prize

This work is a cultural analysis of the Indigenous Zapotec third-gender community in Juchitán, México called the muxes. It examines the historical context that explains how the muxes have survived the process of Spanish colonization: a history of resistance and pride in their Indigenous identities. This essay also explains the European norms of the gender binary and how the norms in Juchitán are different and unique. Then, it analyzes a few cultural spaces that are important to the Zapotec Indigenous identity and the gender identity of the muxes, such as the market and the festive celebrations known as Las Velas. …

Trans-Corporealizing Island On Stage: An Eco-Aesthetic Critique In Bare Feet Dance Theatre’S Tsiáh-Thóo And Tai Body Theatre’S Red Earth, Shih-Ming Zeng

Akda: The Asian Journal of Literature, Culture, Performance

This paper explores an eco-aesthetic critique as it intertwines with island consciousness and theatrical performances in Taiwan. Focusing on Bare Feet Dance Theatre’s Tsiáh-Thóo (2020/2021) and TAI Body Theatre’s Red Earth (2019), both renowned for revitalizing Taiwanese cultural traditions, the study examines how these dance-theater productions embody and reactivate the traditional knowledge and/or practices of Han and Indigenous Taiwanese communities in a way that points to contemporary and near-future ecological crises. As an island nation, Taiwan has been dominated by successive imperial and colonial powers as well as by prolonged authoritarian rule over the past century, leading to a disconnection …

Vital Language Practices And Attitudes Among The Lumbee, Deven A. Hull

Senior Theses

The longstanding interest among linguists and linguistic anthropologists in Indigenous languages has increasingly adopted a Critical Indigenous framework, which has been promoted by Indigenous scholars and community leaders as a means of decolonizing “salvage” collection of Indigenous language materials. An important aspect of Critical Indigenous theory is the framework of vitality—that is, an emphasis in literature and community practice on the everyday living and lived elements of culture. One means of promoting Indigenous language within this Critical framework of vitality that is community-centered is centering vital language practices in community-based archives, which seek not to document the language as it …

Sostenibilidad Ambiental En Comunidades Mayas: Riesgos Y Desafíos En La Era Del Cambio Climático, Gertrudis Guzmán Noh Dr.

Journal of Maya Heritage

El presente artículo analiza las dinámicas de sostenibilidad ambiental en comunidades mayas del estado de Yucatán, México, enfocándose en los riesgos ambientales y las respuestas adaptativas desarrolladas frente al cambio climático. El trabajo se desarrolló en tres comunidades: Yaxunah, caracterizada por la producción artesanal y la sobreexplotación del árbol de Chaká (Bursera simaruba); Ixil, que enfrenta disputas territoriales e inundaciones recurrentes; y Sotuta, afectada por la contaminación acuífera derivada de una granja porcina en zonas aledañas. Metodológicamente, se implementó un enfoque de investigación acción participativa que integró diálogo de saberes, matrices de análisis de riesgo y estrategias de intervención comunitaria. …

Reimagining Cultural Intersections: A Book Review Of Maya Christian Murals Of Early Modern Yucatán, Texas University Press, 2024., Lilia Fernández Souza Phd, Lilia Lucia Lizama Aranda Dr., José Israel Herrera

Journal of Maya Heritage

Colonial mural art in the Yucatán Peninsula represents a cultural intersection where Christian iconography and Maya artistic traditions converged in a complex visual dialogue. Maya Christian Murals of Early Modern Yucatán (Texas University Press, 2024) offers a detailed analysis of these pictorial expressions, exploring how Indigenous artists reinterpreted colonial impositions by preserving ancestral techniques, materials, and symbolism. The book proposes a rereading of the murals in Franciscan convents, highlighting their role not only as tools of evangelization but also as evidence of cultural resistance and adaptation.

This review, titled Reimagining Cultural Intersections: A Book Review of Maya Christian Murals of …

Glotopolítica, Identidad Y Lenguas En México En El Siglo Xxi, Marilyn S. Avalos Huesca

Journal of Maya Heritage

Languages, like human beings, have been adapting to the changes produced worldwide, and with this they have grown in number of speakers or disappeared forever from society. These changes are not given arbitrarily, but are conceived from politics and the State, where what should be the best for the speakers, nationalism and society permeates according to the statutes established by those in power. All this from an ethnocentric point of view, which denigrates what is different, what we do not understand, and therefore, we reject. This article analyzes the presence of languages in Mexico from a point of view related …

“Time Is Our Only Ally!”: Indigenous Heroism And Native Slipstream In Turok, Son Of Stone, Justin Wigard

Heroism Science

In this article, I draw on Frederick Luis Aldama’s framework of Graphic Indigeneity to revisit the long history of an Indigenous hero figure in comics: Turok, a pre-Columbian Mandan warrior lost in a prehistoric space known as the Lost Valley. First appearing in Dell’s Four Color Comics #596 (1954), Turok has appeared throughout comics history for nearly 70 years, primarily written and drawn by white creative teams, yet a visually, narratively prominent Indigenous hero in the comics page, one who has periodically been a top-selling popular character in the comics industry. To this end, I argue that Turok is a …

"Insanity" As An American Empire: The Canton Insane Asylum For American Indians, 1902-1934, Thanh Chi Nguyen

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

This graduate thesis involves a retelling of the history of the now defunct Canton Insane Asylum, built in the early 20th century located in Canton, South Dakota. It was America’s first federal psychiatric facility dedicated exclusively for American Indians. The Canton Insane Asylum for American Indians is a touchstone whose microhistory reflects larger political and economic sentiments in both the state of South Dakota and in the United States writ large. Conceiving South Dakota, as first and foremost a white settler society erected on land forcibly wrested from American Indian people, the asylum played an important economic development role and …

What's The Art In Artificial Intelligence?, Emily Verla Bovino

Open Educational Resources

This workbook learns from Black and Indigenous artists working with Artificial Intelligence to confront issues of ethics and aesthetics in its technologies. It features guided learning activities with links to publicly available video lectures and online articles, and includes options for experiential learning through both a tutorial in Midjourney and a visit to the public art collection at York College in Jamaica, Queens. Featured artists include: American Artist, Rizvana Bradley, Beth Coleman, Denise Ferreira da Silva, Suzanne Kite, Sondra Perry, Mimi Onuoha and Alisha B. Wormsley. Works by Martin Puryear and Maren Hassinger are explored in the Midjourney exercise.

About …

Carnival, Ritual, And Race-Thinking In The Bolivian Andes, Ximena Cordova, Adhemar Mercado

All Works

This paper explores the intersection of race, religion, and colonial legacies through the lens of the Oruro Carnival, examining its role in shaping Bolivian identity. Critical religion scholars argue that the entanglement of race and religion is a product of Western modernity and colonialism, which has influenced both historical and contemporary power relations. This framework is applied to analyse the Carnival, where religious practices and festive performances intersect, reflecting colonial efforts at religious conversion and racial categorisation. By focusing on the ethnography of Oruro’s embodied festive practices, this study investigates how the Carnival contributes to the construction of difference amid …

Last Days, Sheila Nayar

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Last Days (2024) directed by Justin Lin.

Endless Cookie, Sheila Nayar

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Endless Cookie (2025), directed by Seth Scriver and Peter Scriver.

Frameworks For Measuring Regenerative Tourism: Supply And Demand Indicators With A Dynamic And Holistic Approach, Asif Hussain

Journal of Sustainability and Resilience

This paper examines regenerative tourism as a holistic approach that goes beyond sustainability by actively restoring and enhancing social-ecological systems. Recognizing tourism’s interconnectedness with economic, social, cultural, and environmental systems, it presents regenerative tourism as a dynamic model integrating supply and demand perspectives to promote innovation, resilience, and renewal. On the supply side, regenerative tourism emphasizes ecological restoration, sustainable practices, economic stability with minimal environmental harm, and authentic experiences. On the demand side, it aligns with the rising preference for ethical, participatory, and immersive tourism, involving tourists as active contributors to destination well-being. The paper highlights the importance of multidimensional …

Developing Sustainable Medical Tourism: A Framework In The Perspective Of Developing Countries, Abel Ansporthy Mamboleo Dr.

Journal of Sustainability and Resilience

This study reviewed the literature to develop the framework for sustainable medical tourism in developing countries. According to the findings, the development of a sustainable tourist destination necessitates the involvement of various stakeholders and adherence to sustainability principles. The framework suggests five essential tasks for sustainable medical tourism development. It contributes to the knowledge of sustainable medical tourism by suggesting the framework for analysing a specific situation for the development of a medical tourist destination. It provides a better understanding of sustainable medical tourism operations by integrating medication, travel, hospitality, and tourism. Moreover, it contributes to the sphere of medical …

Cerrando La Brecha: Difusión Virtual De La Cultura Maya Para La Conciencia Pública Y La Preservación, Ana María Vera Arias, Dr. Lilia Lucia Lizama Aranda, Brenda Marin, José Montesino

Journal of Maya Heritage

En este artículo se aborda el origen, los métodos y el resultado del ciclo de conferencias de divulgación virtual organizado por el Centro del Patrimonio Maya en colaboración con Arqueólogos sin Fronteras del Mundo Maya, esto con el objetivo de compartir conocimientos y generar conciencia sobre diversas facetas de la cultura maya. La pregunta central gira en torno a cómo se pueden comunicar efectivamente las complejidades y la rica herencia de la cultura maya a una audiencia no especializada. Como resultado, encontró que las conferencias de divulgación virtual fueron un método adecuado para ampliar el interés sobre la cultura maya …

Native Organizations Fill Gaps In Federal Support For Tribal Renewable Energy, Healing Native Communities, Corrie Grosse, Dawn D. Davis, Robert Blake, Chéri Smith

Environmental Studies Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Towards The Non-Spectacle: Responses To Necropolitics In The Artwork Of Teresa Margolles And Maya Watanabe, Leslie Anne Condon

Masters Theses

How do we engage with artwork that addresses complicated histories

of colonialism and political violence, specifically intangible and

incomprehensible violence? Mexican artist Teresa Margolles’ 2005 work, Lote

Bravo, is named after and composed of the soil from a mass grave site

discovered in 1995 in the southeastern corner of Ciudad Juárez, a city known

internationally for the femicide that has continued to haunt its streets and

peripheries since the 1990s. Peruvian filmmaker Maya Watanabe’s 2019 film

Liminal cinematically documents the official exhumation of two mass graves

in the Ayacucho and Huánuco regions of the Andes highlands, where

thousands of …

Urban Security And The Crisis Of Values In A Risk Society: Elements For Reflection And Research, Bahamou Abdelilah, Abdelghani Chafik

Journal of Maya Heritage

Abstract: Urban security has become one of the most pressing challenges of the 21st century, shaped by the complexities of modern urban life. As cities grow and evolve, they face unprecedented security challenges that transcend traditional notions of crime prevention. These challenges encompass social, cultural, economic, and psychological dimensions, deeply intertwined with societal transformations.

In the context of what sociologist Ulrich Beck refers to as the "risk society," rapid globalization, technological advancement, and cultural diffusion have disrupted traditional social values. This disruption has created environments of uncertainty and fear, where mutual trust and social cohesion are eroded. As Émile Durkheim …

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.