The Politics of Alaska Native Arts and Culture Panel NAISA 2015

The Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA) 2015 Annual Meeting takes place from June 4-6 in Washington, DC, brought to life hosted by the National Congress of American Indians and other regional institutions. This year there are panels dedicated to Alaska Native Studies with other Alaska Native studies scholars in mixed panels. As 40 percent of the nation's tribes, I'm thrilled to see at all this work at the conference this year. Alaska specific things bolded, below. There maybe more, so we'll see.

2:00 PM – 3:45 PM Friday June 5 

063. Politics of Alaska Native Arts and Culture

Panel
4:00 to 5:45 pm
Hyatt Regency: Redwood Chair:
Thomas Michael Swensen, Colorado State University Participants:
“Propatriation: Tlingit Arts in the NAGPRA Era” Emily Moore, Colorado State University
“Arts and Oral Traditions: Engaging “Storywork” in Higher Education” Beth Leonard, University of
Alaska Fairbanks
“Uncovering a History of Art and Violence through Susie Silook’s The Anti-Depression Uliimaaq.”
Thomas Michael Swensen, Colorado State University 

Thursday June 4 

111. Indigenous Natural law and Natural Resource Governance: Theoretical and Empirical Perspectives
Panel
2:00 to 3:45 pm
Hyatt Regency: Concord
Chair:

TBD
Participants:
Establishing Indigenous Natural Law through Indigenous Ontology & Epistemology Molly Sparhawk, University of Alaska Fairbanks
Re-examining Treaty through Nêhiyaw pimâcihowin (Plains Cree Way of Life): Paulina Reghan
Johnson, Western University
Uncovering the Doctrine of Mana Moana to Better Articulate Maori rights to Water Victoria Skelton,
University of Auckland
Changing corporate culture: Indigenous influence on extractive companies via negotiated agreements
Julia Keenan, The University of Queensland 

Saturday June 6

10:00 AM – 11:45 AM Saturday June 6

158. Ecological Knowledge and Imagination
Paper Session
10:00 to 11:45 am
Hyatt Regency: Yellowstone Chair:
Nancy Van Styvendale, University of Saskatchewan Participants:
"I’m Gonna Buy Me an Island": Road Development and Environmental Criticism in Tomson Highway’s The Rez Sisters Cameron Paul, Univerity of British Columbia
Decolonizing Dispossession: Rethinking Adivasi Land Relations in a Decolonial-Feminist Frame Padini Nirmal, Clark University
Indigenous Knowledge, Oral History and Place: Collaborative Research in a Northern Northwest community Judith D Ramos, University of Alaska, Fairbanks
Views from the End of the World: Conservation Ethics in Leslie Marmon Silko’s Almanac of the Dead and Cormac McCarthy’s The Road Virginia Kennedy, PhD, Otsego Land Trust 

2:00 PM – 3:45 AM Saturday June 6 

162. Modernizing the Trust for Self-Determination: A Policy Forum on Indigenous Education in the U.S.
Roundtable

2:00 to 3:45 pm
Hyatt Regency: Columbia C Chair:
TBD
Presenters:Malia Villegas, National Congress of American IndiansWilliam Mendoza, White House Initiative on American Indian and Alaska Native Education Carrie Billy, American Indian Higher Education ConsortiumBrian McKinley Jones Brayboy, Arizona State University 

2:00-3:45 Saturday June 6

164. Resisting Boundaries
Paper Session
2:00 to 3:45 pm
Hyatt Regency: Congressional D Chair:
Dina Gilio-Whitaker, Center for World Indigenous Studies Participants:
Beading and Walking Sovereignty: Dene Resurgence against Canadian Sovereignty Kelsey Wrightson, University of British Columbia
Indigenous Nations Challenging Transnationalism: Anishinaabe Narratives Crossing and Creating Borders in Northern Minnesota Nicholas Cragoe, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Indigenous (Im)Mobility and the Borderlands of North America Levin Arnsperger, Emory University Between Empires and Frontiers: Alaska Native Sovereignty, Statehood, and U.S. Settler Imperialism
Jessica Leslie Arnett, University of Minnesota 

4:00 PM – 5:45 Saturday June 6
176. Diasporic Times: Complicating Space-Based Approaches to Native American and Indigenous Diasporas
Panel
4:00 to 5:45 pm
Hyatt Regency: Bryce
Chair:
TBD
Participants:
Will Rogers’ Occupations: Temporal Diaspora through Performance Bethany Hughes, Northwestern
University
Remembering Aleut Internment in World War II Alaska Holly Guise, Yale University
Eradication Nation: Disrupting the Time of Settler-Colonialism in Simon Ortiz’s From Sand Creek and Sherwin Bitsui’s Flood Song Christopher Pexa, Cornell University
“A Meeting Place for All”: Cultural Production and Embodied Resistance at Haskell’s 1926
Homecoming and Powwow Beth Eby, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 
Comment:
Jeane Breinig, University of Alaska, Anchorage 

A Tradition of Activism and the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act

My fellow Alaska Native colleagues Maria Shaa Tlaa Williams, Holly Miowak Guise, and I will be presenting the panel "Native activism and the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act," at the 16th Annual American Indian Studies Association Conference hosted by University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, Thursday February 5 & Friday February 6, 2015. Please stop by if you would like to know more about the activist currents in Native Alaska and how they relate to our contemporary legal relationships to land. The abstract of the panel is below, along with our panel details.

The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 was the largest land settlement made by the United States with an indigenous group. With the passage of the settlement the government formed 13 regional and hundreds of village Native-operated for-profit corporations in exchange for Native communities releasing their title claims to the Alaska region. Often maligned by the public, the settlement and their corporations, changed traditional cultural ways of living for Alaska Native communities in a variety of ways. This panel tracks the history of the settlement, with its origins in pre-statehood Alaska amid World War II Native alliances to the rise of the Alaska Federation of Natives through the Alaska Native Solidarity Movement. After giving consideration to the activist currents of political solidarity and their interests in maintaining traditional culture, that preceded the settlement, the panel examines how the introduction of IRA-based tribal governments in the 1990s complicated politics for the Native people, the corporations, and the State of Alaska. This is believed to be the first panel on the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act by Alaska Native scholars at a national conference. 

Session 4      11:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.

Title:  A Tradition of Activism and the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act

Room:  SUB Lobo A&B

Moderator:  Thomas Michael Swensen, Colorado State University

Holly Miowak Guise, History PhD Candidate, Yale University

Alaska Native Solidarity Movements During WWII

Maria Shaa Tlaa Williams, Associate Professor and Director, Alaska Native Studies, University of Alaska-Anchorage
Alaska Native Solidarity Movement and the Leadership Role of Nick Gray

Thomas Michael Swensen, Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies,

Colorado State University
Impossible Sovereignties: The Alaska Federation of Natives, Native Corporations, and Tribal Governments in Alaska

Alaska Native Representation and Knowledge at NAISA 2014: The Native American and Indigenous Studies Association Conference Austin, Texas

See you in Austin!

The Native American and Indigenous Studies Conference will be held in Austin this weekend and my Alaska grown colleagues Professor Jeane Breinig, Associate Professor of English, Associate Dean for the Humanities University of Alaska Anchorage, Professor Maria Shaa Tlaa Williams, Director of Alaska Native Studies, and I will be conducting the panel "Alaska Native Knowledge, Activism, and the Academy." In the conference program you can find the panel listed as "145. Alaska Native Knowledge, Activism, and the Academy [P62]: Meeting Room 416A." It is truly exciting to be able to take part in this wonderful conference with a cohort of brilliant and friendly Indigenous Alaskans. Please come say cama'i, you don't even need to bring Salmon. Below you will find the program information for the panel. Quyanna. 

 

Diagram of the Indigenous Self by Angayuqaq Oscar Kawagley, Ph.D.

Alaska Native Knowledge, Activism, and the Academy [P62]: Meeting Room 416A
2:00 PM – 3:45 PM Saturday May 31

In 2013 the first Alaska Native Studies conference was held at University of Alaska Anchorage, bringing over 350 participants from throughout the state and beyond to discuss issues central to Native Alaska. This conference marked the convergence of Alaskan Indigenous scholars, and their allies, creating a space of inquiry and intellectual self-determination focused distinctly within the Alaska region. The conference was a result of a landmark movement to start the Alaska Native Studies Council in 2012, which drew from a history of Indigenous knowledge activism for its foundation. This panel examines the obstacles and successes faced in the articulations of Indigenous knowledges within institutions of higher learning operated by the State of Alaska. The panel also traces the roots of Alaska Native intellectual, academic, and political activism, as well as the barriers faced in the creation of an Alaska Native Studies Council, Journal, and annual conference.

ORGANIZER

Thomas Michael Swensen, Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies
Institutional affiliation: Colorado State University

CHAIR

Name: Jeane Breinig, Associate Professor of English, Associate Dean for the Humanities
Institutional affiliation: University of Alaska Anchorage

PAPER #1

Maria Shaa Tlaa Williams, Director of Alaska Native Studies

Institutional affiliation: University of Alaska, Anchorage
Title Paper 1: Formation of the Alaska Native Studies Council

Abstract Paper 1: In Spring of 2012 Alaska Native faculty initiated a new organization that was established to empower our place in academia. One of the outcomes of
our nascent group was the first ever Alaska Native Studies Conference that
was held in April 2013 and hosted by the University of Alaska Anchorage.
Academia remains a gatekeeper and placeholder in western knowledge
structures. As Indigenous knowledge finds its place within academia, we,
as Indigenous faculty have to create our own space and place. The
presentation will address how and why Alaska Native faculty established a
new organization and how we are 'dis-establishing' the hierarchy within
academia - making programs that place Indigenous worldview at the center.

PAPER #2
Thomas Michael Swensen
Title Paper 2: The Alaska Native Studies Movement

Abstract: Along with the emergence of the Alaska Native Studies Council, Alaska Native scholars, and their allies, are working within Native communities, universities, and aligned organizations, to promote the study of Alaska Native knowledge and culture as never before. Additionally, Alaska Native scholars are also being hired to tenure track positions throughout the contiguous “Lower-48” and Alaska Native graduate students are pursuing doctorates at record numbers. This critical mass draws from understudied Indigenous Alaskan histories and cultures of activism that have grown distinctly from activism elsewhere in the nation. How does this long-brewing movement contribute to the field of Native American and Indigenous Studies? This paper examines thematic linkages of sovereignty and self-determination Alaska Native studies asserts within the broader field as well as the possible interventions undertaken by these claims.

PAPER #3
Jeane Breinig
Institutional affiliation: University of Alaska Anchorage
Title Paper 3
Transforming the University: Alaska Natives and Higher Education
Abstract: In this panel presentation, I will discuss the process by which Alaska Natives are beginning to gain visibility and voice within the University of Alaska system, consisting of three major campuses in Anchorage, Fairbanks, and Juneau. This presentation includes historical background related to Alaska Natives presence in academia and the roadblocks faced when attempting to make a central place within the university system. Numerous programs and services, ostensibly created to serve Alaska Natives, have existed since the university was formed, yet only a few have made a significant difference with Alaska Native student success. This presentation proposes reasons and offers potential strategies for moving beyond the stasis.