Seminars

In the presentation, the speaker will reflect on the impact of the “war on drugs” on the bodies and territories of the indigenous peoples of Mexico. Taking as an analytical window the life histories of women victims of sexual violence in militarized and paramilitarized regions, and the experience of relatives of disappeared persons, this presentation will establish connections between occupation through the violation and control of indigenous women’s bodies, the disappearance of racialized youth and the occupation of their territories and dispossession of their natural resources. These processes take place simultaneously and respond to the neocolonial logic of capitalism, within which gender and race inequalities are essential for their reproduction.

Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations produce and create complex visual vocabularies through a range of mediums, including weaving, sewing, carving, painting, beading, embroidering, engraving, and silk screen printing, among others. Nuu-chah-nulth translates as “the people from the arc of mountains jutting out of the sea” and the name declares the centrality of Nuu-chah-nulth homelands, which include sea and land territories along the west coast of what is colonially known as Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada. Nuu-chah-nulth design work likewise asserts the centrality of haahuulthii (territories). As a form of visual sovereignty, crest images and design elements declare rights, sustain oral history traditions, create space, assert Indigenous presence, and resist oppressive and violent forces ignited by colonialism, capitalism, and racism. The longstanding history of exchange between Indigenous nations along the Northwest Coast and later, trade with Maatmalthnii/Mamalthnii (non-Indigenous people, directly translated as “people/person floating around on the water without a home”), has fueled dynamic and resplendent design work that continues to convey distinctive meanings and aesthetics of Nuu-chah-nulth nations and families. In this presentation, I draw upon ethnographic research that began in 2009, which included collaborative filmmaking, making and co-designing clothing and regalia, and travel to archives and museums across North America and Europe. I will discuss a series of documentary films about Nuu-chah-nulth design work, which are now part of the permanent display in the recently renovated American Museum of Natural History’s Northwest Coast Hall: Histakshitl Ts’awaatskwii (We Come From One Root) focuses on thliitsapilthim (large ceremonial screens); Mamuu (To Weave) explores survivance and intergenerational teachings about cedar and grass weavings amid environmental destruction caused by the logging industry; and Mapping Regalia in Hupacasath Territory, which examines the deep connections between material culture and specific places in Nuu-chah-nulth haahuulthii. I conclude by exploring the dynamic nature of Nuu-chah-nulth fashion and the complex ways it articulates with, challenges, produces and transforms relationships to places, people, and power.

The collective human rights to which Indigenous peoples are entitled are part and parcel of seminal international law documents that should guide the United Nations’ approach to Indigenous peoples. Yet, the human rights-based approach largely uses the language of individual human rights. How does a collective human rights-based approach look like in international partnerships focusing on Indigenous peoples? What role does human rights education play for Indigenous peoples in the spread and fulfillment of their collective human rights? In her doctoral dissertation[1], Romina Quezada studied whether education projects in Bolivia administered by the Indigenous Navigator international partnership enhanced Indigenous participation, notably in the east of the country. The theoretical framework built on political science, education, and development studies. The results touched on the assets of the human rights-based approach for all partners, with human rights education being only mentioned as an added benefit. In this seminar, Quezada incorporates to her analysis human rights education definitions and models, notably those put forth by Tibbitts[2], to expand on her conclusions about the Indigenous Navigator’s potential for transformation.

In this talk, we offer a critical analysis of education policy research by, for, and with the 34 million Indigenous Peoples in the vast region occupied by Canada, Mexico, and the United States (US). In each of these countries, Indigenous Peoples have persisted despite colonial and state-sponsored oppression. Across the varied contexts and through generations, our chapter centers on growing Indigenous language, culture, and education resurgence movements. It does this by considering the current policy moment and paths forward in education policy research, practice, and praxis involving Indigenous Peoples in Canada, Mexico, and the US. The talk will be primarily on Canada and Mexico based on Dr. Michelle Pidgeon’s and Dr. Regina Cortina’s contribution to a collaborative work between scholars Teresa McCarty, Angelina Castagno, Regina Cortina, Michelle Pidgeon, and Lorena Sanchez Tyson. This forthcoming publication is titled “Education Policy Research By, For, and With Indigenous Peoples in Canada, Mexico, and the United States,” in Lora Cohen-Vogel, Janelle Scott, and Peter Youngs (Eds.), Handbook of Education Policy Research, 2nd Volume. American Education Research Association, forthcoming

Discourses on racialization throughout the Americas are often described in opposition to each other: U.S. racial understandings are often understood into the Black/white binary; in comparison, Latin American racial formations are placed into a spectrum of racial identifications. However, this configuration crumbles through conversations on lived experience, embodiment, and crossings across spatiotemporal terrain. Utilizing ethnographic and archival work, I ask: How do Black/Indigenous understandings of relation interrupt not only the (re)production of dichotomous spatial-racial logics but also present us with an alternative way of understanding race throughout the hemisphere?

Speakers: Juan Carlos Jintiach, Srio of AGTC, and Nina Kantcheva, UNDP; Balkissou Buba, Vice National Coordinator of the Network for Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities for Sustainable Management of Forest Ecosystems in Central Africa (REPALEAC) (Congo Basin); Cristiane Pankararú, Representative of APIB (Brazil); Gustavo Sánchez, President of Red MOCAF (Mexico); Giuseppe Villalaz, Representative of the Congress of the Comarca Guna Yala (Panama)