Indigenous Studies

This is an interdisciplinary group of graduate students interested in or pursuing work in Indigenous Studies with the goal of staying on top of the most recent American Indian and Indigenous studies scholarship as part of our professional development. The field of American Indian and Indigenous studies, formally institutionalized by universities such as UCLA and UW in the 1970s, inherently works across disciplines for the purpose of decolonizing the academy and centering Indigenous approaches to knowledge production that do not easily fall in Western academic disciplinary categories. As the field continues to grow following the establishment of a professional organization (the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association) in 2008, it is critical for graduate students entering as professionals to be prepared to engage in robust interdisciplinary conversations and collaborations. 

Graduate students come together to discuss contemporary scholarship that may not engage directly in their own work, but that is helpful to know as they position ourselves as competitive scholars in Indigenous studies. By reading broadly and engaging in robust cross-disciplinary conversations, they cultivate skills as relational and reflexive scholars that is beneficial to their own work and to the communities with which they work.