Our Research
Keynote Speaker E. Kalani Flores at the 2017 Indigenous Storytelling and Law Symposium
CNAIS supportshigh-visibility speakers, colloquia, conferences, presentations, and exhibitions on Native and Indigenous topics. We support existing research and creative work, as well as seed work, and prefer to support work that directly benefits Native and Indigenous communities.Research funding is open to tenured and tenure-track faculty, teaching faculty, and graduate students in all schools and colleges of the campus.
Our 2024 Projects
NATALIE AVALOS, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF ETHNIC STUDIES• CNAIS CORE FACULTY MEMBER
This project consists of cultivating mushroom mycelium for use in soil remediation with the intention of creating healthy and resilient soil for further cultivation of Indigenous foods, medicines, and the revitalization of ancient crops. This project will cultivate mushroom mycelium and use that mycelium to inoculate small farm plots and garden beds tended to and in service of local Indigenous people. The goal is to allow mycelium to remove and transform toxins in the soil while promoting a healthy ecosystem for sustainable food and medicine cultivation.Each piece of land inoculated and cultivated will be treated as its own experiment to inform planning and decision-making for future mycoremediation projects of Indigenous farms and gardens. For this project, Dr. Avalos works with Carissa Garcia (Picuris Pueblo) a Denver-based writer, veteran, DEI educator, and mushroom cultivator with a commitment to land-based healing for Indigenous people. Garcia will implement this soil remediation project and Dr. Avalos will study how this work heals Indigenous relations to land in an urban context through ethnographic interviews. This mycoremediation project is part of a greater Mushroom Resilience Project that Garcia has been working on that offers education, workshops, Indigenous youth mentorship, organic edible mushrooms, and medicinal extracts to Indigenous communities. At its core, this is a land-based healing project that merges Indigenous sciences, culture, and wisdom with western science for land and human rematriation. Creating healthy farms and gardens for cultivating traditional and medical foods can address common climate and health issues directly impacting Indigenous people. Indigenous agriculture is one of many ways we can reclaim our power as Indigenous people for self-determination.
DORIS LOAYZA, TEACHING ASSISTANT PROFESSOR AT THE LATIN AMERICAN AND LATINX STUDIES CENTER
The Colectivo Quechua Central in Peru works to revitalize and promote the historically marginalized Central Quechua variant and culture. Doris Loayza, CU Boulder Quechua instructor (and Colectivo member) will work with the Colectivo members to record audio versions of their online newspaper and help distribute to radio stations in order to expand their audience, engagement and impact in rural and urban areas.The Colectivo Quechua Central is a collective of Quechua language activists, teachers, communicators and a linguist founded in 2017 by three members from the Central Highlands of Peru: school teacher Humberto León Huarac (Ancash), social communicator Dalila Salas Alarcón (Huánuco), and linguist Franklin Espinoza Bustamante (Huánuco). Their mission is to help revitalize and promote the historically marginalized Central Quechua variant language and culture through media, education, and outreach.One of their most important activities is the publication of , the first periodical published in the Central Quechua variant, featuring news and articles about politics, health, cultural traditions, poetry and storytelling, food, and more. However,Quechua has always been primarily an oral language. Most native speakers do not read (or write) in Quechua. Mama Raywana contains a wealth of stories and cultural knowledge produce by a wide range of Quechua speakers,but the audience to read it is very limited. Furthermore, especially in the more rural areas, many speakers are not on social media, where the Collective mainly shares and aims to share their work.In June and July 2024, Dr. Loayzawill travel to Peru to work with members of the Collective to record Quechua audio versions of the main articles and stories from past and new editions of the online newspapers. They will also record new stories and interviews with members and edit them into a podcast format to engage the audience. The team will then work to distribute them to radio stations in the Central Andes of Peru where this variant is mostly spoken. In addition, they will post the recordings and podcasts online on the organization’s website/blog, and promote them on social media. These audio recordings and podcasts can be used as part of teaching materials for instruction of the language and culture(including Quechua language instruction at CU Boulder).
KEVIN RICH, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF THEATRE & DANCE
This proposal seeks funding to help support the first annual First Storyteller’s Festival in October 2024. This pilot program is being developed in collaboration with Creative Nations and the Dairy Arts Center, Chautauqua, CNAIS and the CU Boulder Department of Theatre and Dance and will include a workshop production at Chautauqua as well as staged readings, educational workshops, and panel discussions at various venues around Boulder.Marty Strenczewilk is an Ojibwe storyteller, playwright, librettist, and lyricist, registered with the Sault Ste. Marie tribe. Marty has identified a strong need for an annual event to develop works for the stage by Native artists, citing a lack of institutions in North America focused on dedicated development for Indigenous works for the stage. His vision for the annual festival includes staged readings of new works, workshops of pieces ready for the next stage of development, panel discussions geared toward network building, educational programming to support the growth of the next generation of Native storytellers, and a year-round storyteller’s collective that meets and works collaboratively to help develop each other’s work. He sees an opportunity for Boulder to be the hub for an annual conference/festival that becomes the premiere festival for new works for the stage by Indigenous artists, becoming a direct pipeline to national theatres.As the festival grows, organizers seea variety of positive outcomes, including bringing exceptionally talented Indigenous storytellers, directors, and performers to campus to perform and develop their craft; contributing new works to the regional theatre circuit that otherwise may not have been developed; and creating opportunities for our campus community to support, engage with and learn from theatre-makers who are creating work based on traditions and culture from the lands upon which American universities sit.
LEILA GOMEZ, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF WOMEN & GENDER STUDIES• CNAIS CORE FACULTY MEMBER
The “3rd Celebrating the Indigenous Americas” week, organized by the Latin American and Latinx Studies Center at CU Boulder (LALSC), was held March 11 to 15, 2024
“Celebrating the Indigenous Americas” is a virtual and in-person week of panels and roundtables that focus on North American and Latin American Indigenous languages, cultures, politics, science, and arts. This year, the theme of the week was “South-North/North-South: Transhemispheric Dialogues.” All the events of the “Celebrating the Indigenous Americas” week were open to national and international communities, and addressed topics such as Indigenous Latinx migration, land and language reclamation, Queer Indigenous studies, university-community partnerships, broadcasting, communication, and many more. Organizers invited audiences to join us for an Andean music workshop, film screenings and games in Indigenous languages. The two Keynote Speakers were Dr. Emil’ Keme, a Maya K’iche’ professor of English and Indigenous Studies at Emory University and Dr. Karyn Recollet, a Cree assistant professor of Women and Gender Studies at the University of Toronto. An additional twenty Indigenous and Native American scholars, artists, and leaders across the Americas were part of the roundtables on “Indigenous Media Initiatives North and South,” “Latinx Indigeneities / Indigenous Migrations (from Abya Yala to Turtle Island),” “Queer Indigenous Studies: Critical Interventions,” “Challenges of Teaching Indigenous Languages in Higher Education,” “Restitutions and Museums in the Global North,” “Land Back: What Does It Mean for Universities?,” “Indigeneizing Democracies,” and “Indigenous languages and their speakers: Scientific and Professional Perspectives in Southern Peruvian Quechua and Beyond.” All of the speakers came from a wide range of professions in the arts, humanities and social sciences, and the whole week was a truly interdisciplinary endeavor led by faculty and students of different departments such as Women and Gender Studies, Anthropology, Education, Geography, and Ethnic Studies, as well as the University Libraries, the Museum of Natural Sciences, and the Center for Native American and Indigenous Studies at CU Boulder.
JOHNETTE MARTIN, GRADUATE STUDENT AT THE AMERICAN MUSIC RESEARCH CENTER
Māori Tangihanga mourning rituals use wailing to express grief. These communicative and musical elements appear in mourning rituals across Polynesia. An affective experience for the informed listener, Tangihanga includes karanga (calls), whaikōrero (speeches) tangi (song/chant), and tears. In August 2024, Johnette Martinwill travel to New Zealand to interview scholars and practitioners and observe Tangihanga, as well as search local libraries and archives. Martin will need to do this research to complete a chapter of their dissertation, which focuses on the portrayal of Māori ceremonial practices as presented in Witi Ihimaera’s book, Whale Rider (2002), and Niki Caro’s film, Whale Rider (2002) based on Ihimaera’s book. One of the chapters centers on the Māori funeral ceremony of Tangihanga and includes an examination of the depictions featured in the book and film as visual images and soundtrack. Martin will conductinterviews and participant/observer by visiting with Māori cultural practitioners and attending performances and ceremonies.This project is inherently tied to the goal of scrutinizing portrayals of the Māori and using the techniques of ethnographic and archival research to empower and amplify the voices and experiences of cultural insiders.
MEGAN HARDIE, GRADUATE STUDENT IN ANTHROPOLOGY
As seen in issues of climate change and resource accessibility, sustainable development – the combination of prosperity, inclusiveness, environmental sustainability, and peace – must become an essential priority for research and reform. Sustainable development requires a social dimension, and a history of human experience is reflected in the (bio)archaeological record. The larger HNDS-R project(“Collaborative Research: HNDS-R: Human Networks, Sustainable Development, and Lived Experience in a Nonindustrial Society”) utilizes and expands existing scientific research infrastructures to investigate the specific role of human networks in sustainable (and non-sustainable) development in Ancestral Pueblo societies of the Southwest. This project provides an opportunity for descendant community collaborators to propose research questions, reinforce traditional histories, and occupy a research platform through which they can continue to tell their own stories.In this project, osteobiographies will be biographical accounts of Ancestors developed through evidence preserved in skeletal and material remains, associated community histories, and consented traditional knowledge. This will be an opportunity for innovative collaborative work on human health and security using data from recent compilations of biological evidence, including NM-BIOARCH. Together, community representatives/collaborators and bioarchaeologists will construct narrative osteobiographies that will connect aspects of macro-scale analyses to the lived experiences of individual Ancestors. These newly produced lines of evidence can help the project researchers assess the effects of changing network structures for the provision of UN Sustainable Development Goals, understanding life histories in the context of a changing environment across a diverse geographical area for over eight centuries. As a collaborative team, they will investigate human socio-spatial networks at both local and regional scales to understand how these relationships contributed to sustainable development in a changing environment.
VIVIANA HUILIÑIR-CURIO, GRADUATE STUDENT IN GEOGRAPHY
BRIGID MARK, GRADUATE STUDENT IN SOCIOLOGY
This project is the creation of a short, illustrated booklet highlighting major lessons learned from the movement against the Line 3 tar sands pipeline on how to show up to an Indigenous-led movement in a good way as a white settler.Through conversations, researcher Brigid Mark co-developed, with other activists,an idea to distribute the research findings in an accessible format useful to the movement: creating a short, illustrated booklet. Two of these activists, Timothy Cominghay of Standing Rock Nation and Carrie Chesnik of Oneida Nation, indicated a desire to co-design this booklet and to use it as a tool in educational trainings they will lead for new activists. Tim resisted the Dakota Access Pipeline, helped write the documentary , and provided legal support during Line 3 resistance. Carrie is an Oneida Nation Elder who resisted Line 3, supported the , founded the Ukwehu:we'nii' Land Trust, and whose work resisting the Line 5 pipeline was featured in . This booklet is being created based on the premise thatthe ability to work across difference is important for ensuring the broad-based inclusive and diverse coalitions necessary for social change. The working title is “How to show up in a good way: Lessons for white settlers in Indigenous-led movements.” Key themes include (1) Line 3 as settler colonialism; (2) Treaty Rights; (3) Centering Indigenous leadership; and (4) Maintaining agency and accepting mistakes.Stories from Mark's interviews, with permission, will be woven throughout to make these themes more concrete. This short booklet will include several illustrations that will help increase its accessibility and readability.
SCOTT ORTMAN, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF ANTHROPOLOGY• CNAIS ASSOCIATE FACULTY MEMBER
PATRICK CRUZ, GRADUATE STUDENT IN ANTHROPOLOGY
The Velarde Valley is a stretch of the Rio Grande floodplain extending northward from present-day Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo to the town of Velarde. Prior to 1600 CE this area was home to several Prehispanic Tewa communities whose descendants live at Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo and at Tewa Village on Hopi First Mesa, Arizona.In 1703, the valley was deeded as a land grant to Sebastian Martín, one of Governor Diego DeVargas’ military officers. Martín hired Ohkay Owingeh residents to help him build acequias (irrigation canals), many of which are still in use. In subsequent decades friends, relatives, and acquaintances of Martín settled the Velarde valley, establishing a dispersed settlement pattern of small villages, chapels, and rancherias where residents made a living through irrigation-based agriculture in the floodplains and sheep herding in the adjacent uplands. The result was cultural convergence, a pattern of change whereby both Spanish and Indigenous communities adopted ideas and practices of the other, and each became more like the other, despite maintaining distinct identities. This coming summer, we will be offering a summer field school in the Velarde Valley where we will seek to document this convergence process through archaeological field work in partnership with residents of the Hispano village of Estaca and the Pueblo of Ohkay Owingeh.The field school will include ten CU Boulder undergraduates who will register for the six credit hour summer course. The field school will include test excavations in Spanish contexts, including trash piles, foundations of demolished adobe buildings, and cross sections of old irrigation ditches of unknown age. Because Tewa people are weary of ground disturbance in ancestral Tewa sites, but have no such concerns regarding Spanish sites, the field school will provide an unique and culturally safe environment for tribal members to learn more about what archaeological excavation involves. Additionally, the field school will include training in surface survey of archaeological sites. This is an important skill that isrequired for most cultural resource management work, so by providing such training we will provide opportunities for tribal youth to gain the requisite skills for being hired by an archaeology firm. It is also important that tribal knowledge be incorporated into the documentation of ancestral sites on survey, either in the form of traditional names for features and traditional practices associated with them. This helps to ensure that tribal knowledge is maintained for future generations and is associated with Indigenous archaeological sites. Researchers also hope to employ tribal youth interns to support the project.Finally, one of the most important ancestral Tewa sites in the area has been used as a trash dump and place for partying in recent years and researchers would like to clean up and care for the site to make it more appealing as a place for community members to visit for traditional purposes.
CHRISTINA STANTON, CLINICAL ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF LAW• CNAIS CORE FACULTY MEMBER
Amidst a global pandemic and highly politicized election cycle, the upcoming 2024 election season is incredibly significant. For example, in Arizona, the Native vote proved pivotal in the 2020 presidential election, highlighting the substantial influence of Indigenous voters in a state where margins were slim. This project seeks to extend a longstanding Native voting project housed out of the American Indian Law Clinic (AILC) at Colorado Law.In 2018, in the wake of restrictive voting laws, national Indigenous-led nonprofits IllumiNative and Native Organizers Alliance contacted former AILC director Carla Fredericks about partnering with the AILC and First Peoples Worldwide. The original mission of this project was to build knowledge around state and local voting laws and to increase Native voter registration and civic participation. The AILC aggregated data for all states, producing research available on the Natives Vote website, a project spanning the 2018 and 2022 midterm elections along with the 2020 presidential election.While it is unclear where the Natives Vote website work will continue, the AILC is committed to providing support to Indian Country voters during this next election cycle. This project continues the success of previous Natives Vote work, but in a new 2024 context. All of the challenges identified in previous years remain. Voting laws are not stagnant and there is a continued need to promote ease of access to the polls. The AILC has already commenced preparation of "know your rights" voting training materials for Native voters in Colorado and intends to collaborate with community partners in the fall to deliver these trainings to organizations statewide. Additionally, the AILC and the Tribal Law class, taught by Professor Racehorse, will continue the on-the-ground election observation in November 2024. This work is critical because it not only serves a pedagogical purpose but it supports the mission of community partners (to be identified) by providing significant election day coverage and observation. At polling locations in counties where there is an identified need, students can not only observe voting practices and challenges, but provide information and support to Native voters if there are issues with their ability to cast a ballot. Students can then report this information and observations to community partners to assist in their voting rights work.Where laws may not seem discriminatory on their face, on-the-ground election observation highlights the ways that address restrictions or physical voting location, for example, can impact a Native person’s ability to cast a vote. In response to this proposal’s preferred requirements, this project works directly with the Native community and our campus community by allowing law students to do direct work to serve Indigenous Peoples and Indigenous-led organizations.