Native American and Indigenous Studies Association
via J. Kehaulani Kauanui, American Studies and Anthropology, Wesleyan University
Scholars Found Native American and Indigenous Studies Association
Minneapolis, MN, May 13, 2008
A group of Native scholars have just co-founded the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association. In May 21-23, 2009 the Department of American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota will host the first annual meeting of the new association. Registered attendees at a recent meeting, "Native American and Indigenous Studies: Who Are We? Where Are We Going?," from April,10-12, 2008, voted to ratify a constitution and bylaws for the new association. This was the second meeting called by a six member steering committee and was hosted by The Institute of Native American Studies at the University of Georgia. The event -- the largest of its kind ever held -- drew more than 450 scholars and graduate students and included 95 sessions from scholars from more than 165 institutions from 18 countries. The Native American Studies program at the University of Oklahoma hosted the first meeting in May of 2007.
Members of the founding steering committee -- now the acting council -- are: Inés Hernández-Ávila (Nimipu), Professor of Native American Studies, University of California at Davis; K. Tsianina Lomawaima (Creek), Professor of American Indian Studies, University of Arizona, Tucson; Jace Weaver (Cherokee), Director of the Institute for Native American Studies, Professor of religion, University of Georgia; Robert Warrior (Osage), Edith Kinney Gaylord Presidential Professor, English, University of Oklahoma; Jean O'Brien (White Earth Ojibwe), Associate Professor, Department of History and Chair, Department of American Indian Studies; J. Kehaulani Kauanui (Native Hawaiian), Associate Professor, Anthropology and American Studies, Wesleyan University. A nominations committee made up six scholars elected at the meeting in Georgia will conduct an election of a council that will take office next May in Minnesota.
The aims of the steering committee have been to gather a critical mass of scholars to help shape the new association and mold its agenda within the framework of a set of principles to guide its work. It has been committed to facilitating a process that will result in an association that: is scholarly, is interdisciplinary, is governed by individual members, has annual meetings that rotate among institutional hosts or other locations, is open to anyone who does work in Native American and Indigenous Studies, and has a program committee that takes primary responsibility for sending out an open call for papers and setting the agenda for annual meetings.
WEBSITE: Native American and Indigenous Studies Association: link.
