The U.S. President’s Inauguration is on January 20th. We use that date as an occasion to think about alternative futures and political possibilities not beholden to colonial and capitalist dispossession, U.S. sovereignty, and the nation-state form, focusing in particular on Indigenous pathways to alternative political-ethical futures. Melanie Yazzie (University of New Mexico) and Michelle Daigle (University of Toronto) will be in conversation with Gina Dent (UCSC) and Caitlin Keliiaa (UCSC) to discuss methods of resurgence and freedom premised on abolitionist, decolonial, and feminist praxis.

Melanie K. Yazzie (Diné) is an Assistant Professor of Native American studies and American studies at the University of New Mexico. She is also the national chair of the Red Nation, a grassroots organization committed to the liberation of Indigenous people from colonialism and capitalism. She does historical research at the intersections of Indigenous studies, feminist and queer studies, carceral studies, Diné (Navajo) studies, and environmental studies. She also does public intellectual and activist work on Native women’s rights, LGBTQ2 rights, environmental justice, policing and incarceration, Indigenous housing justice, urban Indigenous issues, and international solidarity.

Michelle Daigle is Mushkegowuk (Cree), a member of Constance Lake First Nation in Treaty 9, and of French ancestry. She is an Assistant Professor in the Centre for Indigenous Studies and the Department of Geography & Planning at the University of Toronto. Her research examines colonial capitalist dispossession and violence on Indigenous lands and bodies, as well as Indigenous practices of resurgence and freedom. Her current research project is on extractive geographies in Mushkegowuk territory. Her writing has been published in Antipode, Environment & Planning D, and Political Geography.

RSVP by 11 AM (PST) on Wednesday, January 20th; you will receive Zoom link and password at 11:30 AM the day of the colloquium.

The Center for Cultural Studies hosts a weekly Wednesday colloquium featuring work by faculty and visitors. We gather online at 12:10 PM, with presentations beginning at 12:15 PM.

Staff assistance is provided by the Humanities Institute.

*2020-2021 colloquia will be held virtually until further notice. Attendees are encouraged to bring their own coffee, tea, and cookies to the session.