Global Indigenous Studies

Director: Katrina Philips (History)

Global Indigenous Studies centers Indigenous Peoples’ diverse histories and cultures, as well as arts, ecologies, economics, identities, knowledge, languages, literatures, music, politics, and religions. Indigenous Studies is inherently international: there are over 600 sovereign nations within the legal geographic bounds of the United States. Indigeneity itself is a global political formation, showing the linked histories that connect diverse peoples from many regions (including Africa, the Arctic, Asia, Oceania, as well as the Americas). Indigenous Studies is inherently interdisciplinary, finding expression in academic disciplines from across all divisions: arts, humanities, natural sciences, and social sciences.

Students completing a concentration in Global Indigenous Studies will enhance their capacity to consider how the experiences of Indigenous Peoples and Indigenous ways of knowing and doing have both been affected by colonialism and settler colonialism and how these experiences and ways of knowing provide understanding, insight, and belonging that transcend the colonial experiences. This capacity enables students to be meaningfully reflective on their place(s) in the world, paying particular attention to locations, powers and privileges of people, institutions, and practices.

Programs

Global Indigenous Studies Concentration