Winona LaDuke is an American economist, environmentalist, writer and industrial hemp grower, known for her work on tribal land claims and preservation, as well as sustainable development.
The American Indian Movement (AIM) is an American Indian grassroots movement which was founded in Minneapolis, Minnesota in July 1968, initially centered in urban areas in order to address systemic issues of poverty, discrimination, and police brutality against American Indians. AIM soon widened its focus from urban issues to many Indigenous Tribal issues that American Indian groups have faced due to settler colonialism in the Americas. These issues have included treaty rights, high rates of unemployment, the lack of American Indian subjects in education, and the preservation of Indigenous cultures.
Mary Brave Bird, also known as Mary Brave Woman Olguin and Mary Crow Dog was a Sicangu Lakota writer and activist who was a member of the American Indian Movement during the 1970s and participated in some of their most publicized events, including the Wounded Knee Incident when she was 18 years old.
The Dakota are a Native American tribe and First Nations band government in North America. They compose two of the three main subcultures of the Sioux people, and are typically divided into the Eastern Dakota and the Western Dakota.
Marie Louise Bottineau Baldwin, was a Métis Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians attorney, Native American rights activist, and suffragist. In 1914, Baldwin was the first Native American student to graduate from the Washington College of Law. She worked in the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs, and was an officer in the Society of American Indians.
Native American feminism or Native feminism is, at its root, understanding how gender plays an important role in indigenous communities both historically and in modern-day. As well, Native American feminism deconstructs the racial and broader stereotypes of indigenous peoples, gender, sexuality, while also focusing on decolonization and breaking down the patriarchy and pro-capitalist ideology. As a branch of the broader Indigenous feminism, it similarly prioritizes decolonization, indigenous sovereignty, and the empowerment of indigenous women and girls in the context of Native American and First Nations cultural values and priorities, rather than white, mainstream ones. A central and urgent issue for Native feminists is the Missing and murdered Indigenous women crisis.
Leanne Betasamosake Simpson is a Mississauga Nishnaabeg writer, musician, and academic from Canada. She is also known for her work with Idle No More protests. Simpson is a faculty member at the Dechinta Centre for Research and Learning. She lives in Peterborough.
Kim TallBear is a Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate professor at the University of Alberta, specializing in racial politics in science. Holding the first ever Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Peoples, Technoscience and Environment, TallBear has published on DNA testing, race science and Indigenous identities, as well as on polyamory as a decolonization practice.
Eve Tuck is an Unangax̂ scholar in the field of Indigenous studies and educational research. Tuck is the Professor of Critical Race and Indigenous Studies at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. Dr. Tuck will be joining the faculty of NYU in 2024 as the founding director of their Center for Indigenous Studies.
The Sioux Chef's Indigenous Kitchen is a recipe book written by Sean Sherman with Beth Dooley, published by the University of Minnesota Press in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Sean Sherman is an Oglala Lakota chef who was born in Pine Ridge, South Dakota, and is currently based in South Minneapolis. Sherman opened an Indigenous cuisine restaurant within the Water Works park development project overlooking Saint Anthony Falls and the Stone Arch Bridge in Minneapolis in 2021.
Bonita Lawrence is a Canadian writer, scholar, and professor in the Department of Equity Studies at York University in Toronto, Canada. Her work focuses on issues related to Indigenous identity and governance, equity, and racism in Canada. She is also a traditional singer at political rallies, social events, and prisons in the Toronto and Kingston areas.
J. Kēhaulani Kauanui is an American author, radio producer and professor. She is one of six co-founders of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA). A Kanaka Maoli woman, Kauanui was raised in California. She was awarded a Fulbright (1994-1995) at the University of Auckland in New Zealand where she was affiliated with the Māori Studies department. Her research areas focus on indigeneity and race, settler colonialism, decolonization, anarchism, and gender and sexuality.
Angie Morrill is enrolled in the Klamath Tribes in Oregon. She is a former Native admissions recruitment officer for the University of Oregon. She was also a visiting instructor at Oregon State University. She was the Program Director of Title VI Indian Education for Portland Public Schools from 2016-2021. She is a consultant in Native education, and serves as the chairperson of the Tribal Advisory Council for the Sapsik'wala Program at UO College of Education. She is an ecampus instructor at Oregon State University and a pro-tem instructor at University of Oregon where she teaches classes in Native studies.
Zoe Todd is a Métis anthropologist and scholar of Indigenous studies, human-animal studies, science and technology studies and the Anthropocene. She is an associate professor in the Department of Indigenous Studies at Simon Fraser University and a Presidential Visiting Fellow at Yale University during the 2018–19 academic year.
Sarah Hunt, also known as Tłaliłila’ogwa, is an Indigenous researcher, author and professor based in British Columbia, Canada. Hunt is a community-based researcher with an academic focus is on Indigenous politics, decolonial methodologies, and issues facing women, girls, and two-spirit people.
Mona Smith is a Native American artist, storyteller and documentary producer.
Dina Gilio-Whitaker is an American academic, journalist and author, who studies Native Americans in the United States, decolonization and environmental justice. She is a member of the Colville Confederated Tribes. In 2019, she published As Long as Grass Grows.
Man camps are temporary workforce housing to accommodate a large influx of high-paid workers in the resource extraction industries, especially in Canada and the United States. Twentieth century boom–bust housing cycles related to the oil and gas industry made companies reluctant to invest in permanent housing for temporary workforces.
Mináǧi kiŋ dowáŋ: A Zitkála-Šá Opera is a 2022 operatic film about the life and work of Yankton Dakota author and activist Zitkála-Šá. It is considered by some to be the first opera that uses Dakota language. The opera was composed by Lyz Jaakola, directed by Sequoia Hauck, and produced by Kelly Turpin of An Opera Theater (AOT). Jaysalynn Western Boy is one of four actors to play Zitkála-Šá. It premiered October 12, 2022 at Water Works Park in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Mni Sota Makoce: The Land of the Dakota is a non-fiction book on Dakota history in Minnesota which focuses on the Dakota connection to location and language. The book is written by Dakota historian and professor Gwen Westerman and Bruce M. White, with a foreword by Glenn Wasicuna. It was published in 2012 by Minnesota Historical Society Press.
