Research & Academic Scholarship

Indian nations today are faced with a critical dichotomy in their treatment by the federal government. For the most part, Congress has embarked on a path of promoting and encouraging economic development and self sufficiency, while the Supreme Court has taken virtually every opportunity in recent years to undercut the legal and practical basis of reservation self-government. Nowhere is this dichotomy more starkly illustrated than in the environmental arena.

Starting in April 2016, thousands of people, led by Standing Rock Sioux Tribal members, gathered at camps to stop the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline

Over the past three decades, the environmental movement has promoted a view of American Indians as the "original conservationists"—that is, "people so intimately bound to the land that they have left no mark upon it."

We believe the U.S. needs a WaSH (water, sanitation & hygiene) Sector, where diverse organizations join forces with impacted communities to close the Water Gap forever. So we built this database of implementers, funders, academics, community champions, government agencies and more—all committed to improving water and sanitation access across the country. By open sourcing this data and keeping it up-to-date, we hope to foster knowledge-sharing, research, strategic coordination, and most importantly, collaboration to bring impacted Americans the clean, running water we all deserve.

For patients historically stripped of control over their reproductive health, consideration of past violations and transparent discussion are key.

This study examined the experience of caregiving during a pandemic by asking five questions about how COVID-19 was impacting twenty American Indian caregivers providing care to a family member who was disabled, elderly, or had a chronic health condition. Interviews were conducted via Zoom. Themes identified were concern about the care recipient contracting COVID-19, increased caregiving intensity, increased Medical care issues, changes to caregiver health and health behaviors, and support received and increased need for support during the pandemic (material and emotional). Responses indicate that tribes and American Indian health organizations should initiate services that can support caregivers during the pandemic or make changes to their caregiver programs.

United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

Rather than struggle for new liberties, Native Americans fought to preserve rights that they already possessed.

The final report, Obstacles at Every Turn: Barriers to Political Participation Faced by Native American Voters, was released June 4, 2020, and provides detailed evidence that Native people face obstacles at every turn in the electoral process: from registering to vote, to casting votes, to having votes counted.

The primary objective of this study was to work with tribal communities to define and develop their own healthcare services and strategies for positiv…

This article will review the history of Indian voting rights in Arizona. I begin by reviewing the history of Native American voting rights and the history of voting discrimination against Native Americans in Arizona

On July 15th, 1948, Native American suffrage was finally passed with the Arizona Supreme Court overturning the case of Porter v. Hall, a case where Arizona Native Americans unsuccessfully sued for the right to vote. This gave the Indigenous population of Arizona the right to vote. This historic day came into fruition after decades of […]

Objective To examine reported racial discrimination and harassment against Native Americans, which broadly contribute to poor health outcomes. Data Source and Study Design Data come from a nationa...

The following report, composed by the Lakota People’s Law Project, will delve deeper into what it means to seek justice for Native peoples, including but also moving beyond anecdotal evidence of police violence by presenting empirical data that demonstrates how the justice system disproportionately and cruelly punishes American Indians.

The purpose of this document is to provide critical considerations for NIH reviewers as they assess applications focused on AI/AN populations. It provides context for applicants’ AI/AN-focused research to help reviewers interpret and understand the information being presented. While the primary audience is reviewers and the document is crafted to reflect this, applicants must ensure that they provide reviewers with the information necessary to assess an application, including appropriate justifications. As such, this document has implications for applicants as well.

In the late 1880s the Paiute shaman Wovoka gave the American Indians of the Great Plains some much needed hope. He taught that the traditional ways of the Native Americans could return. The spirits of the dead would return, the buffalo would come back...

“. . . it takes human connections to make positive changes happen.” Sven Haakanson, Jr. (Alutiiq-Sugpiaq) Sherelyn Ogden. Caring for American Indian Objects: A Practical and Cultural Guide (Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2004): 15. Native American communities are sovereign governments. This unique status and associated rights recognized by federal and state law impact the hundreds of organizations in the United States which hold archival collections documenting Native American lifeways. In April 2006 a group of nineteen Native American and non-Native American archivists, librarians, museum curators, historians, and anthropologists gathered at Northern Arizona University Cline Library in Flagstaff, Arizona. The participants included representatives from fifteen Native American, First Nation, and Aboriginal communities. The group met to identify best professional practices for culturally responsive care and use of American Indian archival material held by non-tribal organizations. The draft Protocols under development and discussion build upon numerous professional ethical codes as well as international declarations recognizing Indigenous rights and the ground-breaking Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Protocols for Libraries, Archives, and Information Services. The contributors encourage you to explore, comment upon, and adopt the best practices which can be accomplished by your institution or community. Intended to foster increased cooperation between tribal and non-tribal libraries and archives, the Protocols are presented as goals to which we all can aspire. This project has received generous support from the American Library Association Office for Diversity, the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, the National Library of Medicine, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, The Bay and Paul Foundations, the Northern Arizona University Institute for Native Americans, and Mary and P. David Seaman.

From ASU Library: “The ASU Library acknowledges the 22 Native Nations that have inhabited this land for centuries.” Thus begins the Arizona State University Library’s first Indigenous land acknowledgement – a five-sentence, 116-word statement about the place that the library and the university have inhabited for more than a century. “The statement represents the ASU Library’s intentions […]

Website of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage

The authors of five recent books in the field of Indigenous women’s history wish to restore Indigenous women to history, as Ella Deloria did more than seventy years ago. The voices and experiences of Indigenous women are so often muted and marginalized in standard written historical sources, but now historians of Indigenous women are intent on providing a more complete presentation of Indigenous women as multidimensional, complex and active agents of history.

In 2017 Ithaka S+R launched a project to explore the changing research methods and practices of Indigenous Studies scholars across Canada and the US with the goal of identifying services to better support them in ways that are also beneficial to Indigenous communities more broadly. The project was undertaken by a cohort of research teams at 11 academic libraries with guidance from a group of advisors comprised of Indigenous scholars and librarians. Each research team in the cohort developed findings and next steps based on their local research engaging with Indigenous Studies scholars at their own institutions (listed in Appendix 1). Ithaka S+R has the deepest gratitude to the researchers, research participants, and advisors for contributing their time and insight to the Indigenous Studies project.

Fall 2006 issue of The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

Challenges to institutionalized racism have been largely framed in terms of equitable access to, and redistribution of, the wealth and power accumulated and con

Over the last two decades, the environmental justice movement has evolved into a recognized social movement within the United States that merges civil rights with environmental protection.

Published in History: Reviews of New Books (Vol. 3, No. 8, 1975)