Rachelle Besaw is a Descendant Member of the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin, and veteran of the United States Navy. She is currently working on her Doctorate in Sociocultural Anthropology from Arizona State University.
As a Descendant Member of the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin, raised in Phoenix, AZ, Rachelle was culturally and geographically displaced from her Tribe while growing up. In this lecture, she will discuss the marginal space she now inhabits as a linguistic anthropologist, indebted to the oftentimes cruel and violent history of anthropological and linguistic research inflicted upon Indigenous Nations, and her own Tribe, in the name of Science. She will discuss her own journey through an academic system built on the oppression and subjugation of her people, and how she has had to rely upon extractive and exploitative research on her path to reclaiming her Indigeneity.
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