The Office of Indigenous Relations and the Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies (Faculty of Health) are pleased to co-host a presentation by Bobbie Chew Bigby, postdoctoral fellow at University of Waterloo.
Bobbie is excited and honored to engage with the University of Waterloo community through this talk and dialogue. Beginning by first sharing some personal stories from her background and home base in Oklahoma Indian Country, Bobbie aims to sketch some of the many lines of connection between the lands and communities of the Waterloo area and Oklahoma. Turning next to an overview of her learning journey, research trajectory, and recent PhD dissertation, Bobbie will highlight her work documenting Indigenous-led tourism and resurgence across Indigenous Australia and beyond. Images and stories from fieldwork in both Australia and the US will be shared, along with reflections from navigating research in the recent period of the COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, Bobbie’s more recent research work on documenting and standing in solidarity with Indigenous-led toxic tours of environmentally assaulted land and waterscapes will be briefly covered, along with an overview of other projects that are part of her postdoctoral fellowship. Following the presentation, Bobbie looks forward to an extended question-and-answer and dialogue period to engage in conversation with the UW community.
About Bobbie Chew Bigby
Bobbie Chew Bigby is an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and a native of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Based primarily in Oklahoma, she has recently completed her PhD through extended fieldwork at the University of Notre Dame Australia, Nulungu Research Institute in Broome, Western Australia. This doctoral project focused on comparative Indigenous tourism, culture and resurgence. Through the current Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Bobbie has commenced at the University of Waterloo, she is engaged in multiple projects that expand upon themes of Indigenous-led tourism and resurgence, particularly relating to Indigenous-led toxic tourism and Indigenous interpretations of animals and the living world through tourism. Her past research fellowships, including a Fulbright award and Rotary Peace Fellowship, have taken her to Indigenous Australia, Burma, Cambodia, China and India for research and community-based work. Bobbie is a recent co-edited/co-author of the edited volumes, Socialising Tourism: Rethinking Tourism for Social and Ecological Justice (Routledge, 2022) and A Local Turn in Tourism: Empowering Communities (Channel View, 2022).
This is a hybrid event offered both in-person and virtually. Refreshments will be available after the presentation, during a meet and greet with Bobbie Chew Bigby. *Registration required*
Keynote Presentation:
Date: Tuesday, August 1, 2023
Time: 2:00pm - 3:30pm.
Location: HLTH EXP 1689
Meet and Greet:
Date: Tuesday, August 1, 2023
Time: 3:30pm-4:30pm
Location: HLTH EXP 2691