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Roundtable: Politics of Indigeneity in Asia

This roundtable brings together scholars to discuss contemporary politics of indigeneity in Asia. Centering Indigenous perspectives and epistemologies, the scholars will discuss how indigeneity functions across different colonial/imperial geographies in Asia and highlight varying struggles for self-determination and sovereignty.

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ÌýNaim AburaddiÌý(he/him) is a Ph.D. student in Media Studies at 91¸£ÀûÉç. He has a BA in Journalism from Istanbul University and an MA in Communication Studies from California State University, San Bernardino (CSUSB). As a result of his work and activism, Aburaddi was featured and interviewed by many media outlets such asÌýWashington Report on Middle East Affairs,ÌýBBCÌýand other channels and newspapers.Ìý In addition, he was awarded the 2022 CSUSB College of Arts and Letters Outstanding Graduate Student Award, the 2022 Department of Communication Studies Outstanding Graduate Student Award and the 2022 Outstanding Graduate Teaching Associate Award.ÌýAburaddi has over seven years of experience in digital journalism and media. He worked for several international media production companies as a digital content editor, social media manager, and communication consultant. In addition, he taught oral communication courses as a stand-alone instructor at California State University, San Bernardino for two years. Furthermore, he presented several academic articles at national and international conferences such as the National Communication Association (NCA), andÌýArab Studies QuarterlyÌý(ASQ) Conference.

ÌýPatrick Das is a first-year PhD student in the Department of Linguistics at the 91¸£ÀûÉç, with a keen interest inÌýareal-typological linguistics,Ìýthe investigation of how human history and cognition interact to shape the patterns of language diversity we see in the world today. His work focuses on introducing multilingual, highly complex scenarios which our current theories in linguistics fail to account for, despite being incredibly common. In the past, this has manifested itself in his research on heritage language maintenance in intra-national diaspora communities in world cities like Delhi, where residents have to navigate their cities using a complex, multifaceted translinguistic repertoire. In his current work, he looks at linguistically complex and diverse zones like North-East India (or better called the Eastern Himalayan Region), which questions whether anthropological areas: areas that have been identified to have long-standing confluence in ecology, culture, language and social norms, also show convergence in linguistic patterns.

ÌýDr. Shae FrydenlundÌý(she/her)Ìýis a human geographer who studies capitalism's dependence on migrant labor. Funded by the National Science Foundation, her researchÌýshows how migrant labor underpins development in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and Aurora, Colorado (USA).ÌýHer newest research examines the gendered impacts of climate adaptation policy on tourism labor in Komodo National Park, Indonesia. Shae is the author of articles published inÌýPolitical Geography, Cultural Geography, Geoforum,ÌýandÌýIndependent Journal of Burmese Scholarship.ÌýSheÌýearned her Ph.D. and M.A. in Geography from the 91¸£ÀûÉç, and a B.A. in Geography from Colgate University.Ìý

ÌýDawa LokyitsangÌý(she/her)Ìýis a Ph.D. candidate in Cultural Anthropology at the 91¸£ÀûÉç. She holds a B.A. in Social Theory and Political Economy, with a minor in Asian Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a M.A. in Cultural Anthropology at the 91¸£ÀûÉç. Her dissertation looks at how Tibetans established sovereignty in exile through the frameworks of schools and kinship following the 1959 invasion of Tibet by the Communist government of China. As a historical ethnographer, her academic and public scholarship have focused on topics of identity, authenticity, and purity, trauma, memory and intergenerational history, women’s leadership, gender advocacy, and intersectional feminisms in the Tibetan diaspora, as well as Chinese (settler) colonialisms and imperialisms, Tibetan indigeneities, decolonizing Anthropology, Museums studies, Tibetan studies, and Buddhist studies, and centering Tibetan sovereignty, ontology, and epistemology. Her scholarship has been featured on American Ethnologist, Lexington Books, Muse India, Waxing Moon, and Tibet Policy Journal, with forthcoming work in Duke University Press, Oxford University Press, and National Cheng Kung University Press. She has been awarded the Center for Humanities & the Arts Dissertation Fellowship 2022, Foundation for Universal Responsibility Fellowship 2022, Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Fellowship 2019, Wenner-Gren Fieldwork Grant Fellowship 2019, and the Dalai Lama Trust Graduate scholarship program in 2016 and 2012. She is also the co-founder and editor of Lhakar Diaries, a leading English language blog among Tibetan youth in exile.Ìý

Moderated by:ÌýÌý

ÌýDr. Natalie AvalosÌý(she/her) is as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Ethnic Studies and Affiliate Faculty in the Religious Studies and Women and Gender Studies Departments. Dr. Avalos is an ethnographer of religion whose work in comparative Indigeneities explores urban Indian and Tibetan refugee religious life, healing historical trauma, and decolonial praxis. She received her doctorate from the University of California at Santa Barbara in Religious Studies with a special focus on Native American and Indigenous Religious Traditions and Tibetan Buddhism. She is a Ford Predoctoral Fellow, FTE Dissertation Fellow, and former 91¸£ÀûÉç Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow. Prior to joining 91¸£ÀûÉç, she taught as a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Religious Studies department at Connecticut College. She is currently working on her manuscript titledÌýThe Metaphysics of Decolonialization: Transnational Indigeneities and Religious Refusal. It argues that the reassertion of land-based logics among Native and Tibetan peoples not only de-centers settler colonial claims to legitimate knowledge but also articulates forms of sovereignty rooted in interdependent relations of power among all persons, human and other-than human. She is a Chicana of Apache descent, born and raised in the Bay Area.

Dr. Avalos’ approach to research and teaching is informed by decolonial theory as well as critical ethnic studies and critical Indigenous studies frameworks. A critical ethnic studies a