My research

I’m an Indigenous geographer whose research interests lie at the intersection of several fields, including critical Indigenous geographies, human-environment interactions, political ecology, tribal cultural resource preservation, and science and technology studies.

My current research centers on investigating the political ecologies and political economies of Indigenous death and Indigenous relationships to space in general. I work to understand how the settler colonial state conceives of the political agency of Indigenous death and investigate connections between ‘traditional’ cultural resource management, such as burial grounds/site protection and preservation, and protection of the living environment, including more-than-human kin (animals, plants, water). I argue these processes ultimately shed light on how new political possibilities can be created for all living things, humans and more-than-human alike, in an era of climate crisis. This work is part of a broader years-long research agenda focusing on Indigenous/settler contestations over Indigenous remains and burial grounds.

The primary geographic focus of my work centers on North America, particularly the Salish Sea region (BC/Washington) as well as Minnesota and the Upper Midwest, but I am also keenly interested in discovering the ways in which all of these processes play out in global contexts.

Other academic interests of mine include Indigenous geographies of outer space, cultural/historical geographies, research ethics with Indigenous communities, and many forms of interdisciplinary work–I have collaborated with scholars in fields such as rhetoric, linguistics, history, and quantitative social science.