Why We Need Ancestor-Led Research Justice | Amrah Salomon | TEDxOjai
Why do we need ancestor-led research justice? Through her professional and personal experience, assistant professor of English Amrah Salomon shares how research can be reframed through a better understanding of our ancestral stories. Salomon’s message will change the way we think about history and how researching the past must be connected to the goals and narratives of the people within it. Dr. Amrah Salomón J. (O’odham, Mexican, and European) is a queer-bi chingona assistant professor of English at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Amrah is a co-founder of Rez Beats, a tribal open mic and youth performance space, and a founding member of CIEJ, the Center for Interdisciplinary Environmental Justice. She’s has critically acclaimed chapters in the books Research Justice: Methodologies for Social Change and Making Citizenship Work: Culture and community. You can also find her research in American Indian Culture and Research Journal, Chicana / Latina Studies Journal, Perspectives on Global Development and Technology, Historical Studies in Natural Science, the Political Theology Network Symposium, Science for the People Magazine, and the online platform Water Justice and Techology (www.waterjustice-tech.org).
Amrah’s essays and social critiques have been featured in Truthout, Indigenous Action Media, and numerous podcasts and her poetry is available in the Chicana / Latina Studies Journal, Mujeres de Maiz, Yellow Medicine Review, and other collections. Her forthcoming book, Confluences: Indigenous fugitivity on the border, traces the history of the non-federally recognized O’odham and Yoeme community around the confluence of the Colorado and Gila Rivers against processes of U.S.-Mexico border violence. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx
