Center Announces Panelists for Indigenous Cartographies @ UNM Events

The R.H. Mallory Center for Community Geography just announced a slate of panelists who will visit UNM for Indigenous Cartographies @UNM events on February 27th and 28th. The five panelists bring a mix of technical and conceptual expertise, academic and applied interests, and Indigenous and ally perspectives. They also have a broad range of regional expertise and interests. Center Director Maria Lane said, “I am so excited to bring this diverse group to UNM to spur our thinking about mapping as storytelling, as activism, and as justice work.”

Christine Ami (Diné): Associate Professor, Diné College 

Dr. Ami teaches courses on Indigenous Research Methodologies and Methods, Traditional Ecological Knowledge, Indigenous Animal Studies, and Epistemological Imperialism. She is a current NEH awardee and is transitioning her dissertation on Navajo sheep butchering into a book manuscript.

Deana Dartt, PhD (Coastal Band Chumash): Principal, Live Oak Consulting 

Deana Dartt, PhD is Coastal Band Chumash and Mestiza, descending from the indigenous people of the Californias. Dartt is the Founding Director of Live Oak Consulting. Her life experience, and professional work has led her to her commitment to confront the incongruities between contemporary Native lives and the public representations of them. She earned her MA and PhD from the University of Oregon and has held curatorial positions at the Burke Museum of Natural and Cultural History and the Portland Art Museum as well as teaching appointments at the University of Oregon and University of Washington. Her recent work seeks to supplant pervasive, fantasy Spanish narratives in California with first-person alternative narratives that underscore connectivity and complexity across time, space and national borders.

Rudo Kemper: Founder, Terrastories and Director of Technology, Native Land Digital 

Rudo is a geographer and technologist who supports Indigenous and other communities in mapping and monitoring their lands, and building digital tools that increase community self-determination and capacity for documenting cultural heritage and traditional knowledge. He has led and supported numerous technical projects to help Indigenous communities document their place-based oral storytelling traditions using interactive maps and multimedia content. He is currently the Chief Program Officer at the Cadasta Foundation and serves on the board of directors of Native Land Digital, the open-source stewards team of Terrastories, and the circle of advisors for the Seeds of Wisdom Foundation. Rudo was also the inaugural president of the International Society for Participatory Mapping.

Annita Lucchesi (Cheyenne descendant): PhD candidate, University of Arizona School of Geography, Development & Environment 

Annita is a Cheyenne geographer, cartographer, and community-based researcher. She currently resides on her ancestral homelands in southeast Montana, and her research specialties include Indigenous cartography, Indigenous legal geographies, and geographies of violence against Indigenous peoples.

Reuben Rose-Redwood: Professor of Geography and Associate Dean Academic, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Victoria 

Reuben is a Professor of Geography and Associate Dean at the University of Victoria and serves as Managing Editor of the journal, Dialogues in Human Geography. His research interests include the politics of place naming, cultural landscape studies, historical cartography, and the histories of geographical thought. He is currently conducting research on the geographies of statue removals and place renaming on university campuses in the United States and Canada.