Princeton continues to build on Native American and Indigenous studies, initiatives

The recent arrival at Princeton of J. Kēhaulani Kauanui as the Eric and Wendy Schmidt Professor of Indigenous Studies and professor of anthropology marks a key stage in ongoing University efforts to expand Native American and Indigenous studies and initiatives.

Her role is part of a University-wide initiative to enhance research and scholarship in Native American and Indigenous studies, along with recognition and support for Native and Indigenous students and scholars.

Princeton has also expanded academic centers, programs and scholarly resources to strengthen institutional relationships with Native American and Indigenous communities.

Kauanui (Kanaka Maoli), a leader in the fields of Native American and Indigenous studies, holds a joint appointment in the Effron Center for the Study of America and the Department of Anthropology. She will help bridge work related to Indigenous scholarship across disciplines and will engage faculty and students around these topics in new ways.

“I’m excited for the opportunities for interdisciplinary collaborations with faculty and connections with graduate students and undergraduates,” she said.

Kauanui joins a community of Princeton faculty from more than 20 academic fields who focus on Indigenous peoples. The University offers classes in a range of departments, including “Native American Literature,” “Collecting and Exhibiting Art of the Ancient Americas,” and “Indigenous Futures: Health and Wellbeing Within Native Nations.”

“When you look at Princeton’s initiatives, you can see a big tent of faculty from all different units who have an interest in these topics,” Kauanui said. “You also have faculty who aren’t necessarily appointed in Native American and Indigenous Studies, but they have a commitment — both intellectually and ethically — to the study of Indigenous peoples and to indigeneity as a category of analysis, as well as research methods that can transform their respective disciplines.” 

A recipient of the 2022 American Indian History Lifetime Achievement Award, Kauanui was previously on the faculty of Wesleyan University. Her work focuses on topics related to Hawaiian indigeneity, Indigenous sovereignty, settler colonialism, anarchism, and gender and sexuality studies. 

In the spring, Kauanui will teach a 400-level seminar for seniors and graduate students, “Decolonizing Indigenous Genders and Sexualities,” cross-listed with anthropology, American studies, and gender and sexuality studies. In addition to her academic work, she will have a role in supporting Native student resources and programs, as well as institutional efforts to extend the University’s outreach to Native American and Indigenous communities beyond campus. 

“I am excited to work with the faculty, staff and students who have been leaders on these issues at Princeton,” she said. “We can build on what is in place and further develop creative new directions.” 

Below are highlights from other recent work related to Native American and Indigenous academic initiatives, external partnerships, historical recognitions and student programs and groups.

Student experience

• Earlier this year, the University’s Native and Indigenous Experience Working Group began site visits to other colleges and universities to learn about best practices to strengthen teaching, research and well-being.

• The student groups Natives at Princeton and Native Graduate Students of Princeton continue to host events throughout the year for students, faculty and staff, including special programming for Native American Heritage Month each November. The Princeton Indigenous Advocacy Coalition is a student-organized group that “seeks to empower and advocate” for Indigenous students and studies. Community building continues after graduation through the alumni affinity group, Native Alumni of Princeton. Groups are open to all members of the University community.

Chef Lois Frank, from the Santa Fe-based catering company Red Mesa Cuisine, visited campus earlier this month as part of a range of tasting and educational events organized by Campus Dining. 

Photo by David Kelly Crow

• In honor of Native American Heritage Month, Campus Dining created special menus for residential dining halls featuring Indigenous ingredients sourced from Indigenous growers. On Nov. 6, guest chefs Lois Frank and Walter Whitewater (Diné/Navajo), from the Santa Fe-based catering company Red Mesa Cuisine, prepared a special tasting event for the campus community called “The Magic Eight: Eight Plants that Native Peoples Share with the World.” Frank and Whitewater also visited the anthropology class “Food, Culture and Society.”

• Karen Francis-Begay will serve over the next several months as a Native and Indigenous education and mentorship consultant at The Carl A. Fields Center for Equality and Cultural Understanding. The role will assist with outreach, mentorship and education efforts and help strengthen University infrastructures to support Native and Indigenous student belonging. Francis-Begay (Diné) belongs to the Tábąąhá (Edge of Water) clan and was born for the Kiyaa’áanii (Towering House) clan.

Academic initiatives

• The Native American and Indigenous Studies Initiative at Princeton (NAISIP) continues to foster cross-disciplinary dialogue through ongoing projects that bring together Princeton faculty and students with outside scholars and guest speakers. 

Winonah Ojanen (Aanakwadikwe) , of the Bell Museum at the University of Minnesota and the Misaabekong Ojibwe Immersion School of Duluth, speaks at The Peoples' Sky Conference held Nov. 8-10 on Princeton's campus. The conference was organized by the Council on Science and Technology.

Photo by David Kelly Crow

• NAISIP programs include the Humanities Council’s global initiative in Indigenous studies called “Land, Language, and Art,” which fosters “reciprocal collaborations with Native American communities” through research, artistic productions, academic conferences and more. “Land, Language and Art” brings visiting scholars and speakers to campus, such as playwright, director and 2020 MacArthur Fellow Larissa FastHorse (Sicangu Lakota) as a Short-Term Belknap Fellow in the Humanities Council and Lewis Center for the Arts, and last April’s campus visit by Humberto Iglesias Tepec, a Native speaker of Nahuatl, who translated some of the Princeton University Library’s manuscripts in early modern Nahuatl as part of Spanish and Portuguese lecturer Nadia Cervantes Pérez's “Translating Mesoamerica” project.
• Another NAISIP project, the Munsee Language and History Symposium, held its fourth annual event Oct. 31-Nov. 2 at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton Public Library and Princeton University Library (PUL). The symposium centered on the theme “Widening the Circle: Lunaape Land, Language and History.” This year’s conference took place in the presence of a wampum belt from Munsee Delaware Nation, an ancestral belonging that is housed at the American Museum of Natural History, with the agreement that it may be brought out to visit with community members. The many symposium events included a visit to PUL Special Collections to view Munsee and Unami language books, maps and treaties. Building on the partnerships cultivated through the symposium, and with support from the Program for Community-Engaged Scholarship (ProCES), students in Dunia Catalina Méndez Vallejo’s course “Varieties of Spanish” are contributing to a sustained collaboration with language keepers through course-based, community-driven projects.
• Many departments across campus have created new opportunities to study Native and Indigenous perspectives and languages. On Nov. 8-10, the Council on Science and Technology organized the conference “The Peoples’ Sky: A Symposium on Indigenous Peoples’ Astronomical Research and Cosmogonies.” The event featured talks by Native and Indigenous scholars and community members regarding the “millennia-long traditions of astronomical study in Indigenous communities around the world.” In 2024, the Office of the Dean of the College established the Less-Commonly Taught Language Summer Initiative, which supports undergraduates pursuing language learning in areas that are not offered at Princeton during the academic year, including Native and Indigenous languages.

Scholarly resources

• The Princeton University Library’s Indigenous Collections Working Group continues to conduct inclusive and reparative description work on archival and rare book collections. 
  

  Deed from Matappeas, Tawapung, and Seapoekne to John Bowne, Richard Hartshorne, and James Grover for Land in Toponemus (Monmouth County, New Jersey); General Manuscripts Miscellaneous Collection, C0140, Manuscripts Division, Department of Special Collections, Princeton University Library. 

  Courtesy of Princeton University Library

• Earlier this month, PUL announced the expanded curation of the Lenape Collection (formerly known as the Indigenous Studies Collection), curated by Steven Knowlton, librarian for history and African American studies. The collection pulls together items with a specific focus on the Lenape — topics include history, anthropology, language, folklore and religion — that were housed in disparate areas and places them in one location. PUL librarians will continue to add to the collection.

• The Department of Anthropology developed the project “Illuminating Indigenous Scholarship at Princeton” depicting “the largely understudied relationship between Indigenous scholarship and anthropology at Princeton.” The work includes various collaborations with PUL Special Collections based on the papers of Alfonso Ortiz (Tewa), who was an associate professor of anthropology and organized the first convocation of Native scholars at Princeton in 1970. Projects include the documentary “Ever Open,” as well as podcasts, blogs and online exhibits based on students' work with Ortiz’s papers for the class “Critical Native American and Indigenous Studies.” The class is taught by Ikaika Ramones (Kanaka ʻŌiwi), assistant professor of anthropology.

• The Seed Farm, located at the Stony Ford Research Station, is a center for local ecological research managed by the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. Students, scholars and community partners work together to grow “rare, culturally-meaningful seed crops” and to learn about heirloom plants. Recent projects include The Lenni Lenape Blue Pulling Corn Project and the Maycock and Nanticoke Squash Project. This fall, the farm planted the seeds in a Three Sisters garden in partnership with the Native Roots Farm Foundation and the Experimental Farm Network.

Students help with planting at The Seed Farm. 

Photo by

Ryan Halbe, Office of Communications

External partnerships and historical recognitions

• Since 2017, the School of Public and International Affairs has annually hosted the Santa Fe Indian School’s Leadership Institute’s Summer Policy Academy, which provides cohort-based education for high school students who are enrolled citizens of Tribal Nations. In summer 2024, 16 high school students and recent graduates representing six Pueblo Nations and the Navajo Nation in New Mexico visited Princeton’s campus to study how government policies affect tribal communities.
• The University seeks to build respectful collaborations with federally and state-recognized Lenape tribes. In 2023, a memorial garden was dedicated in honor of the University’s enduring relationship with the original Lenape inhabitants of the land where Princeton stands today, and a historical marker acknowledging the origins and diaspora of the Lenape was erected on the grounds of Prospect House.