INDIGENOUS MOTHERHOOD IN THE ACADEMY Indigenous Motherhood in the Academy

EDITED BY ROBIN ZAPE-TAH-HOL-AH MINTHORN, CHRISTINE A. NELSON, AND HEATHER J. SHOTTON

“This book on Indigenous motherhood eloquently weaves together the beauty, strength, and resilience of those who transform academic spaces for the bene t of Indigenous students, families, and communities. This is the book I yearned for as a graduate student and Indigenous mother-scholar.”

—Jennifer Brant, University of Toronto, co-editor of Forever Loved: Exposing the Hidden Crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls in Canada

276 pp 8 b/w images 6.125 x 9.25

978-1-9788-1637-4 paper $39.95S

978-1-9788-1638-1 cloth $130.00SU

August 2022

Table of Contents

Introduction

Section I: East-Thinking

An Indigenous boy occupying the academy and the intergenerational (motherly) teachings that led him there

“She had no use for fools”: Stories of Dibé Łizhiní mothers

Nine Months of Indigenous Motherhood in the Academy: A Rainbow Journey From the Islands to Na’Neelzhíín

M(othering) and the Academy

My Children Are My Teachers: Lessons Learned as a Kanaka

Maoli Mother-Scholar

Dreams of Hózhó Within the Womb: A Navajo Mother’s Letter to Her Newest Love

Section II: South-Planning

Hollo Micha Oh Chash: Drawing from our Choctaw ancestors’ wisdom to decolonize motherhood within the academy

Mvskoke Eckvlke (Muscogee Motherhood) in Academic Spaces

The (Time) Line in the Sand

Protection and the Power of Reproduction

A Glint of Decolonial Love: An Academic Mother’s Meditation on Navigating and Leveraging the University

Honoring our Relations (Collective Stories)

Section III: West-Living

Widening the Path: Re ection of Two Generations in Academia

Mothers and Daughters are Forever

A Journey of Indigenous Motherhood Through the Love, Loss and the P&T Process

Indigenous Motherhood in STEM

Kuhkwany Kuchemayo ‘Aaknach, An Iipay Mother’s/Teacher’s Story

Impact of a Pandemic on Indigenous Motherhood

Section IV: North-Assuring

Our Journey Through Healing

Motherhood, Re-Imagined

Weaving Fine Baskets of Resilience:Resilient Mothering in the Academy as Kanaka Nation Building

H ‘ena-i-ku‘u-poli: A Letter to My Daughter

A Hidden Cartography: Matrilinealizing the Terrain of Academe

Berries and Her Many Lectures: The Work of Storywork

Tying The Bundle

Notes on Contributors

Indigenous Motherhood in the Academy highlights the experiences and narratives emerging from Indigenous mothers in the academy who are negotiating their roles in multiple contexts. The essays in this volume contribute to the broader higher education literature and the literature on Indigenous representation in the academy, lling a longtime gap that has excluded Indigenous women scholar voices. This book covers diverse topics such as the journey to motherhood, lessons through motherhood, acknowledging ancestors and grandparents in one’s mothering, how historical trauma and violence plague the past, and balancing mothering through the healing process. More speci c to Indigenous motherhood in the academy is how culture and place impacts mothering (speci cally, if Indigenous mothers are not in their traditional homelands as they raise their children), how academia impacts mothering, how mothering impacts scholarship, and how to negotiate loss and other complexities between motherhood and one’s role in the academy.

ROBIN ZAPE-TAH-HOL-AH MINTHORN is an associate professor of educational leadership, director of the EdD program, and Director of Indigenous education initiatives at the University of Washington, Tacoma. She is a citizen of the Kiowa tribe and descendent of Apache, Umatilla, Nez Perce and Assiniboine tribes. She is the coeditor of Indigenous Leadership in Higher Education and Reclaiming Indigenous Research in Higher Education (Rutgers University Press).

HEATHER J. SHOTTON is an associate professor and the department chair of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at the University of Oklahoma in Norman. She is also the director of Indigenous Education Initiatives. She is an enrolled citizen of the Wichita & Af liated Tribes. Shotton is coeditor of Beyond the Asterisk: Understanding Native Students in Higher Education, Beyond College Access: Indigenizing Programs for Student Success, and Reclaiming Indigenous Research in Higher Education (Rutgers University Press).

CHRISTINE A. NELSON is an assistant professor of higher education at the University of Denver in Colorado. She is of the Diné and Laguna Pueblo tribes of the southwest.