Native American-Led Projects Get $4.5 Million from the National Endowment for the Humanities
More than 20 Native American-led humanities projects are among the latest awardees of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) $33.8 million fund.
Awarded projects include an Iñupiaq Public History Project, an intergenerational knowledge-sharing effort in Taos, New Mexico, and the construction of the Tomaquag Indian Memorial Museum in Exeter, Rhode Island. Funding for Native American projects totals approximately $4.5 million.
“This funding will help preserve and expand access to community histories, strengthen the ability of small museums and archives to serve the public and provide resources and educational opportunities for students to engage with history, literature, languages, and cultures,” NEH Chair Shelly C. Lowe (Navajo) said in a statement.
NEH is one of the largest funders of humanities programs in the United States. The endowment only awards grants to top-rated proposals examined by panels of independent, external reviewers.
Here is the full list of funded Native American projects:
Corinna Cook
The Early Years of the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission: An Iñupiaq Public History Project
Research and writing led to a book on the early years of the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission (1977–1983) from the perspective of its first executive director, Marie Adams Carroll. ($60,000/ Fellowships)
University of Alaska, Fairbanks
Indigenizing the Humanities: Troth Yeddha’ Indigenous Studies Center
Construction design and site preparation for an Indigenous Studies Center at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. ($500,000/ Infrastructure and Capacity Building Challenge Grants)
Regents of the University of California, Berkeley
Hitch Stories
The creation of a StoryMap to document the history of the hitch fish and its cultural significance to the tribal peoples of the Clear Lake region of California. ($150,000/ Cultural and Community Resilience)
Association of Moving Image Archivists
Expanding the Circle of Care for Audiovisual Collections in Tribal Archives
A continuing education program in the preservation of audiovisual collections for approximately 150 tribal cultural stewards that would include five regional workshops, the development of inventories and preservation plans for site partners, and the creation of a new module on managing digital AV collections. ($349,610/ Preservation and Access Education and Training)
Dana Murillo, University of California, San DiegoThe Chichimeca Arc: War, Peace, and Resettlement in America’s First Borderlands, 1546–1616
Research and writing leading to a book about war and peace between the Indigenous Chichimeca and the Spanish in northern Mexico between 1546 and 1616. ($60,000/ Fellowships)
Stacy Kamehiro, University of California, Santa Cruz
Objects of the Nation: Hawai’i at the World’s Fairs, 1855–1899
Research and writing leading to a book exploring how world’s fairs exhibited by Indigenous Hawaiians and settler-colonists reflected and shaped conceptions of Hawaiian nationhood and Indigenous sovereignty. ($60,000/ Fellowships)
Craig Perez, University of Hawaii Systems
Pacific Islander Ecopoetry: Indigenous Knowledge, Environmental Justice, and Climate Change
Research and writing leading to a book on the Indigenous environmental poetry traditions of the Pacific Ocean region. ($60,000/ Fellowships)
Kansas State University
Kansas Land Treaties Project
A three-year project to revise curriculum and create digital humanities resources that support undergraduate and K-12 teaching about local Indigenous history and culture. ($149,843/ Humanities Initiatives at Colleges and Universities)
Wichita State University
Stories of Language, Communication, and the COVID-19 Pandemic in Kansas Latinx Communities
The recording of 10 oral history interviews detailing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Spanish-speaking and Indigenous language-speaking communities in Kansas. The project would transcribe and translate the oral histories and make them available online in addition to hosting team and community workshops, producing teaching materials, and creating presentations and publications to share findings. ($150,000/ Cultural and Community Resilience)
Castine Scientific Society
Building Capacity for Community Engagement Through Facilitated Dialogue Training
Facilitated dialogue training for staff and volunteers of local museums and development of a public program module exploring regional Indigenous history. ($19,354/ Public Impact Projects at Smaller Organizations)
University of Maine System
Connecting Communities with Collections: Indigenous Stewardship of Wabanaki Basketry to Create a Lexicon for Cataloging
A project to create a digital lexicon of Wabanaki basketry to be used as a model for other institutions and collections of Wabanaki material culture. ($99,947/ Research and Development)
Saginaw Chippewa Tribal College
Deepening the Understanding of Anishinaabe History, Culture, and Language through the Expansion of the Native American Studies
A three-year curriculum development project, expanding an existing associate degree program to a baccalaureate degree program in Native American studies. ($120,000/ Humanities Initiatives at Tribal Colleges and Universities)
Montana State University
A People’s Oral History of Coal
The collection and curation of 25 oral histories from Apsáalooke elders and tribal members who hold knowledge about the development and governance of a coal economy on the Crow Indian Reservation. ($150,000/ Cultural and Community Resilience)
Keres Children’s Learning Center
Match: $500,000 [Infrastructure and Capacity Building Challenge Grants]
Building KCLC’s Future: Investing in the Next Generation of Keres Speakers
Construction of a new learning center to support Keres language fluency and cultural heritage on the Pueblo de Cochiti in New Mexico. ($500,000/ Infrastructure and Capacity Building Challenge Grants)
Pueblo of Isleta
Sustaining Shie’hwif Tue’i Craft Traditions Across Generations
Facilitating a series of intergenerational, community-led workshops on Pueblo of Isleta cultural heritage craftwork that is under threat of loss from the impact of COVID-19. The project would create a mixed and multimedia archival collection, language recordings, craft curricula, and instruction manuals. ($149,998/ Cultural and Community Resilience)
School for Advanced Research
Expanding Humanities Programming Capacity at SAR
Relocation and storage of collections during construction as well as purchase of archival equipment and furnishings to benefit the Indian Arts Research Center at the School of Advanced Research in Santa Fe, New Mexico. ($900,000/ Infrastructure and Capacity Building Challenge Grants)
True Kids 1
An Intergenerational Knowledge-Sharing Oral History Project in Taos
Training students, ages 14 to 20, to conduct and record 45 video oral history interviews with elders in Taos, New Mexico. ($149,084/ Cultural and Community Resilience)
United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee
Kituwah: A Place, A People, A Way of Being
The creation of a new interpretive plan for the John Hair Cultural Center in Oklahoma that would preserve and interpret the histories of the People of Ki Tu Wah. ($424,995/ Public Impact Projects at Smaller Organizations)
Shelton-McMurphey, Johnson Associates
Shelton McMurphey Johnson House Skinner Butte Interpretive Project
New interpretive signage and a web-based audio tour for a historic site to tell the story of Native American displacement, early European settlers, the rise of recreation culture, and KKK protest. ($25,000/ Public Impact Projects at Smaller Organizations)
Tomaquag Indian Memorial Museum
Tomaquag Museum’s New Home Capital Challenge Project
Construction of a new museum building for the Tomaquag Indian Memorial Museum in Exeter, Rhode Island, to expand space for Indigenous educational programming, archive collections, and research materials. ($444,282/ Infrastructure and Capacity Building Challenge Grants)
Gonzaga University
Finding Our Way: Digital Deep Mapping to Foster a Sense of Place for Underrepresented Communities
Prototyping of a website connected to interpretive signage examining the history and culture of the people who have lived along the Children of the Sun Trail in Spokane, Washington. ($99,997/ Digital Projects for the Public: Prototyping Grants)
County of Johnson
Native American Wisdom Council and Curated Exhibits
Reinterpretation of the museum’s Native American gallery through collaboration and consultation with tribal representatives. ($10,000/ Public Impact Projects at Smaller Organizations)
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