UW iSchool PhD candidate Marisa E. Duarte has been awarded a fellowship through the Social Science Research Council Dissertation Proposal Development Program.

Duarte's research will investigate the relationship between specific global technologies and specific locations of Indigenous struggle. She will be visiting various tribal leaders in the United States, speaking with them to learn about how particular technologies have shaped Native America, and how technological innovation relates to the struggle for tribal autonomy and sovereignty. In her proposal, she asserts:

A global Indigenous movement based on rootedness in the land grows beside a global market for information-processing and technological gadgets. It is an emergent resistance movement among peoples marginalized many times over by the overlapping effects of large-scale technologies such as interstate transportation systems, telecommunications, manufacturing robotics, power grids, big agribusiness, information and surveillance, and the spread of virtual capital. From the Indigenous perspective, it seems the local landscape, with all of its attendant lifeways, is threatened by a technological retexturing of the environment. Yet it is through these same technological systems that Indigenous peoples connect with each other to organize local resistance strategies. By investigating the nature of the relationship between specific global technologies and specific locations of Indigenous struggle, this study will reveal how the technosphere yields new sites of control, contestation, persistence, and protest.

"This is a great fellowship to be a part of, because it brings together scholars studying global Indigenous politics from a variety of disciplines and experiences," said Duarte upon receiving the award. "The Social Science Research Council is already recognized for affiliating top social scientists. Being able to work with other talented social scientists to unpack the complexities of Indigenous struggles provides a real opportunity for not only understanding an important and under-examined aspect of global politics, but also for expressing the Indigenous experience in a new forum. As a student of information science, this also provides me with an opportunity to show the relevance of thinking critically about information, knowledge, and technology in shaping political events. I look forward to learning about the great ideas of other SSRC DPD fellows."

Learn more about the fellowship at the SSRC website.

Please join us in congratulating Marisa.