Mellon Sawyer Seminar Series Post-doctoral Fellowship

Mellon Sawyer Seminar Series Post-doctoral Fellowship

Territorial Roots and Diasporic Routes: 

Native American and Indigenous Cultural Politics in the Americas

University of Texas at Austin

Native American and Indigenous Studies (NAIS) and the Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies (LLILAS) invite applications for a one-year post-doctoral fellowship with the Mellon Sawyer Seminar Series on Territorial Roots and Diasporic Routes: Native American and Indigenous Cultural Politics in the Americas (description follows). 

The successful candidate will show interest in dialogue and theory across North-South divides in indigenous studies, and ideally will have research or practical experience in both realms. Applicants must have received their Ph.D. degrees within the last five (5) years. Disciplinary specialization is open. The successful candidate must show exceptional scholarly promise and will be expected to co-coordinate and participate in the bi-weekly Sawyer Seminar series, which will draw indigenous scholars from throughout the hemisphere. The fellow will be located either in NAIS or LLILAS, depending on primary research focus, and is expected to interact with faculty and students from both units. Appointment will begin September 1, 2014, and will provide a stipend of $45,000, plus standard benefits. To apply, please send a letter of application, curriculum vitae, dissertation abstract, and brief description of current research agenda via Interfolio (apply.interfolio.com/24286).  Three letters of recommendation must be submitted separately through Interfolio. All materials should be in pdf format.  All materials must be received by February 21, 2014, to be considered. Background check conducted on applicant selected.  The University of Texas at Austin is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer.

Description of the Sawyer Seminar Series:

The seminar series will explore the relationship between indigenous territory and diaspora in the Americas.  We depart from the understanding that, while there is an assumed incompatibility between “indigenous” (original to a place) and “diaspora” (dislocated from an original space), this dichotomy obscures the lived experiences of indigenous peoples, who have been in movement for various reasons, including population pressures, forced relocation, war, territorial dispossession, and “voluntary” labor migration (to name just a few).  While these processes have generated tensions in relation to place-based identities and claims to territorial homelands, indigenous peoples have also creatively engaged these tensions, refashioning their sense of belonging, adapting cultural resources to new conditions, reframing claims to rights, and generating new forms of political organization. This territory-diaspora relationship provides the first axis of dialogue for the Seminar.  The second axis is geographic:  although joined by common histories of colonial oppression and a foundational relationship to the earth, and unified by many cultural-political affinities, indigenous peoples of North and South also have substantively divergent experiences. While in the past these differences have generated obstacles to efforts of hemispheric organization and of comparative analysis, some of the most exciting emergent trends in indigenous studies directly engage, rather than avoid, these tensions.  This Seminar will encompass cases from both North and South in the realms of language, identity, cultural production, and political organization.  These discussions will seek understandings that bridge North-South differences and illuminate the ways indigenous communities are negotiating the complexities of the territory-diaspora throughout the hemisphere.