Tansi! Tawnshi!

Savage Minds welcomes guest blogger Zoe Todd. 

Tansi! or Tawnshi!

These are, respectively, the nehiyawewin and Michif greetings of my home territory.  I grew up in amiskwaciwâskahikan/pêhonan in Treaty Six territory in central Alberta, also known by the colonial name Edmonton. Michif and nehiyawewin are two of several Indigenous languages spoken in my hometown, which is the traditional territory of Cree, Blackfoot, Saulteaux, Dene, Nakoda and Métis peoples. I am finishing my PhD in Social Anthropology at the University of Aberdeen and will begin a position at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada in July.

Over the next month, I am excited to share with the Savage Minds readership some insights into the work of Indigenous and decolonial scholars in North America. I will explore the intersections and divergences between discourses in Anthropology and those conversations and issues being addressed by Indigenous scholars across a number of disciplines, institutions and communities in Canada and the USA. I am very fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with thoughtful, supportive and creative scholars both in Canada and through my time living in the UK.

I am very excited to share with you the brilliance of some people who have deeply shaped how I think about my role as a scholar, an anthropologist, and an Indigenous feminist and who continue to hold me accountable as a thinker and political actor with reciprocal duties to people and place across multiple continents.

Zoe Todd

Dr. Zoe Todd (Red River Métis/Otipemisiwak) is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. She was a 2011 Trudeau Foundation Scholar. She researches Indigenous feminist (Métis) perspectives on the anthropocene, extinction, human-fish relations, colonialism and Indigenous legal orders/governance in Canada.

3 thoughts on “Tansi! Tawnshi!

  1. Zoe, I am really looking forward to this. Serendipitously I am registering today for the fourth meeting of the East Asian Anthropological Association (EAAA), which was formed to provide a forum for indigenous anthropologists in China, Korea, Japan and Taiwan. Folks like me, who live and work in East Asia are also welcome to attend. It will be very interesting to see if the issues you raise are similar to those raised at this meeting.

  2. Hi John! Thank you so much. The EAAA meeting sounds amazing! Would love to hear more about it when it takes place!

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