Reclaiming Indigenous Knowledge: Decolonial and Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies for Language, Art, and Educational Sovereignty

Session Type: Paper Session

Abstract

This session highlights Indigenous educators and researchers reclaiming knowledge systems through decolonial, creative, and culturally sustaining pedagogies. Spanning K–12, higher education, and community contexts, these papers center Native and Indigenous students as agents of curricular change, language revitalization, and expressive sovereignty. Presenters explore how environmental education, arts-based learning, and linguistic reclamation resist erasure while generating transformative models of belonging and responsibility. Across diverse geographies—from Alaska and California to Yucatán and Los Angeles—each study demonstrates how Indigenous methodologies unsettle colonial frameworks by honoring community knowledge and creative continuance. Collectively, these works reveal pedagogy as a practice of liberation, where Indigenous art, language, and activism shape educational futures rooted in cultural strength and self-determination.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Indigenous Peoples of the Americas

Chair

• M. Nathan Tanner, University of Nevada - Reno

Papers

• Countering Logics of Indigenous Linguistic and Cultural Excess: Rethinking Erasure in the Maya Diaspora (Yucatan-California - Patricia Baquedano-Lopez, University of California - Berkeley

• Indigenous Invisibility: Educational Gaps Among Non-Native Environmental Decision-Makers - Brittany Hunt, Virginia Tech; Ryan Emanuel, Duke University; David Wilkins, University of Richmond; Shelly Wilkins, Wilkins Forum, LLC

• Lyrical Sovereignty: Indigenous Language Reclamation Through Interdisciplinary Arts Education - Ernesto Colin, Loyola Marymount University

• "Making It Work": Native and Indigenous Students as Curricular Agents in US Schools - Kemeyawi Wahpepah, Harvard University

• The Iñupiaq “Float Coat” Song: Using Cultural Expression Pedagogy to Solve Pressing Societal Problems - David E. K. Smith, University of Idaho

Session Organizer

• Kelly Leah Stewart, University of California, Los Angeles