Project Title: Chinook Justice: A Survivance Journey
Rachel Cushman, University of Oregon
Rachel Cushman is an enrolled citizen of the Chinook Indian Nation, where she is both an elected and hereditary leader. In 2017, Cushman was elected to the Chinook Tribal Council, but her role as a leader stems from her ancestor, Clatsop Tyee Wasilta. Cushman is an Indigenous knowledge practitioner, activist, educator, and canoe skipper. For over 20 years, Cushman has fought to protect Chinook and Indigenous lands, waters, rights, and sovereignty. She is a published scholar and a world-renowned expert on Chinook history and politics. Her scholarship engages with the resurgence of Indigenous ways of being/knowing, Indigenous futurities, pigmentocracy, non-colonial economies, and Indigenous land stewardship, as well as the praxis of radical sovereignty. Currently, Cushman is doctoral candidate of Indigenous, Race, and Ethnic Studies at the University of Oregon.
About the APSA Advancing Research Grants for Indigenous Politics Recipients