Project Title: Reclaiming Governance: Institutional Exclusion, Collective Action, and Indigenous Authority in Alaska
Sonja Castañeda Dower, University of Chicago
Sonja Castañeda Dower is a PhD candidate in political science at the University of Chicago. Her research examines government efforts to reorganize or centralize political authority, often reflected in campaigns to consolidate control over land, resources, or populations. Drawing on quasi-experimental designs, archival research, and field-based case studies — including administrative and survey data, interviews, and village-level testimony and records — her dissertation analyzes historical and contemporary Indigenous–state relations in the United States, with comparative extensions in the Arctic and Oceania. She is especially interested in how institutional design shapes political participation and collective organization in longstanding democracies. Her research shows that, in these settings, assimilationist and incorporative reforms often leave behind durable arrangements that constrain central government authority — visible, for example, in land settlements, resource regimes, and systems of environmental co-management. Sonja holds an MA in political science from the University of Chicago, an MA in politics and education from Columbia University, and a BA in English literature from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
About the APSA Advancing Research Grants for Indigenous Politics Recipients
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