AlterNative

Dr Gratien G. Atindogbé holds a PhD in African Linguistics from the University of Bayreuth (Germany) in 1996. After a BA in Modern French Literature, a Maîtrise and a DEA in African Linguistics from the University of Yaoundé (Cameroon), he got a scholarship from the Deutschen Akademischen Austauschdienstes (DAAD) for a research stay in the Department of “Afrikanistik” of the University of Bayreuth in 1992. From 1994 to 1996, he won a second grant from the DAAD to complete his PhD which consisted of a thorough description of Bankon (A40), a minority language spoken in Cameroon. Since 1997, he is teaching general linguistics and the African language structures in the Department of Linguistics in the University of Buea (Cameroon). Since November 2007, he is on a two-year fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (Germany), to write the grammar of Barombi, an endangered Bantu language of Zone A spoken in Cameroon. His host institution is the Institute for African Studies of the University of Cologne. His main interest is the documentation of the endangered languages of Cameroon, historical linguistics (Bantu), and the questions of intercultural communication.

Gaski is the author and editor of several books and articles on Sami literature and culture. Gaski has been visiting scholar at several universities in the U.S., Australia, and in Greenland, and is very much used as speaker internationally on Sami issues. He was until recently a member of the joint coordinating committee of a research program in Nicaragua conducted as a collaborative project between the University of Tromsø and URACCAN university in Nicaragua 2000-2007. For six years he was a board member in the Arctic Research Consortium of the United States 1999-2005. He is currently the chair of the Sami non-fiction writers association.

Vicente M. Diaz is Pohnpeian and Filipino from Guam. He is an Associate Professor and current Director of the Asian/Pacific Islander American Studies associated with The Program in American Culture at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. Dr. Diaz taught Pacific History and Micronesian Studies at the University of Guam from 1992-2001, before moving to Michigan. Diaz specializes in Native Pacific Cultural Studies, Pacific Historiography, Decolonization, Traditional Carolinian Seafaring, and Pacific Film and Video production and criticism. He wrote, directed, and co-produced Sacred Vessels: Navigating Tradition and Identity in Micronesia (1997, 30 mins documentary), and is the past Coordinator of the Micronesian Seafaring Society, a regional association of canoebuilders and navigators from across the Micronesian region. He also founded the Guam Traditional Seafarers, is a member of the utt Sahyan Tasi Fachemwaan canoe house in Guam, and is affiliated with the utt Wenemai and Wenebuku canoe houses in Polowat atoll, Chuuk State, Federated States of Micronesia in the Central Carolines. Diaz is the author of Repositioning the Missionary: Rewriting the Histories of Colonialism, Native Catholicism, and Indigeneity in Guam (Pacific Monograph Series, University of Hawaii Press, 2009).

Charmaine I. Kaimikaua is of Hawaiian descent and a lecturer in Communication Studies and Airline Travel Careers departments at Cypress College and Santa Monica College. She teaches a variety of Communication and Professional Communication Skills courses emphasizing intercultural communication competency which include “Race, Class and Gender” issues that prevent effective cultural communication. She graduated with a B.A. and M.A. in Communication Studies from California State University, Long Beach and is a doctoral candidate in Social and Cultural Anthropology at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, California. Her dissertation thesis, “The Politics of Cultural Preservation: Communicating Identity, Resistance and Empowerment for Diaspora Hawaiians in a Southern California Hula Halaū” emphasizes the political ramifications and redefining of Hawaiian identity while preserving culture for Diaspora Hawaiian peoples. Other research interests include: multiracial identities, the impact of tourism upon the preservation and sustainability of cultures, cultural preservation strategies of indigenous and Diaspora cultures, cultural identity politics, cultural aggression, marginality, cultural authenticity, resistance and empowerment as well as the effects of globalization and modernity upon the preservation of indigenous and Diaspora cultures. She also serves as a co-executive director of the Mahi Foundation, a non-profit organization supporting the preservation and perpetuation of Hawaiian cultural arts on the mainland of the United States.

An enrolled member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, Dr. Walters founded and directs the university-wide, interdisciplinary Indigenous Wellness Research Institute at the University of Washington. A recent recipient of the prestigious Fulbright Award, her research focuses on historical, social, and cultural determinants of physical and mental health among American Indians and Alaska Natives. She serves as principal investigator on several groundbreaking studies associated with health-risk outcomes among American Indian individuals, families, and communities funded by the National Institutes of Health.

Malia Villegas is a doctoral candidate at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a Research Fellow for the Alaska Native Policy Center at the First Alaskans Institute. Malia served as an editor for the Harvard Educational Review, where she edited Indigenous Knowledge and Education: Sites of Struggle, Strength, and Survivance (with S. R. Neugebauer & K. R. Venegas, 2008). Her doctoral thesis centers on the effort to graduate 500 Māori doctorates. She received her Masters degree in Education Policy & Management from Harvard and Bachelors degrees in Political Science and Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity from Stanford University.

Boozhoo, Odehamik nintishinikaas, Kaministiquia nitoonci tahsh Toronto nintishitaa Amihk nitootem ekwa Mikinaakokamink nintashianohki. Ka-ninanatawentanmin Anishinaabemowin tonci kanohkentaan kaa onciyak.

Greetings, I am Anishinaabe, Beaver clan from near Thunder Bay Ontario. Currently I am part of building a sustainable urban Ojibwe language learning community in Toronto using Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) teaching and knowledge practices. This work focuses on equipping learners with an Anishinaabe worldview so that they can know themselves as Anishinaabek and take up their language, their responsibilities and their inheritance in an urban setting. Ketekicih-kinoohamaatwinaana ohsha taakii pikiiwecikaate pahniin. Miikwec.

I am father of two boys and a citizen of Fisher River Cree Nation living in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. I am currently an assistant professor in the Faculty of Social Work at the University of Manitoba. My research is focussing on Indigenous helping practices, Indigenous men and decolonization, the development of Indigenism within social work, and mental health. I have worked in the fields of child welfare, family therapy, addictions, and mental health.

Raven Sinclair is from Gordon’s and Kawacatoose First Nations of Treaty 4 in southern Saskatchewan. Raven completed her PhD in Social Work at the University of Calgary. Her dissertation research articulates the experiences of Indigenous children who were adopted into non-Indigenous families during the 1960s, 70s, and 80s across Canada. Raven is the Assistant Director of the Indigenous Peoples’ Health Research Centre where her research program focuses on Indigenous research ethics with current attention on research ethics and traditional knowledge. She is a member of several community based, national and international research grants examining issues in Indigenous health including primary health care, HIV/AIDS, Indigenous youth and homelessness, and intergenerational child and family well-being. Raven is published in the areas of Indigenous research and Indigenous social work and is editing the first collection on Indigenous social work in Canada for release in the Fall of 2009. Raven is passionate about teaching clinical practice classes and is currently working on articulating a healing modality based on a model of accountable communication.

Sandy Grande is an Associate Professor in the Education Department at Connecticut College and also works as a research consultant for the Ford Foundation. She is currently working on developing a Indigenous Think Tank, with a home location in New York City. Her research and teaching are profoundly inter- and cross-disciplinary, and interfaces critical, feminist, Indigenous and Marxist theories of education with the concerns of Indigenous education. Her book, Red Pedagogy: Native American Social and Political Thought (Rowman and Littlefield, 2004) has been met with critical acclaim. She has also published several articles including "Critical Theory and American Indian Identity and Intellectualism," The International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, and "American Indian Geographies of Identity and Power: At the Crossroads of Indigena and Mestizaje," Harvard Educational Review.

Dr. Linitā Manu‘atu is of Tongan descent. Linitā is a Senior Lecturer in Education at the School of Education Te Kura Mātauranga at the Auckland University of Technology. She teaches a variety of courses; for example, Issues in Pacific Education and Research Methodologies and Educational Leadership and Leading in Diverse Cultures and Communities in the Master of Education Programme and in the National Diploma in Teaching [ECE Pasifika] in a variety of papers including Fonua: Pacific Perspectives in Human Development. Linitā works with ‘Pacific’ academics across the universities in New Zealand and overseas to develop research frameworks for multi-disciplinary research with Pacific peoples.

Emeritus Professor Ranginui Walker, DCNZM was born in Waiaua, Opotiki, Bay of Plenty, Aotearoa New Zealand. He was educated at St Peters Maori College, Northcote, Auckland Teachers College and the University of Auckland. Ranginui is an academic of outstanding reputation and the recipient in 2007 of a lifetime achievement award from Nga Pae o te Maramatanga for his research contributions. Since the 1960s, he has worked tirelessly with Maori communities in the Auckland region. He is committed to the work carried out by the Whakotea Trust Board, Opotiki, and to the development and advancement of Maori people and our organisations throughout Aotearoa. Ranginui has been happily married to Deirdre for 55 years.
Ranginui now brings the values of critique, diligence, loyalty and commitment to Maori people, communities and organisations to the role as the Editor-in-Chief, of AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples.

Dr Sue Crengle is from the Waitaha, Kati Mamoe and Kāi Tahu tribes in
Aotearoa/New Zealand. She graduated with her medical and Master of Public Health
degrees from the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at the University of
Auckland. She holds specialty qualifications in general practice and public health
medicine. She was a recipient of the Harkness Fellowship in Health Policy 1999-
2000, spending time at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, Baltimore, USA. On
her return from the U.S. she spent a year working as a Senior Advisor in the Ministry
of Health. She is currently a Senior Lecturer in Te Kupenga Hauora Māori, and
Director of Tōmaiora Māori Health Research Centre, Faculty of Medicine and Heath
Sciences, University of Auckland. Her current research interests include health
services research, quality of care, and child and youth health. In 2008, she submitted
her PhD thesis which was an enormous relief and resulted in a series of parties!

Vicki Grieves BA (Hons1) UNSW is Worimi from the midnorth coast of NSW and a historian. Vicki has almost three decades experience in managing Aboriginal policy and program developments within Universities (where she has also lectured in Aboriginal history and public policy), the Commonwealth public service and in Aboriginal community organisations. She has recently had the opportunity to review major Indigenous education initiatives of the Commonwealth government as a consultant. Vicki’s completed PhD thesis Approaching Aboriginal History: Family, Wellbeing and Identity in Aboriginal Australia presents a case for a new Australian historiography based on Indigenous knowledges approaches and explores mixed-race marriages in Worimi from this theoretical base.

Tirso Gonzales, Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison, a Peruvian of Aymara descent. Currently works at the Indigenous Studies program, University of British Columbia Okanagan, Canada. He is an educator and scholar, international consultant and activist who works closely with Indigenous Peoples throughout the Americas. Gonzales was formerly a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Davis and Berkeley. In the recent past he worked as a member of the Peruvian National Commission of Indigenous Andean, Amazonian and Afro Peruvian People. In his recent work he inquires about the use by indigenous peoples of research methodologies and techniques on issues central to indigenous selfdetermined development, community development, agri-cultures, strategic visions, and the local sustainable cultivation and nurturance of nature. He is committed to supporting the agenda of Indigenous Peoples as well as processes related to indigenous/local ecological knowledge, food as medicine, indigenous worldviews, indigenous medicinal plants and healing, food and seed security/sovereignty, cultural affirmation and decolonization. Currently he works on "Decolonizing Latin American Indigenous Studies".