Dr. Darren Ranco
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TRIBAL AFFILIATION: Penobscot Nation
PANEL TITLE: Recognizing Sovereignty as a Stepping Stone to an Enduring Democracy
WHAT’S YOUR PANEL ABOUT?
"Our panel will explore how settler-colonial democracies (the USA, the State of Maine), created racialized oppressive frameworks for Wabanaki people and attempted to destroy our democratic institutions, civic cultures, and traditions, and will show how the maintenance of these institutions is the core of our fight for Tribal sovereignty."
BIOGRAPHY
Darren J. Ranco, PhD, a citizen of the Penobscot Nation, is a Professor of Anthropology, Chair of Native American Programs, and Faculty Fellow at the Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions at the University of Maine. His research focuses on the ways in which Indigenous Nations resist environmental destruction by using Indigenous science and diplomacies to protect their natural and cultural resources. He has published extensively and teaches classes on Indigenous intellectual property rights, research ethics and methodology, environmental and climate justice, and tribal governance. He is currently a Senior Ford Fellow, working on a project called, “Decolonizing Land Relations in the Dawnland: Landback and Rematriation Across Wabanakik,” where he is researching, engaging, and learning from Indigenous led landback and rematriation movements across North America and applying this research and storywork about landback and rematriation efforts with his Tribal Nation and the other Wabanaki Nations across northern New England and eastern Canada.
