Panel Discussion: Climate Change and Braided Knowledge
Date & Time
Tuesday, May 12, 2026
6:30 p.m.
This event is in the past.
Tickets
General admission: $15
Burke members: $5
Not a member? Join today.
Told through a story of Indigenous survival, this discussion focuses on the challenges and potential solutions offered through a novel approach to research with and by Indigenous Peoples — braiding knowledges.
Indigenous Peoples across the globe are facing extreme challenges due to climate change at increasingly rapid rates, ranging from destruction of homelands to the theft of resources, such as water and power to cool data centers. The lack of support and resources from federal, state, and local partners exacerbates the solutions afforded to Native and Indigenous Nations and communities, who are often left to face these issues alone.
The impact of settler-colonial policies restricts the reliance on cultural and traditional ways of stewarding homelands that Native and Indigenous Nations and Communities have relied on since time immemorial. Braiding knowledges offers a potential solution that incorporates both Indigenous Knowledges and western knowledges to address issues in ways that honor longstanding relationships and that recognize the utility of transdisciplinary braided approaches, creating a third co-creative space for research and work with and by Native and Indigenous Native and Communities.
About the Speakers
Dr. Ora Marek-Martinez is a citizen of the Navajo Nation and a descendant of both the Nez Perce tribe and the Hopi tribe, originally from Lapwai, Idaho. Dr. Marek-Martinez is an Associate Professor in the Anthropology department at Northern Arizona Unviersity in Flagstaff, Arizona. Dr. Marek-Martinez started her career as an archaeologist for the Navajo Nation Archaeology Department in 1999 and continued her work throughout her educational journey. She started at the Navajo Nation in 2008 as a Supervisory archaeologist while she conducted her dissertation research on articulating a Diné (Navajo) archaeology with, by, and for the Navajo People. Before she left the Navajo Nation, Dr. Marek-Martinez served as the Navajo Nation’s Tribal Historic Preservation Officer. Starting in 2016, she returned to Northern Arizona University as an Assistant Professor in the Anthropology Department, her research interests include Indigenous archaeology and Indigenous Heritage management, including research and approaches that utilize ancestral or cultural knowledge in the creation of archaeological knowledge. Dr. Marek-Martinez’s other research interests include southwestern archaeology, Indigenous futurisms, and decolonizing and Indigenizing archaeological narratives of the cultural landscape on Indigenous homelands as a way to reaffirm Indigenous connections to land and place. Her current research focuses on an NSF awarded STC entitled “Center for Braiding Indigenous Knowledge in Science”. NAU will be the CBIKS’ Southwest Hub researching with Indigenous Communities, NAU Faculty and Students in the areas of climate change, protection of heritage places, and food sovereignty. This work personifies her goal to contribute to the efforts in our discipline to move archaeology beyond its colonial origin. Dr. Marek-Martinez is also a founding member of the Indigenous Archaeology Coalition and was recently a consultant and featured in episode one on Streaming Curiosity’s documentary series “The Real Wild West”.
