Beyond Settler Sex and Family: Kim TallBear in Conversation
with Kim TallBear
Professor and Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Peoples, Technoscience and Environment, Faculty of Native Studies, University of Alberta
In conversation with Marcelo Garzo Montalvo
Musician, dancer, and Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies at California State University, San Marcos
Presented as part of the History and Theory of New Media lecture series as part of the Indigenous Technologies Initiative. Co-sponsored by the Center for Race and Gender, American Cultures, Anthropology, The Program in Critical Theory, the Arts Research Center, and and The American Indian Graduate Program.
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For this conversation with Marcelo Garzo Montalvo, Professor Kim TallBear will discuss how her work in Indigenous STS recently expanded to a new focus on decolonial and Indigenous sexualities. Building on lessons learned with geneticists about how race categories get settled, TallBear is working on a book that interrogates settler-colonial commitments to settlement in place, within disciplines, and within monogamous, state-sanctioned marriage. As she writes in “Disrupting Settlement, Sex, and Nature — and Indigenous Logic of Relaitonality”: Indigenous peoples—post-apocalyptic for centuries—have been disciplined by the state according to a monogamist, heteronormative, marriage-focused, nuclear family ideal that is central to the colonial project. Settler sexualities and their unsustainable kin forms do not only harm humans, but they harm the earth.” TallBear considers how expansive indigenous concepts of kin, including with other-than-humans, can serve as a provocation for moving into more sustainable and just relations. Both of our speakers would like this event to be a conversation format. Come prepared with questions to contribute to this important and timely discussion with a leading scholar in the field!
About Kim TallBear
Kim TallBear (Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate) (she/her) is Professor and Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Peoples, Technoscience and Environment, Faculty of Native Studies, University of Alberta. She is the author of Native American DNA: Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic Science. In addition to studying the genome sciences disruptions to Indigenous self-definitions, Dr. TallBear studies colonial disruptions to Indigenous sexual relations. She is a regular panelist on the weekly podcast, Media Indigena. You can follow her research group at https://indigenoussts.com/. She tweets @KimTallBear.
About Marcelo Garzo Montalvo
Dr. Marcelo Garzo Montalvo (he/they) is a musician, dancer, and Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies at California State University, San Marcos. He is a first-generation Chilean-Canadian-American of Mapuche and Spanish descent. They hold a B.A., M.A. and PhD in Comparative Ethnic Studies from UC Berkeley. Their teaching and research focus on comparative and critical approaches to Black, Indigenous, Latinx and Xicanx Studies as well as Dance and Performance Studies. Last year, Marcelo served as the Coordinator of Indigenous Technologies at the Berkeley Center for New Media. They have published articles on abolition, decoloniality and social movements for food, healing and ecological justice.
About Indigenous Technologies
Indigenous Technologies is a program of the Berkeley Center for New Media that engages questions of technology and new media in relation to global structures of indigeneity, settler colonialism and genocide in the 21st century. Our Indigenous Tech events and ongoing conversations with Indigenous scholars and communities aim to critically envision and reimagine what a more just and sustainable technological future can look like. We will highlight Indigenous engagements with robotics, computer science, telecommunications, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, social media, online activism, video games, and more.
Read a full description of the program and find more resources here.
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