UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Penn State graduate students Marie Louise Ryan, Johann Strube and Megan Griffin have been recognized with the 2018 Whiting Indigenous Knowledge Research Award to help fund their research pursuits. The award, open to all full-time Penn State undergraduate and graduate students, is funded by the Marjorie Grant Whiting Endowment for the Advancement of Indigenous Knowledge and supported by Penn State’s University Libraries and the Interinstitutional Center for Indigenous Knowledge (ICIK).
Award applicants are evaluated based on their proposal’s intellectual merit, research potential, creativity, research design and evaluation, qualifications and availability of resources to complete the work. Each recipient will present their research findings during the 2018-19 academic year and write a report highlighting the indigenous knowledge aspects of their projects for publication in Penn State’s open access indigenous knowledge journal IK: Other Ways of Knowing.
Ryan is a doctoral student studying geography whose research topic “Land, Labor and Agency: Traditional Seed Systems and Outmigration in Lamjung, Nepal” examines how outmigration alters land tenure status and labor dynamics in rice paddy production, and the relationships between caste, ethnicity and gender and traditional seed systems within the Gurung indigenous group.
Strube’s doctoral dissertation explores how ownership and sovereignty over land and water is understood, enforced and resisted on the traditional homeland of the Ojibwe around Lake of the Woods, Minnesota and Manitoba, Ontario. Specifically, Strube’s research examines how colonial domination is reproduced and challenged through the everyday practices of manoomin, or wild rice, harvesting procedures of the United States and Canada, and how their procedures support or impede indigenous ways of being.
Griffin, a master’s candidate in agricultural economics, sociology and education, received the award for her research called “Growing Resistance: A Gender Analysis of Efforts to Preserve Maya Maize in Yucatan.” Her thesis examines the roles of Maya women, specifically in the town of Zoy, in the maintenance of indigenous maize, particularly how they are affected by rapid agricultural commercialization.
For more information about the Whiting Indigenous Knowledge Research Award or for details on how and when to submit an application for consideration for project funding for 2019, contact Mark Mattson, global partnerships and outreach librarian, at 814-863-2480 or mam1196@psu.edu.