Tag Archives: indigenous knowledge

ICIK names 2017 Whiting Indigenous Knowledge Research Award winners

Penn State graduate students Lucy Harbor, Megan McDonie and Janet Purdy have been recognized with the 2017 Whiting Indigenous Knowledge Research Award to help fund their research pursuits. The award, now in its sixth year, is open to all full-time Penn State undergraduate and graduate students, and 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).

Lucy Harbor

Harbor, from West Lafayette, Indiana, is a master’s degree candidate in Penn State’s Department of Recreation, Park, and Tourism Management who plans investigating the ways that the market-driven capitalist enterprise of tourism influences knowledge, institutions and materiality in the Tz’utujil, Kaqchikel and K’iche villages surrounding Lake Atitlán, Guatemala.

 

Megan McDonie

McDonie, a doctoral candidate in Penn State’s Department of History, is from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. McDonie’s research centers on the human-environmental interactions during Spain’s colonial project in Mesoamerica during the 16th through 18th centuries with a focus on volcanoes as sites of cultural and intellectual exchange among Nahuas, Kaqchikel Maya, and Spaniards.

Janet Purdy

A native of Bay Village, Ohio, and State College, Pennsylvania, Purdy is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Art History. Focusing on the role that symbols in woodcarvings and the definition of architectural space played in the lived experience of 19th-century Zanzibar in Tanzania, Purdy’s project examines the relationship between material objects and the formation of Swahili culture and identity.

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 2017-18 academic year and write an article highlighting the indigenous knowledge aspects of their projects for publication in Penn State’s open access indigenous knowledge journal IK: Other Ways of Knowing.

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 2018, contact Mark Mattson, global partnerships and outreach librarian, at 814-863-2480 or mam1196@psu.edu .

Read the full Penn State News article on the 2017 winners online.

Lecture emphasizes importance of indigenous knowledge systems

man with black glasses and beard

Kyle Whyte, Timnick Chair in the Humanities at Michigan State University

A lecture by Kyle Whyte on the importance and opportunities for land-grant universities to collaborate with indigenous peoples and indigenous knowledge systems will be held at 10 a.m. on Thursday, April 6, in Foster Auditorium, 102 Paterno Library. Whyte’s talk, sponsored by the Interinstitutional Center for Indigenous Knowledge, will also be available for public viewing at live.libraries.psu.edu.

Whyte, who holds the Timnick Chair in the Humanities at Michigan State University, will present “Why Indigenous Knowledge Systems Matter for U.S. Land-Grant Universities: Responsibilities and Challenges.”

Collaboration with indigenous communities presents important opportunities for university-based researchers to contribute to solving some of the hardest problems in the world. In the context of the United States, Whyte will discuss the potential, the responsibilities and challenges for land-grant universities creating programs and seeking greater engagement with indigenous peoples and indigenous knowledge systems, especially in states where no federally recognized tribes currently exist.

An 8.5×11 poster with information about the “Why Indigenous Knowledge Systems Matter for U.S. Land-Grant Universities: Responsibilities and Challenges” lecture is available as a downloadable PDF. The complete Penn State News article is available for reading online.

For more information on this event, or for questions about accommodations or the physical access provided, contact Mark Mattson, global partnerships and outreach librarian, at 814-863-2480 or mam1196@psu.edu in advance of your visit.