The James Anthony “Tony” Paredes Memorial Plenary is a featured event at each Society for Applied Anthropology Annual Meeting. This Plenary highlights and examines important issues in contemporary Native American life.
The Paredes Plenary was established through a unique partnership between the SfAA and the Poarch Band of Creek Indians, a relationship rooted in Professor Paredes’ long-standing work with the Tribe. Beginning in 1971, Prof. Paredes conducted extensive studies on the Tribe’s history and culture, documenting oral traditions, marriage records, and land transactions. His research played a vital role in the Tribe’s successful application for federal recognition in 1984.
After Prof. Paredes’ death in 2013, the Society sought a meaningful way to honor his contributions. With the help of his widow, Alleen Deutsch, and her close ties to the Tribal elders and leadership, the concept for the Plenary took shape. In 2015, the Poarch Band of Creek Indians generously endowed the Plenary, ensuring the continuation of this important forum for Native American issues.
CHAIR: FAYARD, Kelly (U Denver)
PANELISTS: AGUILAR, J. Woody (San Ildefonso), PARKER, Angela (Mandan/Hidatsa), CHAVARRIA, Antonio “Tony” (Santa Clara), GREYEYES, Wendy (Diné), FAYARD, Kelly (Poarch Creek)
For Indigenous scholars, conducting research “at home” means centering sovereignty, fulfilling relational obligations, and aligning scholarship with community-defined priorities rather than academic expectations. This panel examines how accountability to one’s own Nation shapes research questions, methods, and modes of sharing knowledge. Topics include kinship, cultural protocols, reciprocity, long-term commitment, and tensions with extractive academic and museum-based timelines. Working at home often requires challenging disciplinary norms and rethinking authorship and collaboration through Indigenous frameworks. By foregrounding anti-colonial, community-driven approaches, the panel invites practitioners to reconsider responsible scholarship and affirm Indigenous communities as leaders in defining research priorities and outcomes.
After the tragic passing of our friend, J. Anthony Paredes, the Poarch Band of Creek Indians endowed this memorial panel in remembrance of Tony. For this SfAA conference, we will return to the roots of that endowment by inviting Poarch Creek tribal members, with whom Tony worked for most of his career, to present. This interactive session aims to illuminate the vital work of the Poarch Band of Creek Indians’ tribal historic preservation office (THPO) in safeguarding the tribe’s cultural heritage and history. Attendees will gain insight into the THPO’s initiatives, challenges, and successes in preserving the identity and traditions of the Poarch Creek community. This session is ideal for cultural resource managers, anthropologists, educators, students, and anyone interested in Indigenous rights and cultural preservation. Join us for an enriching session that shares the valuable work of the Poarch Band of Creek Indians and honors the voices and stories that shape their history. Together, we will explore how tribal heritage is not just preserved but also lived and celebrated through community engagement and storytelling.
CHAIR: FAYARD, Kelly (U Denver)
PANELISTS: BAILEY, Billy (THPO Director, Poarch Band of Creek Indians), CHUN, Brandy (Cultural Resources Specialist, Poarch Band of Creek Indians), BURNS, Vicky (Community Elder)
Franz Boaz: Shaping Anthropology and Fostering Social Justice is a new book by Zumwalt that documents the foundation of professional anthropology in the United States. Boaz was committed to social justice and actively pursued applied research to improve the condition of unjustly treated Cultural Groups. He began a tradition of anthropologists who work for and with people to improve their social and environmental conditions. Papers in this session document the continuation of this professional tradition.
CHAIRS: VAN VLACK, Kathleen (NAU), LIM, Heather (Living Heritage Rsch Council), and STOFFLE, Richard (U Arizona)
Part I
STOFFLE, Richard (U Arizona) Breaking the Clovis Glass Ceiling: Native American Oral History of the Pleistocene
STOFFLE, Brent (NOAA/SEFSC) Spatial Planning and the Development of the Blue Economy: An Examination of Marine and Terrestrial Resource Use in St. Croix, USVI
VAN VLACK, Kathleen (NAU) We Were Here!: The Southern Paiute Connection to Bears Ears National Monument, Utah
LIM, Heather H. (Living Heritage Rsch Council) Not Your Regular Spring Cleaning: Riparian Ecosystem Restoration Efforts by National Parks in Southeastern Utah
Part II
LARSSON, Simon (U Gothenburg) Green Colonialism: An Analysis of the Sami Response to the “Green Transition”
BELL, Alannah (U Arizona) Zuni Connections and Reconnections at Sunset Crater and El Malpais National Monuments
EGUINO URIBE, Bianca (U Arizona) How Cross-Cultural Communication Counts!: The 2023 Traditional Use Study at El Malpais
YARRINGTON, Landon (CO State U) Pathways of Resilience: Revitalizing Ancestral Connections in Natural Bridges National Monument
CHAIR: STOFFLE, Richard (BARA, U Arizona)
STOFFLE, Richard (BARA, U Arizona) and VAN VLACK, Kathleen (Living Heritage) Native Americans’ Environmental Justice Expanded in Scope and Time
BOCHNIAK, Victoria (UMass) Settler Colonial Legacies of the Second Crow Agency (1875-1884)
BRUNO, Jasmine and GALVIN, Kathleen (CO State U) Using Qualitative Methods to Advance Conservation Strategies
HAAS, Caitlin, DALEY, Sean M., GOECKNER, Ryan, and, MAKOSKY DALEY, Christine (Lehigh U) American Indian and Alaska Native COVID-19 Knowledge, Attitudes, Beliefs, and Behaviors During the Pandemic
STONER, Denis (NAU) A Study of Food Programs and People in Flagstaff, Arizona from an Indigenous (Navajo/Eastern Shawnee) Perspective
MCCUNE, Meghan (NMU) and OLSON, Ernie (Wells Coll) Anthropology in the Weeds: Gardening as Decolonization in Central New York
Environmental Justice was initially defined by Bunyon Bryant at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. His research, centered largely in Detroit, identified special and unequal impacts absorbed by African Ancestry people due to development projects like urban renewal and highways. He significantly encouraged the addition of another Environmental Impact Assessment variable which has lasted until now as a key factor in project decisions. It is also key in the management of interconnected social and natural environments. This paper is based on research about the inter/relationship of Native Americans and natural resource managers. Native people struggle to ensure their EJ issues are considered in EIS and management because these are different than those which originally were used to define EJ.
This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA). The Act established over 220 village corporations and 13 regional corporations. These Native corporations have changed the social and economic landscape of Alaska. This session will examine the impacts, challenges, and successes of the Act. The focus will emphasize how well-being and identity, health services, and food security has changed in the last fifty years for Alaska Natives.
CHAIR: MONTEITH, Daniel (U Alaska SE)
HAVEN, Forest (U Alaska SE) “Subsistence is their word, not ours”: ANCSA, ANILCA, and the Settler Colonial Grammar of Subsistence in Alaska
BROWN, Jennifer (U Alaska SE) From Corporation to Community: Tribal Legibility after the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act
SCHULTE, Priscilla (UAS) Alaska Native Youth in Southeast Alaska: Still Learning from the Elders
MONTEITH, Daniel (U Alaska SE) ANCSA and the Challenges and Successes in Southeast Alaska
CHAIRS: TAMIR, Orit and GALLEGOS, Gil (NMHU)
TAMIR, Orit and TORRES, Christopher (NMHU) Contributing Factors to the Spread of Covid-19 Spread on the Navajo Reservation
GLEBOV, Viktor and GALLEGOS, Gil (NMHU), COLBAUGH, Rich and GLASS, Kristin (Volv Global) Machine Learning Model to Inform COVID-19 Risk Mitigation Policy
RIABOVA, Svetlana and GALLEGOS, Gil (NMHU) Machine Learning Time Series Clustering for Understanding COVID-19 Spread in the U.S. and Navajo Nation
IBARRA, Jesse, GALLEGOS, Gil, and TORRES, Christopher (NMHU) Understanding SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) Utilizing Autoencoders
STEELE, Manuel (St. Mary’s Coll), GALLEGOS, Gil and TAMIR, Orit (NMHU) Modeling the Spread of COVID-19 on the Navajo Reservation
DISCUSSANTS: COLBAUGH, Richard and GLASS, Kristin (Volv Global)
During Spring 2020, the Navajo Nation made the national and international news due to its extraordinary high rate of COVID-19 infection and death rates. By September, the Navajo Nation was praised for its handling of the pandemic. Meantime, a substantial amount of data on COVID-19 has been collected in the U.S. and around the world. Our inter-disciplinary team of computer scientists, an applied cultural anthropologist, and a chemist collect publicly available data and uses machine learning to distill salient features from existing datasets. The goal is to establish a culturally sensitive model of the pandemic spread on the Navajo reservation.
CHAIRS: GARCE, David (GSBS Architects) and PARRY, Darren (Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Indian Nation)
PANELISTS: GARCE, David (GSBS Architects), PARRY, Darren (Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Indian Nation), GROSS, Michael (Councilman, Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Indian Nation), BOEKA CANNON, Molly (Executive Director, Utah State U Museum of Anthropology), CANNON, Kenneth (President/Owner, Cannon Heritage Consultants Inc)
Native American leaders strive to balance traditional heritage with contemporary cultural influences, while anticipating future impacts on traditional culture. In order to collaboratively design Tribal facilities, design professionals must seek to understand Tribal values and economic pressures from the point of view of Tribal people. Making a conscious effort to honor the unique aspects of each Tribal group helps achieve the balance between traditional and contemporary. This presentation discusses how cultural influences can inform meaningful design solutions that honor heritage and environment, along with contemporary values.
CHAIR: ALTMAN, Heidi, M. (GSU)
ROUNDTABLE PARTICIPANTS:
COOK, Katsi (Akwesasne Mohawk midwife, environmentalist, Native American rights activist, and women’s health advocate)
FOWLER WILLIAMS, Lucy (UPenn, Assoc Curator, Jeremy A. Sabloff Keeper, Penn Museum)
STARBARD, Robert (Tlingit, Administrative Director of the Hoonah Indian Assoc)
LEFLER, Lisa (Western Carolina U, Director, Culturally Based Native Health Programs)
HOLLAND, TJ (Cherokee, EBCI Cultural Resource Officer)
MARSH, Diana (National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Museum of Natural History)
This year’s theme for the annual SfAA meeting is Sustainable Futures. The topic for the Paredes Memorial session will be centered around the practices and ideologies that can serve to sustain relationships between native communities and the anthropologists who work with them. The relationships between communities and the anthropologists who work with them were of particular interest to Tony and he sought to foster their sustainability and survival. These relationships can take a number of forms in various contexts, and this session will provide a space for the exploration of the potential in this diversity.
CHAIR: FAYARD, Kelly (Poarch Band of Creek Indians/Yale U)
ROUNDTABLE PARTICIPANTS:
AGUILAR, Joseph (San Ildefonso Pueblo/UPenn)
RYKER-CRAWFORD, Jessie (White Earth Chippewa/IAIA)
CHAVEZ-LAMAR, Cynthia (Hope-Tewa/Navajo/Nat’l Museum of the American Indian)
CHAVARRIA, Antonio (Santa Clara Pueblo/Museum of American Indian Arts and Culture)
Both anthropology and museum collecting share a colonial past with a power imbalance between exogenous ethnographers and curators on the one hand, and the communities they seek to represent, on the other. Native American communities, in particular, have been the subject of extensive anthropological research and museum collections but rarely control the presentations and images of their own culture This session will discuss the transformations when Native American communities demand and achieve control of their own cultural property both in museums and via ethnographically collected materials such as language, oral narratives, and religious traditions. Examples of these transformative narratives will be presented by Native American representatives describing installations at the National Museum of the American Indian, the Institute of American Indian Arts, and the Museum of American Indian Arts and Culture.
CHAIRS: HENDERSON, J. Neil (Choctaw Tribe Member, U Oklahoma SPH) and SCHENSUL, Stephen L. (UConn Med Sch)
INTRODUCTION: SCHENSUL, Stephen L. (UConn Med Sch) The Legacy of J. Anthony Paredes
KEYNOTE SPEAKER: JOHN, Grand Chief Edward (First Nations Summit Political Executive and North American Representative to the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues) Protecting Natural Resources through Principles of Reconciliation and Implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
Grand Chief Edward John, LL.B is the Hereditary Chief of Tl’azt’en Nation on Stuart Lake in Northern British Columbia, member of the First Nations Summit Task Group, former Co-Chair of the North American Indigenous Peoples’ Caucus, participated in the development of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples which was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in September 2007.
POINT, Gwen (Stó:lõ Nation Member, U Fraser Valley) Our Actions Today Impact the Next Seven Generations: Stó:Lô Approaches to Land and Water Protection
HILLAIRE, Darrell (Lummi Nation Member, Lummi Indian Business Council and founder of the Lummi Youth Academy) The Use of Film to Convey Native American Voices and Actions to Preserve the Earth
MENZIES, Charles R. (Gitxaała Nation, UBC) On the Front Lines!: Gitxaała, Oil, and Our Authority
In 2013, the Office of Archives and Records Management at the Poarch Band of Creek Indians launched the new ‘Evening with the Elders’ program which became an overwhelming success and is still growing in popularity today. This monthly series features the audio recordings of renowned Anthropologist Dr. J. Anthony Paredes who interviewed tribal leaders in the 1970s and collected data on tribal history that exists nowhere else on Mother Earth. This session showcases segments of the interviews from this highly praised series which brings tribal voices out into the light of the modern-day community setting. It demonstrates how the extensive anthropological work of Dr. Paredes has long-ranging influence on the Tribe’s archival acquisition expansion, Museum exhibit development, and historic Picture Book publication. The panelists discuss the impact of Dr. Paredes’ treasured recordings on the tribal community today.
CONVENOR: ALVAREZ, Roberto R. (SfAA President)
SPEAKERS: BRYAN, Stephanie A. (Tribal Chair, Poarch Band of Creek Indians),
THROWER, Robert (Tribal Historic Preservation Officer, Poarch Band of Creek Indians),
SUWANEE DEES Ed.D., Deidra (Tribal Archivist and Director, Office of Archives and Records Management, Poarch Band of Creek Indians),
ROTH, Ph.D., George (Office of Federal Acknowledgment, retired),
FAYARD, Ph. D. Kelly (Bowdoin College, Member, Poarch Band of Creek Indians),
OVERBEY, Ph.D., Mary Margaret (Overbey Consulting LLC, University of Tampa)
This tribute session honors James Anthony “Tony” Paredes, past President of SfAA, ethnologist and applied anthropologist and recognizes his contributions from destinations in a career spanning more than 45 years. American Indian anthropology remained Tony’s lifelong destination and presenters consider his work among American Indian peoples, especially in the Southeast. Collaborative research led to other destinations, and presenters consider Tony’s side trip to fisheries in the Gulf of Mexico. Significant outcomes – scholarly, public and policy-relevant – are highlighted. Discussants identify common themes and expand on Tony’s contributions. Time is allotted for session attendees to offer additional tributes.
CHAIR: OVERBEY, Mary Margaret (U Tampa, USF)
ARCHAMBAULT, JoAllyn (Smithsonian) A Generous Man
ROTH, George (Interior Dept, retired) Practical History and Poarch Creek Recognition
HENDERSON, J. Neil (U Oklahoma) The Perspective of ‘Empathetic Objectivity’: J. Anthony Paredes’ Contribution to American Indian Studies
OVERBEY, Mary Margaret (U Tampa, USF) Gone Fishing: A Side Trip to Fisheries Yields a Good Catch
DISCUSSANTS: SCHENSUL, Stephen L. (UConn Sch Med) and LAMPHERE, Louise (UNM)
