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Chew Receives Faculty Fellowship

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Chew Receives Faculty Fellowship

headshot of Kari Chew

Assistant Professor Kari A.B. Chew was awarded an OU Arts and Humanities Faculty Fellowship for next year.



Enacting Relationality in Online Indigenous Language Revitalization Efforts
Indigenous language revitalization and reclamation responds to enduring legacies of colonization that have threatened natural processes of intergenerational knowledge sharing and the continuance of Indigenous languages. Within this work, Indigenous cultural values of relationality are of the utmost importance. Indigenous understandings of relationality hold that people are related to one another, the land, the spirits and to language itself. Utilizing an Indigenous methodology rooted in a relational epistemology, this research explores how Indigenous communities enact relationality in online spaces that support ILR efforts. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, communities are turning to technology to create online spaces for ILR at an unprecedented scale. There are many benefits to doing this work online, but challenges remain. Seeking to advance scholarship while also providing practical solutions to Indigenous communities, this project will create an open-access resource guide of key terms, models and examples of relationality in online ILR work. Centering Indigenous ways of knowing and being, this guide will benefit Indigenous communities, technology developers and academic audiences.

 

Chew was also one of 17 research teams at OU receiving a total of $300,000 internal funding to support innovative research and equipment. The awards are provided by two new research investment programs facilitated by the Office of the Vice President for Research and Partnerships at OU-Norman.

 

Her award is to work on the project “A Gathering to Explore Relationality in Online Indigenous Language Revitalization Work.”

 

Chew’s grant was awarded through the Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts seed grant program, which isexpected to enhance research and creative endeavors for faculty at OU. The proposals were selected by interdisciplinary faculty review teams.