Editors’ Remarks

Editors' Remarks Gina Starblanket and Heidi Kiiwetinepinesiik Stark AS THE THIRD PAIR OF COEDITORS for the Journal of Native American and Indigenous Studies (NAIS), we are thrilled to take over responsibility for the journal from K. Tsianina Lomawaima and Kelly McDonough, who finished their four- year editorial term at the conclusion of the NAISA annual conference in Toronto, on May 12, 2023. We began our term after working together throughout the spring to ensure a smooth transition in the work of the journal. In bringing the NAIS journal to a new institutional home at the University of Victoria (UVic), we hope to carry it forward as an intellectually and ethically rigorous forum for critical Indigenous scholarship at local and global scales, building on UVic's long- standing commitment to Indigenous research and extensive relationships with communities across North America and the Pacific. We raise our hands to Qwul'sih'yah'maht Robina Thomas (vice- president Indigenous at the UVic) whose commitment of financial support made it possible for us to take up this work. As a team, we bring shared interests in Indigenous, decolonial, anti-racist, and feminist thought, and an established history of working together on a range of intellectual and pedagogical activities. Our collaborative work includes community- based research initiatives, coauthoring and copublication, and cofacilitation of academic and community- based partnerships and engagements. In all these contexts, our working relationship has been guided by a shared professional and political commitment to the advancement of Indigenous scholarship that is critical, rigorous, ethical, and grounded in the aspirations and needs of Indigenous people and communities. We see the NAIS journal as a forum for generative and transformative interventions, conversations, and knowledge exchanges about Indigenous people around the globe. Under our leadership, we aim to create space for original and inspired inquiries and analyses in traditional, creative, and emergent forms. As we assume coeditorship of NAIS, we understand our role and responsibility as recognizing the critical historical juncture that we are at and that our field must attend to. In addition to longstanding social, political, and economic inequities, we stand in the wake of a global pandemic and are [End Page 1] facing unprecedented crises in not only how we relate to one another as humans but how we relate to creation. We acknowledge that scholarship, too, will be transformed by these contexts as our members work to interrogate the conditions of our times and envision new terms of change. We know that Indigenous theorizing and research continue to arise in the context of long- standing and evolving structures of colonialism, policies deployed in the service of colonialism, and racist and sexist ideologies that have legitimated and continue to legitimate ongoing colonial projects around the world. We are therefore committed to foregrounding Indigenous theoretical and empirical works that decenter colonialism while centering Indigenous knowledge, pedagogy, and methods. This entails a commitment to Indigenous, Black, migrant, antiracist, abolitionist, feminist, and 2SLGBTQIA+ struggles for justice and transformation. Our intention is to situate the journal as a place where scholars will engage analyses of Indigenous movements toward decolonization and social, economic, and political transformation but also projects of Indigenous recovery, revitalization, and resurgence. Our approach reflects the ongoing need for analyses that explore and critically engage with the diversity of Indigenous communities and movements, and/or that deconstruct the colonial and capitalist contexts in which they exist. These include inquiries into specific forms of legal and political revitalization being undertaken by Indigenous communities across geographic regions and cultural groups, land- based practices, critical methodological and pedagogical interventions, Indigenous political theories and practices, Indigenous critiques and contestations, and Indigenous activism, coalition building. Finally, our practice recognizes the crucial importance of encouraging and mobilizing knowledge across generations. To this end, we take seriously the contributions of scholars across ages, locations, and educational backgrounds. Embracing the significant work of Indigenous scholars in creative and artistic disciplines, the journal will continue to speak to and feature the work of those situated in conventional disciplines while also highlighting the importance of scholarly contributions from new and innovative sites of knowledge production. [End Page 2] Copyright © 2024 Regents of the University of Minnesota

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