The #IndigiReads working group, organized by Cristina Connolly, Sandy Grande, and Amy Safran, invites UConn community members from across the university to join students, staff and faculty in the Native American and Indigenous Studies Initiative (NAISI) to meet regularly across the spring semester 2023, to read and discuss texts related to food sovereignty, Indigenous knowledge systems, agriculture, and the environment. In acknowledgement that Connecticut is home to several Tribal Nations and the University sits on Indigenous lands, this group will work to increase understanding of the history and current state of these relations. Participants will grow their perspectives and deepen their interdisciplinary understandings with an aim to develop better working relations across academic units and with Native American and Indigenous students/communities.

This semester the group is reading Hi′ilei Hobart’s book, Cooling the Tropics: Ice, Indigeneity, and Hawaiian Refreshment, which, “connects the colonialist introduction of ice and refrigeration to Hawaii to current Native Hawaiian food sovereignty.”

Join them in ODI Commons, SU 103, NACP student space on

Friday, February 24, 2023 at 12:30pm
Friday, March 10, 2023 at 12:30pm
Friday, March 24, 2023 at 12:30pm
Friday, March 31, 2023 at 3:00pm