Institute for Global Indigeneity

SCOPE

The Institute for Global Indigeneity (IGI) is about connectivity and aims to be multi-disciplinary, interdisciplinary, and global in its scope. While Native American Studies must be an important part of what leading research universities like UAlbany and its sister institutions in the SUNY system pursue, we also need to be equipped with an understanding of the interconnectedness of regional, national and global issues confronting Indigenous communities. Indeed, Indigeneity itself shapes the identities, experiences, and life-chances of individuals. Native/Indigenous/First Nations peoples share many of the same challenges – many inherited as a function of colonization and dispossession. Understanding Indigenous issues in a global context, therefore, helps to link narratives of Indigenous peoples, extend their agency in contexts that still feature hostility and barriers to opportunity, and ultimately, broaden the conversations about self-determination and sovereignty.

IGI encourages explorations across a number of disciplines in Humanities, Sciences and Social Sciences -- of the issues of interest, related to, and generated by Native American and Indigenous peoples around the world.

Mission

• Form strategic alliances around the issue of Indigenous research, scholarship, and programs with other SUNY institutions.
• Invite and encourage further research in indigenous studies by our own faculty, guest researchers (both national and international), artists, writers and performers working in the field of indigenous studies.
• Facilitate research capacity building and mentoring to indigenous graduate students and early career scholars as they seek to advance professionally.
• Provide synergy effects for research pertaining to indigenous studies that is already being conducted at UAlbany.