Reception of the Visiting Research Fellow (lewallen, ann-elise)

Dr. lewallen, ann-elise is an Associate Professor, Pacific & Asian Studies, affiliated with Anthropology and Environmental Studies at the University of Victoria (Canada).  She was raised on the traditional lands of the eastern Cherokee Nation in Tsatanu’gi, Tennessee, present-day USA. She is trained as a Cultural Anthropologist and has an interdisciplinary background in decolonial and critical Indigenous studies, political ecology, energy justice, gender, and critical geographies in East and South Asia. (Main areas of specialization: 批判先住民族学、政治生態学、エネルギー正義、ジェンダー、東・南アジアにおける批判地理学)

During her stay, she will work with Prof NILES and Prof HONGO of the RIHN Project (Fashloks) and will share knowledge systems from Forest Dependent Communities who face infrastructural shifts for energy and other economic development projects. She will actively interact with people related to Indigenous Asia through tours of Kyoto University, Ryukoku University, Hokkaido University, and Ritsumeikan University, as well as interviews and lectures. In particular, during her fellowship she will focus on “Stewarding Forest Pharmacies through Indigenous Science Partnership,” her project with Indigenous Khasi plant healers in northeast India. This project focuses on supporting Indigenous-science informed care of medicinal plants, aiming for 1) improved forest stewardship; 2) developing materials to support targeted public education; and 3) translating Indigenous plant knowledge to foster greater awareness of forest resources. Finally, Dr. lewallen will also work on her book-in-progress, The Banyan Ghost: Indigenous Futures in Asia, focusing on unjust energy transitions and alternate imaginings of human/more-than-human relations among Indigenous and grassroots communities in India and Japan.