Author Bio

Setareh Ghoreishi is a graphic designer and multidisciplinary digital media artist. After receiving her B.F.A. in Graphic Design from the University of Art in Tehran, Iran, she moved to the United States where she currently lives. In her work, she investigates cultural disparities, most specifically between the United States and Iran. She acquired her MFA…

Deondre Smiles (Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe) is an Indigenous geographer whose ongoing research agenda is centered in the argument that tribal protection of remains, burial grounds, and more-than-human environments represents an effective form of ‘quotidian’ resistance against the settler-colonial state. This is in continuation of his dissertation work, which centered around Indigenous/settler contestations over…

Marwan Makhoul is a Palestinian poet, born in 1979 in the village of al-Boquai’a, Upper Galilee, to a Palestinian father and a Lebanese mother. He works in engineering as a managing director of a construction company. He has several published works in poetry, prose and drama, including the poetry collections: Hunter of Daffodils, Land of the Sad Passiflora, Verses the Poems Forgot…

Ather Zia, Ph.D., is a political anthropologist, poet, short fiction writer, and a columnist. She teaches at the University of Northern Colorado, Greeley. Ather is the author of Resisting Disappearances: Military Occupation and Women’s Activism in Kashmir (University of Washington Press, 2019) and co-editor of Can You Hear Kashmiri Women Speak (Women Unlimited 2020), Resisting Occupation in Kashmir (UPenn Press,2018)…

Ezekiel Joubert III is an Assistant Professor of Educational Foundations in the Division of Advanced and Applied Studies at California State University-Los Angeles. His research, scholarship, and writing focus on the intersections of racial capitalism and Black education, educational inequality in Black rural communities in Midwest, Black organic intellectual thought and activism, and ethnic studies…

Sara was raised along the shores of two archipelagoes, Bahrain and the Philippines, with songs and stories of moon-swallowing whales, mountains bursting into flames, and giants reigning over ancient plains. Focusing on K-12 education in Bahrain, Sara’s research crosses multiple borders to bring into question the intertwining histories and structural conditions producing a particular knowledge…

Josinelma Rolande is a doctoral student in Anthropology from the University of Brasilia and Professor at IFMA – Maranhão Institute of Education, Science and Technology. She holds a master’s degree in Social Sciences and a degree in Artistic Education, with a degree in Fine Arts, from the Federal University of Maranhão. She has been doing research…

Agléška Cohen-Rencountre is enrolled in Lower Brule Sioux Tribe. Their work is on Indigenous Urbanism, from a Critical Native Feminism perspective. They are a PhD Fellow in American Studies at the University of Minnesota. They grew up in Rapid City, South Dakota.

Tamilarasi Anandavalli is currently pursuing her studies in theatre at the National School of Drama. Sports, yoga and theatre give her the space to explore her body, emotions and thoughts.  She has been acting in plays and short films for the past seven years.

Suzanne Chew is a PhD candidate in the Department of Geography at the University of Calgary, researching environmental decision-making and inclusive participation, and learning from Inuit communities in western Nunavut. Chew is an international student from Singapore, with a diasporic life–she grew up in the United Kingdom and has lived and worked in three continents.…

Soibam Haripriya is Assistant Professor in the Department of Social Sciences and Humanities at the Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology-Delhi. She was a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Fellow at the South Asia Institute, University of Texas, Austin and a FWO Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Conflict and Development Studies, Ghent University, Belgium. Recent works include her…

Idrisa Pandit is a native Kashmiri scholar activist based in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Idrisa’s teaching and research interests include anti racism, anti oppression, Islam, and the Kashmir conflict.

Kong Pheng Pha (he/him/his) was born in Ban Vinai refugee camp in northeastern Thailand after his family was forcibly displaced at the end of the United States’ “secret war” in Laos. He has lived in Wisconsin and Minnesota most of his life. He spent over a decade as a student at the University of Minnesota,…

Choreographer, Founder and Artistic Director of Aniccha Arts Pramila Vasudevan is a choreographer and a creator of community rooted/routed transdisciplinary work. Vasudevan is the founder and Artistic Director of Aniccha Arts (2004), an experimental arts collaborative producing site-specific performances that examine agency, voice, and group dynamics within community histories, institutions, and systems. Vasudevan is a…

Daanish Mustafa is a Professor in Critical Geography, at the Department of Geography, King’s College, London. His research interests have been in water resources, environmental hazards, development and critical geographies of violence and terror. He has published extensively on these topics in peer-reviewed academic journals as well as in popular publication outlets. He has in…

Ritika Ganguly, PhD., is a Minneapolis-based composer, anthropologist, and grants consultant, born and raised in New Delhi, India. Her consulting practice and artistic practice both strive for an equality based on difference, rather than on the similarity of things, people, and knowledges.  Ritika was commissioned as a composer by The Cedar Cultural Center in 2016,…

Efadul Huq is a poet, urban planner, community-based archivist, and mutual aid organizer currently based in Northampton, MA. He works as faculty in the Environmental Science & Policy program at Smith College. Inspired by multiple energies in and beyond the academy, Huq’s works span environmental justice issues, international community development, urban sustainability, and political ecology,…

Najwa Juma is a Palestinian teacher, translator, writer, and activist from Gaza. She received a Bachelor’s degree in English Literature before continuing her studies in the field of education, subsequently working as a teacher for thirteen years. Najwa is a member of the General Union for Palestinian Writers. She has published two short story collections…

Heider Tun Tun (Firm Rock, in Yucatec Maya) is an Assistant Professor of History in the Department of History, Politics and Political Economy at Regis University. He is a first-generation Mayan scholar from Tahmek (place of the big hug), Mexico. He completed his Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota, Twin-Cities, and his postdoctoral studies at…

Kaochi Pha (she/her) is a proud daughter of Hmong refugees. From a young age, she experienced the harsh realities growing up second-generation American while simultaneously navigating her identity as a Hmong woman. This shaped her political and social consciousness and led to her aspiration of supporting underrepresented communities professionally. She has worked in a variety…

Professor of Social Justice and International Studies in Education, Department of Educational Policy Studies, University of Alberta Dia Da Costa’s research analyzes the complex relationship of activism in contemporary India to state violence and development discourses. She is the author of Politicizing Creative Economy: Activism and a Hunger called Theatre (University of Illinois Press, 2016) and Development…

Janani is the co-founder of GRIN, a social enterprise that plays to connect children to nature. At the age of 12, Janani stepped out of mainstream education and started homeschooling with her family. In the journey of unlearning, she explored the philosophies of Nai Talim, J. Krishnamurthy, John Holt and many more. She spent the…

Alia Jeraj (she/they) is a Twin Cities based artist and educator. Though her background is in Western classical vocal music, Alia has shifted her musical focus towards folk musics, especially songs of Gujarat. She currently studies with Ritika Ganguly. In 2018 Alia was awarded a Next Step Fund to pursue research on the music and stories…

Jordan Starck is a scholar of race and racism, particularly the psychology of American anti-Blackness.

Gwendolyn Kirk is a linguistic anthropologist and the librarian for South and Southeast Asian Studies at Indiana University Bloomington. She researches language, power, and cultural production in South Asia including work on Punjabi and Urdu screen cultures of Pakistan.

Inez Steigerwald is a teacher and librarian in Washington, D.C. She has worked with students for over 10 years. She lived in Costa Rica for a time as a child and there she came to appreciate and love Latin American language, culture, and history. She began working with her mother, Ruby, to record the oral…

Kidiocus King-Carroll is an Assistant Professor of African & African Diaspora Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. King-Carroll received a PhD in American Studies at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. He is a member of the Black Midwest Initiative. His scholarship and writing has appeared in Rhizomes: Cultural Studies in Emerging Knowledge, the Gender…

PhD Candidate and Doctoral Fellow, Department of Theatre and Dance, University of Minnesota Sarah Saddler is a PhD Candidate and Doctoral Fellow in the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of Minnesota. Her primary research examines the use of theatrical performance in the global workplace, with a focus on contemporary India. Her work,…