Theorizing Black Western Movements in the 21st Century: A Roundtable 

Featuring Dr. Timothy E. Nelson, Dr. Kalenda Eaton—University of Oklahoma, Dr. Jeanette Jones—University of Lincoln-Nebraska, and Loneise E. Thomas, Ph. D. Candidate—University of Oklahoma.

(The description, exact date, and time will be updated soon.)

Roots/Routes: Relationality in Times of Disenchantment

New Mexico is affectionately nicknamed the “Land of Enchantment.” Since time immemorial, it has been home to Pueblo, Diné, and Ndee peoples. Settlers have been coming to its striking landscape–and remaining–since the sixteenth century. Many jokingly refer to it as the “Land of Entrapment”; once you go there, you don’t want to leave. Such characterizations belie deep legacies of layered colonialisms that challenge relationships between kin, communities, and the land and reinscribe alternate logics of being and belonging. These tensions have been born out at various historical moments (1680 Pueblo Revolt, 1837 Río Arriba Rebellion, 1847 Taos Revolt), and more recently at places of public memory and memorialization, even resulting in shootings at statue sites in New Mexico in 2020 and 2023.

With this in mind, and holding our meeting in Albuquerque, we called for proposals that approach the idea of relationality–to lands, kin, peoples, even institutions–in times of disenchantment. Indigenous perspectives on relationality stress reciprocity and responsibility, and we invite proposals from a variety of perspectives that consider the idea of relationality in the history of the North American West. How have people and communities in the West conceived of their relationships and responsibilities? What have successful models of relationality, and ruptures in these relationships, meant in the region’s history? Through the lens of western history, how can we renew the theory and practice of relationality? We hope for an enriching conversation, with panels that will help us rethink the historical roots of our relationships in the West, broadly conceived, and imagine useful models for future relationality.