John Norder

John is an enrolled member of the Spirit Lake Dakota Nation and has been with the Department of Anthropology since 2000. He began as one of the inaugural Pre-Doctoral Fellows along with Dr. Mindy Morgan of the Department of Anthropology and was one of the founding members of what is now the American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program when it was formally established that same year.  John’s primary areas of engagement and research have focused on issues of cultural and natural resource management and environmental justice among American Indian and First Nations communities in both the United States and Canada.  Past and current partnerships and research have focused on,

• grounding Indigenous symbolic and cultural landscapes and material culture within Indigenous, archaeological and anthropological ontologies and epistomologies
• studying the pre-contact landscape histories and archaeology of Indigenous ancestral peoples of the Great Lakes, Midwest and southern central boreal region of Ontario and Manitoba.
• documenting and studying the historical and contemporary structural inequities and their political ecological negotiations between First Nations, Provincial agencies and commercial fishing and hunting industry in Northwestern Ontario.
• documenting and providing reports on behalf of Tribes in the Missouri River basin on the political ecology of Tribal, federal and public interactions on a federally funded program structured by federal policies that include the Endangered Species Act (ESA), the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA), and the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA, Section 106).

Over his career, John has had the privilege of serving his Tribe on the Committee for Repatriation and Burial Sites Protection for the National Congress of American Indians, served as both a member and chair for the Society of American Archaeology’s Repatriation Committee, and been a consultant to several Tribes and First Nations on issues ranging from documenting histories of commercial and federal marginalization of First Nations communities in Northwestern Ontario to Tribal economic development, education and health and well-being studies and assessments in Tribal/First Nations and Urban Indian contexts.  Most recently, John served as a member of the Independent Science Advisory Panel for the Missouri River Recovery Implentation Committee (MRRIC) on issues related to the integration of Indigenous Knowledge of Tribal Nations within the watershed into the management practices and protection of endangered species within the Missouri River watershed.  This position was created by MRRIC and the appointment requested and approved by members of the MRRIC Tribal Interests Working Group.

Recent publications have included the co-edited volume Handbook of Children and Prejudice: integrating research, practice, and policy with H. Fitzgerald, D. Johnson, D. Qin, and F. Villarruel (2019).  This edited volume was recognized for its contribution to SDG16 – Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions – of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Additional recent publication have included chapters in edited volumes on Indigenous Archaeology, community-engaged archaeological research practice, and contemporary study and protection of global rock art sites.  John was also interviewed and featured in the podcast docuseries North Americana (2019), hosted by Liz Beatty.  The podcast Inside Great Lakes Indigenous Culture — Before There Was a Canada/US Border won the 2020 Gold Lowell Thomas Award for Best Podcast by the Society of American Travel Writers.