Education
B.A. Mansfield University - Psychology
M.A. West Virginia University - Sport and Exercise Science
C.A.S. Syracuse University - Women's Studies
PhD Syracuse University - Sociology
Bio
I am of Mescalero Apache, Mexican and Dutch descent; born in San Antonio, Texas but primarily raised in east central Pennsylvania My ancestral and community life ground my interest and academic work. I am a Sociological ethnographic researcher and my work focuses on cultural beliefs, traditions and applications of "meaning making" through comparative cultural racial and gendered ways of knowing and practices. I utilize three sites to explore these issues: education, health and popular discourses primarily in Indigenous communities. I have taught numerous courses reflecting these areas of expertise including undergraduate and graduate theory, Indigenous Representation, Indigenous Women, Race and Ethnicity, Ethnicity in the Americas, Ethnicity in the Media, Medical Sociology, and Masculinities.
I pay particular attention to the complexities of epistemology represented within Indigenous cosmologies, while grounding and illustrating their foundations and performances in the representation and practice of knowledge and every day occurrences. These commitments center on contemporary and interdisciplinary perspectives that unveil historical foundations as well as integrated philosophies that directly challenge Eurocentric/Western paradigms of knowledge systems, cultural beliefs and practices especially as they relate to race and gendered paradigms and practices. Specifically, my work builds upon and is centered on theoretical foundations of Indigenous, Sociological, and U.S. third world epistemological theory and methodological inquiry. Furthermore, my theoretical and methodological approaches discuss the social cultural tempo that occurs through language (cultural idioms or cultural grammar) and performance that demonstrates this cultural consciousness and epistemological understandings of culture, race and gender. My own writings and publication efforts reflect these varying, "creative," cultural understandings and consciousness, as well as, race and gender tempo, performances and representations.
My research includes an ethnographic project of American Indian women who discuss medicine as a belief system that includes, but not limited to, cultural obligations and environmental responsibilities that extend well beyond Western bio-medical models. A few findings from this research include accounts exploring what is medicine; medicine that has been lost; colonization; technology; and hybridity in Native American cosmology that illustrate a varying and complex interplay and negotiation of health and healing attributes, beliefs and conflicts. A book detailing these findings is currently underway.
Another research project focuses on the preliminary work completed in the summer of 2005 in Maasai Mara of southwestern Kenya. This research was directed at the relationship between culture-education-health. A few areas of investigation within this project are cultural practices and beliefs of health, the teaching of cultural and the impact of globalized education. The preliminary analysis of this research has challenged the notions of education as a means to provide lasting changes. Rather, capacity building efforts still negate cultural preferences and produce an underground existence of rituals and traditional understandings. Additionally, we witnessed a rich and complex understanding of well-being that contradicts widely held "3rd world" premises.
Furthermore, I was awarded a planning grant, as a Co-PI, that aims to investigate the possibility of a reintroduction of Indigenous foods in the Flagstaff, Arizona urban American Indian population. This grant is part of a large NIH grant that directly aims to address the disproportionate rates of cancer and comprised wellness within Native communities. Our grant targets the relationship between the dislocation from traditional communities, and the various known health stressors that this target population incurs with the possibility of a dietary preventative augmentation. The initial groundwork for this grant was completed during the 2006-2007 academic year.
Most recently, my scholarly activities have been acknowledged with the invitation and subsequent acceptance in the Women of Color Leadership Project through the National Women's Studies Association. Additionally, I was a key invited speaker for Southern Connecticut State University "64 Days of Nonviolence" on culture, Indigenous communities and globalization and a second talk on research methods focusing on race/ethnic projects. Additionally, at the University level, I have been asked to present at two faculty development programs and a third, forthcoming panel is being discussed. At the community level, most recently, I was asked to be a panel participant for a workshop titled, ""Race Relations in a Time of Crisis."
Office
Ketchum 24G
Contact
E: doreen.martinez@colorado.edu
|
