Natalie Avalos

  • Assistant Professor
  • NATIVE AMERICAN AND INDIGENOUS STUDIES
Address

 

Curriculum Vitae

Pronouns: she / her / hers

Office Hours

 

Education

Ph.D., Religious Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2015
M.A., Religious Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2010
B.A., Interdisciplinary Studies, University of California, Berkeley, 2006

Research Interests

Native American and Indigenous religions traditions, Tibetan Buddhism, transnationalism, healing historical trauma, decolonization, Indigenous stewardship, and Indigenous sovereignty.

Affiliations

Center for Native American and Indigenous Studies
CU Religious Studies Department
Tibet Himalaya Initiative

Natalie Avalos is as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Ethnic Studies and Affiliate Faculty in the Religious Studies and Women and Gender Studies Departments. Dr. Avalos is an ethnographer of religion whose work in comparative Indigeneities explores urban Indigenous and Tibetan refugee religious life, healing historical trauma, and decolonial praxis. She received her doctorate from the University of California at Santa Barbara in Religious Studies with a special focus on Native American and Indigenous Religious Traditions and Tibetan Buddhism. She is a Ford Predoctoral Fellow, FTE Dissertation Fellow, and former CU Boulder Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow. Prior to joining CU Boulder, she taught as a Visiting Professor of Religious Studies at Connecticut College. She is currently working on her manuscript titled Decolonizing Metaphysics: Transnational Indigeneities and Religious Refusal. It argues that the reassertion of Indigenous metaphysics not only de-centers settler colonial claims to legitimate knowledge production but also restores relational agency in ways that heal ontological wounds. She is a Chicana of Mexican Indigenous descent, born and raised in the Bay Area.

Selected Publications

Books

Decolonizing Metaphysics: Transnational Indigeneities and Religious Refusal (Manuscript In Progress).

Edited Volumes

Selected Articles and Book Chapters

“Being a Good Relative: Indigenous Stewardship at Standing Rock.” In Native American Religions. Edited by Dana Lloyd, 183-201. Routledge, 2026.
 
“Relational Agency: Right Relations as Socio-Political Power.” Theory and Method in The Study of Religion Vol. 38: Issue 3 (2026): 230-240.
 
“Centering Justice in the Co-Design of Mindfulness and Compassion-based College Curricula.” Co-Authors Caitlin McKimmy, Donna Mejia, and Sona Dimidjian. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry Vol. 96: Issue 2 (2025): 235-252.
 
“Decolonial and Indigenist Approaches to the Study of Indigenous Religious Traditions.” In Routledge Handbook of Research Methods in the Study of Indigenous Religions, edited by Graham Harvey and Afe Adogame, 117-131. London, UK: Routledge Taylor & Francis, 2025.

“Indigenous Religious Traditions and the Decolonial Turn in Religious Studies." Religious Studies Review, Volume 50, Issue 2 (2024): 267-272
 
“Native American Religious Traditions and Healing: Religion and Politics in North America.” In BRINA (Bloomsbury Religion in North America), Terrence L. Johnson (Section Editor). London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2024.
 

“Stewardship as Native Teleology: Ceremonial Life and Restoring Right Relations.” In Of Living Stone: Perspectives on the Evolving Relevance of the Work of Vine Deloria, Jr. Edited by David Wilkins. Arvada, CO: Fulcrum Publishing, 2024.

“Indigenous Stewardship: Religious Praxis and “Unsettling” Settler Ecologies.” Political Theology. 24:7 (2023): 614-631. DOI: 10.1080/1462317X.2023.2212473

“A Veterans Talking Circle: Urban Indian Peoplehood and Re-Indigenizing Places.” Material Religion: The Journal of Objects, Art and Belief, 18:1 (2022): 92-105.

“Latinx Indigeneities and Christianity.” In The Oxford Handbook of Latino/a Christianities in the United States. Edited by Kristy Nabhan Warren, 296-315. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2022.

“Religious Studies: A Pawn in the Culture Wars.” In On the Subject of Religion: Charting the Fault Lines of a Field of Study, edited by Dennis LoRusso, 164-171. Sheffield, UK: Equinox Publishing, 2022.
 

“What is Decolonization and What Does it Have to do with Indigenous Religious Traditions?” In Indigenous Religious Traditions in 5 Minutes, edited by Molly Bassett and Natalie Avalos, 126-128. Sheffield, UK: Equinox Publishing, 2022.

“The Metaphysics of Decolonization: Healing Historical Trauma and Indigenous Liberation.” The CLR James Journal, 27:1-2 (2021) 81-99.

"What Does It Mean to Heal from Historical Trauma?" AMA Journal of Ethics, 23(6) (2021): E494-498.

“Decolonizing the Classroom: Settler Colonialism, Knowledge Production, and Antiracism.” In Global Perspectives on Dialogue: Cultivating Inclusive, Authentic, and Intersectional Classroom Conversations. Edited by Ashmi Desai and Hoa N. Nguyen, 23-32. London, UK: Palgrave MacMillan, 2021.

“Red Praxis: Lessons from Mashantucket to Standing Rock.” Co-Authors Sandy Grande, Jason Mancini, Chris Newell. In Standing with Standing Rock: Voices From the #NoDAPL Movement, edited by Jaskiran Dhillon and Nick Estes, 245-260. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2019. 

“Becoming Human: ‘Urban Indian’ Decolonisation and Regeneration in the Land of Enchantment.” In The Brill Handbook of Indigenous Religion(s). Edited by Greg Johnson and Siv Ellen Kraft, 176-191. Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2017.

Interviews and Public Facing Articles / Essays

“Relational Ethics and Indigenous Plant Medicines w/ Dr. Natalie Avalos.” Classical Ideas, podcast interview by Greg Soden, March 24, 2026.
 
 
“Indigenous Plant Medicines w/ Dr. Natalie Avalos.” Classical Ideas, podcast interview by Greg Soden, August 21, 2024.
 
“The End of This World Portends the Birth of the New One.” Political Theology Network, Narrating Disaster Symposium, February 2, 2023
 
 

“Taking a Critical Indigenous and Ethnic Studies Approach to Decolonizing Religious Studies.” Contending Modernities, Decoloniality and Liberation Theology Series, October 14, 2020.

“Decolonizing Religious Studies and its Layers of Complicity.” Podcast interview by David McConeghy. The Religious Studies Project, August 17, 2020.

“Land-based Ethics and Settler Solidarity in a Time of Corona and Revolution.” The Arrow: A Journal of Wakeful Society, Culture & Politics, July 9, 2020.

“Indigenous Stewardship and the Death Rattle of White Supremacy.” Political Theology Network, Symposium on Environmental Justice & Settler Colonialism: A Political Theology of Climate Change, June 25, 2020.

“Memory.” The Immanent Frame, A Universe of Terms Series, May 29, 2020.

Professional Associations

American Academy of Religion
American Studies Association
Native American and Indigenous Studies Association
Critical Ethnic Studies Association
American Indigenous Research Association
Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social