In this volume, contributors demonstrate the real-world application of Indigenous theory to the work they do in their own communities and how this work is driven by urgency, responsibility, and justice—work that is from the skin.

In From the Skin, contributors reflect on and describe how they apply the theories and concepts of Indigenous studies to their communities, programs, and organizations, and the ways the discipline has informed and influenced the same. They show the ways these efforts advance disciplinary theories, methodologies, and praxes. Chapters cover topics including librarianship, health programs, community organizing, knowledge recovery, youth programming, and gendered violence. Through their examples, the contributors show how they negotiate their peoples’ knowledge systems with knowledge produced in Indigenous studies programs, demonstrating how they understand the relationship between their people, their nations, and academia.

Editors J. Jeffery Clark and Elise Boxer propose and develop the term practitioner-theorist to describe how the contributors theorize and practice knowledge within and between their nations and academia. Because they live and exist in their community, these practitioner-theorists always consider how their thinking and actions benefit their people and nations. The practitioner-theorists of this volume envision and labor toward decolonial futures where Indigenous peoples and nations exist on their own terms.

Contributors
Randi Lynn Boucher-Giago
Elise Boxer
Shawn Brigman
J. Jeffery Clark
Nick Estes
Eric Hardy
Shalene Joseph
Jennifer Marley
Brittani R. Orona
Alexander Soto

J. Jeffery Clark (Diné), assistant professor of English and Indigenous studies at Arizona State University, studies Diné resistance to domination. His research areas include Indigenous stories, decolonization, settler colonialism, and Indigenous futurity and imagination.

Elise Boxer (Dakota), associate professor of history and Native American studies at the University of South Dakota, studies Mormon settler colonialism and indigeneity. Her most important work happens as a mother to three young boys.

“If you’re not sure what decolonization looks like in your community, this book will provide you with several examples of what it looks like in real life in real communities. This book contains several examples of relational accountability and how to build Indigenous communities and nations.”—Laura Harjo, author of Spiral to the Stars: Mvskoke Tools of Futurity— -