Mission
The American Indian Studies Research Institute (AISRI) at Indiana University Bloomington (IUB) carries out research projects that involve the languages, cultures, and histories of Native American and Indigenous nations of the United States and Canada. We engage in critical self-reflection and affirmative action toward Indigenizing the academy and decolonizing research methods. As a physical and digital hub of research activity, AISRI is a center for scholars on the IUB campus and in Native American and Indigenous communities and prepares the next generation of scholars through education and mentorship. We advance knowledge and understandings for and with collaborating Nations through print and digital resources that are vital to current and future efforts to sustain and revitalize Native American and Indigenous languages and cultures. AISRI’s Center for the Documentation of Endangered Languages (CDEL) is central to such work. In this way, AISRI strives to contribute to Native American and Indigenous autonomy, sovereignty, self-determination, and wellness.
Vision
We aspire to continue AISRI’s present collaborative partnerships with several Great Plains tribes, institutions, and individuals from diverse nations, while expanding the number and geographic scope and depth of our partnerships. As the IUB campus sits on the homelands of the Bodwéwadmik (Potawatomi), Lënape (Delaware), myaamiki (Miami), and saawanwaki (Shawnee) peoples, AISRI will devote special attention to and resources toward creating additional collaborations with nations who wish to work with us to support their research interests and needs. As it has with its Great Plains partners, AISRI will actively seek to produce and share resources for language and culture revitalization, opportunities for research cross-training and education, and an organizational structure for coordinating research activities. Products include monographs, research articles, biographies, histories, stories, ethnographic and linguistic fieldnotes, audio and visual recordings, dictionaries, grammars, language curricula and instructional materials, as well as language planning documents. AISRI will expand opportunities for Native American and Indigenous scholars to benefit from resources at Indiana University. We aim to expand AISRI’s research activity to include not only language, culture, and history but also current topics of particular interest to contemporary Native American and Indigenous people and their allies, such as: health and wellness, environmental sustainability and justice, food security and sovereignty, housing, community and economic development, land rights, legal justice, social justice, and education. AISRI seeks to build the community of Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars and students at IUB, and partner with them and with Native American and Indigenous people not yet affiliated with AISRI in a mutually supportive community designed to bring about lasting good for all of those involved in, and affected by, our research.
