鈥淚t鈥檚 definitely a great place to start, but hopefully it鈥檚 not where we stop,鈥� says Farrah Fornarotto, a junior majoring in Anthropology, with minors in Archaeology and the new Native American and Indigenous Studies. 鈥淭here鈥檚 a lot to tackle.鈥�

The challenges date back decades. Munsee Three Sisters Farm provides traditional food for the Turtle Clan of the Ramapough Lunaape (Lenape) Nation, a tribe that can no longer safely farm its own land in Upper Ringwood, New Jersey. Environmental and health issues caused by industrial dumping have led to a generational decline in the Turtle Clan members鈥� ability to practice their culture, including the Munsee language, which is at risk of becoming as dormant as the winter fields.

An intensive, field-based partnership with the Turtle Clan Ramapough includes work at the Munsee Three Sisters Farm, where Montclair students and professors are helping the tribe鈥檚 Indigenous food sovereignty and language revitalization efforts.

A key aspect of Montclair鈥檚 contributions are organizing the tribe鈥檚 records and documents related to the industrial dumping on ancestral land. Students are at work to help gather the scientific evidence documented at the Superfund site, the health impact and oral histories from eyewitnesses, and with University resources, creating a single, digitally accessible repository for future researchers and the tribal members who continue to fight for proper cleanup of the land.

More than 300 pages of newspaper articles detailing the dumping of toxic paint sludge from a Ford Motor Co. factory have been indexed by students. 鈥淢y students are going through and creating a table of contents identifying the names [of key players], the toxic chemicals listed in reports, physical sites that are listed, agencies that are listed, and creating a searchable tool for that whole collection of news articles,鈥� says Mark Clatterbuck, associate professor of Religion and co-director of the Native American and Indigenous Studies program.

Montclair students taking part in the class projects say they share a commitment for helping Indigenous communities. Jala Best, a senior Psychology major, says her drive comes from her experiences as an Afro-Indigenous woman.

鈥淥ftentimes the issues of Native communities are ignored or Native people are spoken about in the past tense, like we are not still living, breathing, surviving and fighting for justice 鈥�. You can鈥檛 even conceptualize that there are atrocities happening today because you believe that it鈥檚 a thing of the past,鈥� Best says.

Mark Clatterbuck, right, oversees the garden signage with students Camille Howard, Julia Rodano and Farrah Fornarotto. 鈥淚t鈥檚 the small things that build up, and eventually over time, the Turtle Clan鈥檚 language will be more visible to them and also to the public,鈥� Fornarotto says.

Montclair has initiated a field-based partnership with Turtle Clan Chief Vincent Mann of the Ramapough Lunaape Nation. The University support includes students working directly with the tribe on food sovereignty, the language revitalization effort and ongoing environmental concerns as part of Montclair鈥檚 new minor in Native American and Indigenous Studies.

鈥淭he issues and the challenges of the Turtle Clan, they鈥檙e huge, they鈥檙e varied and there鈥檚 no shortage of them,鈥� says Clatterbuck.

The program is closely tied to the University鈥檚聽Land Acknowledgement Statement. Clatterbuck, along with History Professor Elspeth Martini and Anthropology Professor Chris Matthews consulted with New Jersey鈥檚 three state-recognized tribal nations 鈥� the Ramapough Lenape, Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape and Powhatan Renape 鈥� in drafting the statement, and also considered how it could represent a commitment from Montclair to working with and for their communities.

鈥淚t鈥檚 not just about making some sort of historical reference. It鈥檚 really about saying, 鈥榃hat is our responsibility to those communities?鈥欌�� Clatterbuck says.

Mark Clatterbuck, associate professor of Religion and co-director of the Native American and Indigenous Studies program, constructs signage as part of the field work helping promote the preservation of Native American land and culture.

The program is intentionally community-engaged, hands-on and focused on problem-solving, including finding creative ways to support community-driven language revitalization and environmental recovery. 鈥淭he Ramapough understand that part of their healing and survival is really dependent on recovering key aspects of their cultural ways,鈥� Clatterbuck says. 鈥淟anguage is on par with restoring foodways and their access to clean water, land and air.鈥�

Munsee language expert, Nikole Pecore, a member of the Stockbridge-Munsee Nation in Wisconsin, has guided Montclair students studying Linguistic Anthropology in building a digital repository of instructional materials that will be used to train new Munsee teachers and support community learners.

鈥淲e鈥檙e looking at language as a key to culture, to bringing back Munsee speaking cultures, as well as other Lenape languages belonging to original peoples in the state of New Jersey,鈥� says Associate Anthropology Professor Maisa Taha.

Work on the farm also includes students preparing the fields and helping deliver the organic, healthy, medicinal healing crops to the community. 鈥淚t鈥檚 doing the nitty-gritty work with local communities and following their lead,鈥� Clatterbuck says.

Meryem Teke, a senior Religion major, paints a garden sign at the Munsee Three Sisters Farm. The work is among the creative ways Montclair is supporting the Turtle Clan鈥檚 language revitalization and environmental recovery.

鈥淚t might be challenging to figure out how all of these different pieces fit together. But the fact of the matter is they are all intimately connected,鈥� Taha says. 鈥淵ou can鈥檛 have language without culture. You can鈥檛 have culture without tribal sovereignty. You can鈥檛 have tribal sovereignty without environmental justice. What we鈥檙e bringing to our students and frankly, to ourselves as well, is this huge opportunity to work with our tribal partners in trying to understand those connections and come up with reasonable, impactful solutions that will serve them for years to come.鈥�

Clatterbuck adds, 鈥淲e鈥檙e all passionate about this on a personal level, and we see this as a matter of justice and addressing 鈥� you hear the buzzword 鈥榙ecolonization鈥� thrown around a lot 鈥� but as far as I鈥檓 concerned, this is what that work looks like. It鈥檚 messy, and it鈥檚 trial and error, and we鈥檙e figuring all this out as we go. But that is the work.鈥�

Photo Gallery

Montclair鈥檚 new minor in Native American and Indigenous Studies is focusing on issues of indigenous sovereignty, cultural revitalization, environmental justice and language reclamation. Some of the field work is happening at the Munsee Three Sisters Medicinal Farm in Newtown, New Jersey.

Montclair students have created signage for the Three Sisters Farm in the Munsee language. The illustrations will help tribal members as well as visitors to the farm visually connect the pictures and actual plants with the Munsee word. Efforts are also underway to create audio files so that learners can hear those words when accessed by QR codes added to the signs.

A rooster at Munsee Three Sisters Farm.

Story by Staff Writer Marilyn Joyce Lehren. Photos by John J. LaRosa.

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Use this to learn more about the event and featured artists.

5:30-7PM: Artist Talk and Interactive & Audio Description Practice

7-8PM: Reception

Most discourse about 鈥渄isability and the arts鈥� focuses on access and much less about participation and inclusion.In the field of blindness, the main tool for access accommodations is the use of 鈥渁udio description鈥� (AD). In this unique conversation between two visually impaired artists/consumers of art, we hope to go beyond using AD as *simply* an accommodation, and seek to push the boundaries around interactive and subjective/creative description. When blind people participate in the creation of audio descriptions, can we create new genres of art? Can their haptic insights be broadly useful to all museum patrons? Come join us for this exciting conversation!

There will be stimulating conversation, ad hoc and interactive audio description in the exhibit with our special guests, and light refreshments served afterwards.

Moderated by聽 Dr. Elaine Gerber and Dr. Mar铆a Jos茅 Garc铆a-Vizca铆no

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 15, from 6:15pm – 8:00pm.
PRESENTATION HALL SCM ROOM 1040

Interracial and gay marriage has been codified at last. But disabled Americans remain excluded from this basic right. The federal 鈥渕arriage penalty鈥� affects the lives of millions of disabled Americans who can鈥檛 legally marry because they will lose their benefits. A new bill in the Senate could change the 鈥渕arriage penalty鈥� if enough people speak out.

Patrice Jetter – a NJ resident and disabled African American artist and activist, from the Netflix series 鈥淲orn Stories鈥� – will be our guest speaker and performer. Please consider attending in support of marriage equality for disabled Americans or bringing your students. Spoiler alert: The evening will culminate in Patrice officiating a mass wedding/commitment ceremony!* We invite anyone in the audience (couples who wish to marry but cannot afford to lose their benefits, any couple who wishes to take their vows or renew their vows, first dates, serious dates, and even just friends) to participate. We hope you will consider participating, if it feels right for you, to stand in solidarity and support disabled marriage equality. The evening will also end in a ‘wedding reception’ dance party! Dressing in wedding attire for the event is welcomed.

REGISTER NOW TO RESERVE YOUR SEAT (In Person):

REGISTER NOW TO RESERVE A SPOT (Virtual):

Download PDF of “I DO COMMIT” flyer

*This is intended as an act of solidarity and performance art (and will not be legally binding, obviously!)
**Note: Please be aware, portions of the event will be filmed for a documentary about Patrice Jetter.

Videos and discussion, followed by pizza!

December 8, 4:00 p.m.
Feliciano School of Business, Room 214

This well-attended and celebratory event offered students, faculty, and presenters’ family members and friends an opportunity to engage with a wide-ranging program of student academic and creative projects focused on key issues and forms of cultural expression (e.g., climate crisis, linguistic hyperdiversity, gentrification, emotional labor in the workplace, youth culture, comedic performance).

We also held an awards ceremony at the Showcase event for recipients of the Anthropology Department’s Bednarek and Bigel Scholarships, and for inductees in Lambda Alpha, the National Anthropological Honors Society for undergraduates.

Additionally, five current Anthropology students — Leanna Sanchez, David Fleitas-Guillen, Jaileen Murillo, Joselyn Molina, and Caro Freinberg– and Dr. Taha and Dr. Davidson attended a national conference, Building Careers in Anthropology, at the Fordham University Lincoln Center Business School on May 13. The conference featured practicing anthropologists and workshops focused on new directions in careers in anthropology and career development strategies and tools (see above photo from the event).

We will meet in SBUS 324 to workshop resumes, then we’ll have a pizza picnic!

Anna Daigneault is a linguistic anthropologist and Program Director at Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages. With extensive experience working with Indigenous communities in the Peruvian Amazon and coordinating projects across Latin America, Anna has been instrumental in LTI鈥檚 development of digital Living Dictionaries

This series is sponsored by generous support from the CHSS Dean’s Office Interdisciplinary Group Initiatives.

Date: Thursday, October 24
Time: 3:00
Location: School of Business Building, Room 114

This lecture will introduce participants to the intersection of archaeological methods and techniques with those of forensic science.聽 Of specific focus are the ways in which archaeology can provide standards of best practice for crime scene investigation. Participants will learn both the theory behind forensic archaeology as well as the methods that distinguish it from traditional archaeology.

As illegal squatters became co- operative homeowners on New York City’s Lower East Side, they were also making history: creating museums, walking tours, archives, storytelling performances, and oral histories.

Why? Producing history can be a powerful way of making claims on the city, and making sense of one’s place in the world. In a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood, squatters used their past to try to produce a future of which they could imagine themselves a part.

Based on oral history, archival research, interviews, and seven years of ethnographic fieldwork, this talk explains how urban citizens have produced decommodified housing, and histories. In a moment of crisis in which who cities are for and how cities work are crucial questions of public debate, the story of how squatters became homeowners in New York shows both the possibilities and difficulties of producing spaces and stories that challenge the hyper-commodification of urban space.

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