AFFILIATED ACADEMIC POSITIONS

1) Research Scholar; Research Institute for Environment, Energy, and Economics, at Appalachian State University (USA)
https://rieee.appstate.edu

2) Affiliate Faculty; Center for International Indigenous Affairs, National Dong Hwa University (Taiwan)
https://www.iia.ndhu.edu.tw/en/home-en/

ACADEMIC QUALIFICATIONS
Ph.D. Anthropology
The University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (USA)
Sequoyah Fellow

M.A. Anthropology
The University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (USA)

B.A. Religious Studies
Guilford College, Greensboro, North Carolina (USA)
including study at University of Cape Coast, Ghana


AREAS OF RESEARCH
Sociocultural environmental anthropology; Indigenous and feminist political ecology; infrastructures and extractivism; critical Native American/Indigenous Studies; science and technology studies (STS); environmental justice, ethics, and epistemologies; decolonial theory; ethnographic, collaborative, and ambulatory research methods; Navajo (Diné) Nation (USA); eastern North Carolina (USA); Austronesian Taiwan.

Powell joined the GIHM faculty in August 2023, following twelve years as faculty in the Department of Anthropology at Appalachian State University (North Carolina, USA), where she developed a Bachelor’s degree program in Anthropology/Social Practice & Sustainability and co-founded (with Dr. Rebecca Witter, Sustainable Development Dept.) the Environmental Justice Co-Lab, a research and teaching collaborative aligned with rural, community partners addressing climate change, extractivism, and industrialized agriculture. Powell brings the Co-Lab to the GIHM to expand transnational collaborative and convergent, qualitative research on land rights, toxicity, transition, energy infrastructure, and the affective and sensorial politics of environmental harm, health, and wellbeing. Powell’s longstanding ethnographic research has been in partnership with colleagues in the Navajo (Diné) Nation in the American Southwest (2003-present), documented in her first book, Landscapes of Power: Politics of Energy in the Navajo Nation (Duke Press, 2018). Her research has been supported by the National Science Foundation (US), The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, the Research Institute for Environment, Energy, and Economics at Appalachian State University, and since 2021, the Taiwan Ministry of Science and Technology (NSTC). Powell maintains environmental health humanities collaborative research projects in North America and, most recently, in Taiwan.



GRANTS & AWARDS
2023                Clint Carroll and Dana E. Powell, Co-Directors. Indigenous Political Ecologies. School for Advanced Research, Scholars Long Seminar, Santa Fe, NM. (Seminar scheduled for March 2-8, 2024, Santa Fe, New Mexico).

2022                Dana E. Powell and Rebecca Witter. Mapping Environmental Meaning-Making Amidst Energy Threats in the NC Coastal Plains. The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research Engaged Research Grant.

2021                Jolan Hsieh (Bavaragh Dagalomei) and Dana E. Powell. Indigenous Environmental Justice and Sustainability. Taiwan Ministry of Science and Technology, Instructional Research Award, 2021-2022. Awarded via the Center for International Indigenous Affairs, College of Indigenous Studies, National Dong Hwa University, Hualien, Taiwan.

2019-2020       Dana E. Powell. Cornell University, Society for the Humanities, Yearlong Fellow.

2019                Dana E. Powell and Andrew Curley. Collaborative Research on Risk, Energy Development, and Environmental Sustainability in the Navajo Nation. 
National Science Foundation Conference Award.


SELECT PUBLICATIONS
Solo Authored Books
2018                Dana E. Powell. Landscapes of Power: Politics of Energy in the Navajo Nation. Durham: Duke University Press.

Co-Authored Books
2023               Luke Eric Lassiter, Eric I. Karchmer, and Dana E. Powell.
The New Invitation to Anthropology, Fifth Edition. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Journal Articles
In Press    Dana E. Powell. “Beyond Ruin: Diné Presence in the Anthropocene.” Native
American & Indigenous Studies (NAIS) Journal. (Scheduled for publication in Issue 11.1, Spring 2024).

2021                Grant M. Gutierrez, Dana E. Powell, and T.L. Pendergrast. “The Double Force of
Vulnerability: Ethnography and Environmental Justice.” Environment and
Society: Advances in Research. 12 (1): 66-86.

2020                Dana E. Powell and Ricki Draper. “Making it Home: Estrangement, Solidarity and Belonging in the NoDAPL/Standing Rock Encampments.” Collaborative Anthropologies 13 (1): 1-45.

2015                Dana E. Powell. “’The Rainbow is our Sovereignty’: Rethinking the Politics of Energy in the Navajo Nation,” Journal of Political Ecology 22: 53-78.

2010                Dorothy Holland, Dana E. Powell, Eugenia Eng, and Georgina Drew. “Models of Engaged Scholarship: an Interdisciplinary Discussion, with,” Collaborative Anthropologies 3: 1-36.

2009                Dana E. Powell and Andrew Curley. “K’e, Hozhó, and Non-Governmental Politics on the Navajo Nation: Ontologies of Difference Manifest in Environmental Activism.” World Anthropologies Network 4: 109-138.

Book Chapters
2022                Dana E. Powell and Bidtah Becker. “Situating Energy Justice: Storytelling Risk and Resilience in the Navajo Nation,” in Energy Democracies for Sustainable Futures. Edited by Martin Pasqualetti and Majia Nadesan. London: Elsevier. Page 215-224.

2022                Dana E. Powell. “#NoDAPL Encampments: 21^st Century Indian City,” in Indian Cities: Histories of Indigenous Urbanism. Edited by Kent Blansett, Cathleen Cahill, and Andrew Needham. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. Page 267-289.

2018                Dana E. Powell. “Racing the Reservation: Rethinking Resistance and Development in the Navajo Nation,” in Race and Rurality in the Global Economy. Edited by Michaeline Crichlow, Patricia Northover, and Juan Giusti-Cordero. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Pages 175-197.

2017                Dana E. Powell. “Toward Transition? Challenging Extractivism and the Politics of the Inevitable in the Navajo Nation,” in ExtrACTION: Impacts, Responses, and Alternative Futures. Edited by Kirk Jalbert, Anna Willow, David Casagrande, Stephanie Paladino, and Jeanne Simonelli. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press/Routledge. Pages 211-226.

2013                Maribel Casas-Cortés, Michal Osterweil, and Dana E. Powell. “Transformations in Engaged Ethnography: Knowledge, Networks, and Social Movements,” in Insurgent Encounters: Ethnography, Activism, and the Transnational. Edited by Jeffrey S. Juris and Alex Khasnabish. Durham: Duke University Press. Pages 199-228.

Editorially Reviewed Articles and Essays
2022                Dana E. Powell. “Recovering Emergence: A Nation Within What?” The Law and Political Economy Project (LPE) Blog. Invited by editor James Brandt, Yale University. Published online, December 14, 2022.

2022                Rebecca Witter and Dana E. Powell. “Phantoms within and beyond the frame: stirrings of justice amidst specters of rural capitalism.” Engagement: a Blog published by the Anthropology and Environment Society. Invited by editor Colin Hoag. Published online, January 18, 2022.

2022                Dana E. Powell. “Becoming Visible: Infrastructure and Indigeneity in the Dakotas.” STShandoru: a Blog published by the Taiwan Science and Technology Studies Association. Invited by editor Li Yitze. Published online in English and in Chinese, January 6, 2022.

2021                Dana E. Powell. “Riparian Sensibilities,” in WET: An Anthology of Water Poems and Prose from the High Desert and Mountains of the Four Corners Region. Edited by Sonja Horoshko, Laurie Hall, et al. Cortez, CO: Sharehouse Press. Page 159-166.

2020                Dana E. Powell. “Commentary: Anthropology of Activism,” in Anthropology and Activism: New Contexts, New Conversations. Edited by Anna J. Willow and Kelly A. Yotebieng. London: Routledge Press. Page 79-82.

2019                Laura England, Jennie Carlisle, Rebecca Witter, Derek Davidson, and Dana E. Powell. “Climate Stories Collaborative: Storying Climate Change at Appalachian State University.” Practicing Anthropology 41(3): 21-26.

2013               Dana E. Powell. “Reflections on Teaching an Anthropology of Energy,” Culture, Agriculture, Food and Environment 35(1): 60-63.


Personal Academic Website
www.danapowell.net