Chapter 9: Research at a Crossroads: The Need for Intersectionality in Higher Education Today

While there have been conversations about the importance and need for collaboration, the naming and understanding of biases, and the integration of different knowledge systems in research, the author, a Native woman anthropologist, recalls how an outburst in class uncovered power imbalances still persistent in real life and academic research. Citing her training in Alaska and her work with a Cherokee, Two-Spirit professor of queer studies, the author discusses the need for critical self-examination within anthropology and among anthropologists, to resist the continuation of White supremacist heter-opatriarchal ideas within both institutions and the self, and for an integration of intersectional theory and methods into higher education if the discipline is to remain relevant in an increasingly interconnected and interracial world.