Through Time and Space: Placeknowing and Arts at Diné College

Tribal colleges and universities (TCUs) across North America are located in communities grappling with the economic devastation caused by the coronavirus outbreak. The pandemic has intensified the stress on many Native communities already struggling with issues of economic sustainability and public health. Yet COVID-19--or "Dikos Nitsaaígíí-19"--has hit the Navajo Nation especially hard. According to CNN, by the late fall of 2020 almost one in 12 people in the Navajo Nation had contracted the virus. This article describes how Diné College in Arizona has responded to the pandemic crisis by focusing on the role of Navajo art and artists in addressing issues of community health and sustainability. In 2018, the college took the step of expanding its arts curriculum to include a four-year Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. In inaugurating the BFA program, the college's School of Arts, Humanities, and English (SAHE) has sought to deepen involvement in documenting and encouraging the practice of both traditional and contemporary Native arts in the Navajo Nation. This goal is based on the value of perpetuating Navajo traditions through communal participation and absorption of the arts. [The article was written with assistance from Theodore Jojola, Michaela Paulette Shirley, Latoya Largo, Kayla Jackson, and Paul Willeto.]

Situating energy justice: Storytelling risk and resilience in the Navajo Nation

This chapter integrates independent empirical observations with co-analysis and co-writing, by Diné attorney Bidtah Becker and environmental anthropologist Dana E. Powell, to argue that the appearance of COVID-19 in the Navajo Nation makes visible long-standing infrastructural challenges facing the Navajo Nation. We show how energy might be rethought in relation to Diné concepts about vitality, and how self-determination—materially underpinned by extractive industries in the Navajo Nation—invites a re-thinking of what it means to be "recover” from historical and ongoing threats to the individual and collective body. We suggest that energy does not only need to be democratized but ultimately, needs to be decolonized from the processes that place fossil fuels in the service of settler capitalism, rather than Diné sovereignty. Such a move might enable movements toward energy justice, which is not a technical fix delivered by new hardware but an analytic that critically centers self-determination and new forms of relationality. © 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Determining how effective radio public service announcements are at driving call volumes within the

Background: In New Mexico from 2013 to 2017, Native Americans had the highest number of poison-related deaths (26.6/100,000 population) when compared to other ethnic groups: Hispanics (26.5/100,000), Black/African Americans (24.4/ 100,000), Whites (21.2/100,000), and Asian/Pacific Islanders (4.7/ 100,000). In addition, the poison center has traditionally experienced low call volumes from tribal communities. A survey conducted in 2018 revealed that community health representatives of the Navajo Nation reported that their respective communities preferred printed materials and radio public service announcements (PSAs) as platforms to receive educational messages. Method(s): In 2021, a radio public service announcement (PSA) was developed in English and translated into Dine by a college of pharmacy student and a medical doctor, both fluent in their native tongue. The PSAs provide examples of poisoning scenarios and advises to call the poison hotline at the end. Thirty second versions of both the English and Dine PSAs were run on the Navajo Nation internet radio station, KTNN, for the month of September 2021, and then again for the month of March 2022. Both interventions had an equal amount of radio spots. Result(s): Data were retrieved from Toxicall for zip codes that corresponded to the Navajo Nation in New Mexico. COVID calls were excluded from the data. Calls stemming from a poisoning outbreak that occurred on the Navajo Nation during the summer of 2020 were also eliminated to account for atypical patterns in call volume. There was a 48.3% increase in calls when comparing September 2021, intervention month, to September 2020. The March 2022 intervention showed a 54.5% uptick in calls when compared to March 2021. Both the September and March interventions resulted in an increase of 30 calls. To control for March also being poison prevention month in New Mexico, Navajo Nation zip codes were excluded, and then the total calls for the rest of the state were calculated. This resulted in 2147 calls in 2021 and 2073 in 2022. Conclusion(s): The significant increase in call volumes when comparing the intervention months to the preceding years, strongly suggests that radio PSAs increase poison hotline traffic. Both intervention months showing an increase of 30 calls was also striking. In addition, total calls for the state without including the Navajo Nation zip codes dropped from March 2021 to March 2022, further eliminating poison prevention month as a cofactor in the increase in calls during the March intervention. Due to the consistent decrease in calls to poison centers across the nation, it is imperative to continue investigating how certain dynamics influence call volume, such as increasing internet consumption and, perhaps, the COVID 19 pandemic. It is equally necessary to research other at-risk communities to refine the components of effective communication and to define relevant platforms for delivering those educational messages.

Respectful Tribal Partnership: What Philanthropy Can Learn From the Navajo Nation’s Collaborative Response to the COVID-19 Crisis

The gravity of the COVID-19 pandemic and its disparately harsh impact on Indigenous peoples, including the stark reality of a historical lack of access to essential services and health care, are now well known. COVID-19 death rates, aggregated through May 4, 2022, and normalized by population, show there have been far more Native American than white American deaths: 454 per 100,000 versus 327 per 100,000, respectively (APM Research Lab, 2022). © 2022. Foundation Review.All Rights Reserved

Why the Navajo Nation was hit so hard by coronavirus: Understanding the disproportionate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic of 2019-2020 has incurred astonishing social and economic costs in the United States (US) and worldwide. Native American reservations, representing a unique geography, have been hit much harder than other parts of the country. This study seeks to understand the reasons for the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on Native American communities by focusing on the Navajo Nation - the largest Native American reservation in the US. I first reviewed the historical pandemics experienced by Native Americans. Guided by the literature review, an institutional analysis focusing on the Navajo Nation suggests a lack of both institutional resilience and healthcare preparation. The analysis further identified four factors that could help explain the Navajo's slow response to the COVID-19 pandemic: prevalence of underlying chronic health conditions, lack of institutional resilience, the relationship between the federal government and tribal governments, and lack of social trust. Relevant policy implications are discussed. For instance, to better prepare Native American communities for shocking events like the COVID-19 pandemic in the future, policymaking should integrate informal institutions to build efficient formal institutions for self-governance. Promoting public health education and establishing collaborations between Native and non-Native communities are also necessary long-run strategies.