Lectures
Laura Harjo
Indigenous Planning: Futurity and Life Force
Laura Harjo is a Muscogee (Creek) scholar, award-winning author, and associate professor in Native American Studies and affiliated faculty in the Regional and City Planning program at the University of Oklahoma. Her scholarly inquiry is at the intersection of geography and critical ethnic studies with “community” as an analytic focus. Harjo’s research and teaching centers on three areas: (1) spatial storytelling, (2) anti-violence informed Indigenous architecture and planning, and (3) community-based knowledge production. Harjo’s book Spiral to the Stars: Mvskoke Tools of Futurity (University of Arizona Press, 2019) employs Muscogee epistemologies and Indigenous feminisms to offer a community-based practice of futurity. Her book is the winner of the 2020 Beatrice Medicine Award for Best Published Monograph and 2021 On the Brinck Book Award + Lecture.