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In this episode, Kate spoke with Tai S. Edwards and Charlee Huffman, writers and editors of a new book, Shokhi: A Kanza Relative, A Monument, and Rematriation. This book is a little different from others that have appeared on the show: it tells the story of how a group of people, include Kaw Nation citizens, historians, artists, activists, and others worked together to bring a grandfather rock, In‘zhúje‘waxóbe, back to the Kanza people with whom they had a centuries-long relationship. The boulder had been appropriated as a memorial to the founders of Lawrence, Kansas, and the land on which it stood bore witness to many intersecting narratives of people and place. The book, is part history, part artistic expression, and part handbook for this kind of restorative work.

Tai and Charlee discussed their collaborative process, incorporating disability accommodation into the heart of their work, and how they let the land lead them in telling a history with many voices.

Tai S. Edwards is professor of history and director of the Kansas Studies Institute at Johnson County Community College. She is the author of Osage Women and Empire: Gender and Power and co-editor of Lyda Conley and the Fight to Preserve Huron Indian Cemetery, also published by Kansas. c. huffman is a Kaw Nation Citizen with an MFA and an MDiv who sits at the intersection of privilege, dis/ability and Indigeneity; a place where poetry and theology dance. Her writing has appeared in The Ending Hasn’t Happened Yet, a poetry anthology edited by Hannah Soyer.

Note: Links to bookshop.org are affiliate links.

Mentioned in this Episode:

• Shokhi: A Kanza Relative, a Monument, and Rematriation
• Poet Marilyn Haeker
• Michael Grow, US Presidents and Latin American Interventions: Pursuing Regime Change in the Cold War
• Ursula K. Le Guin, Earthsea series
• Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed
• Doorkeeper of the Heart
• Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants
• Ilona Andrews, This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me