Grit City Think & Drink

October 10, 2023

6:30PM - 7:30PM

Morotopithecus, Ekembo, and Friends: collaborative research on the adaptive environments of our earliest ape ancestors and all the other critters they lived with

Location: 7 Seas Brewing, 2101 Jefferson Avenue Tacoma, WA 98402

Sponsored by 7 Seas Brewing! 

Kirsten Jenkins, Tacoma Community College

Description

The REACHE (Research on Eastern African Catarrhine and Hominoid Evolution project) embarked on something that had never been done in paleoanthropology (study of human and ape evolution) before; gathered several independent and interdisciplinary research groups to use similar methods and share data for reconstructing past environments to create a regional model of how early apes evolved. What our team found upended decades-old paradigms on what it means to be an ape and calls into question narratives on the origins of later bipedalism in our lineage. This work is made possible by thoughtful relationships both within our research groups and the local communities where we work. 

Kirsten Jenkins (PhD - U Minnesota; BA -WWU) is a Biological Anthropologist and Archaeologist at Tacoma Community College where she teaches courses on bioanthropology, archaeology, primates, and human osteology. Her research interests are in reconstructing predator-prey relationships of fossil apes and fossil humans. Kirsten has been studying fossil site formation in eastern Africa on various projects spanning the last 20 million years of human and ape evolution since 2009.

November 14, 2023

6:30PM - 7:30PM

City of Tacoma v. Andrus: Tacoma’s Battle to End Federal Recognition of the Puyallup Tribe

Location: 7 Seas Brewing, 2101 Jefferson Avenue Tacoma, WA 98402

Sponsored by 7 Seas Brewing! 

Danica Miller, UW Tacoma

Description

Dr. Miller examines the ruling City of Tacoma v. Andrus as a defining point in the Puyallup Tribe’s fight for treaty rights and as precursor to the nationally renowned Puyallup Tribe Land Settlement of 1990. The Boldt Decision further emboldened the Puyallup Tribe to continue their self-advocacy and self-determination through Federal action.  The Secretary of the Interior, working under the Indian Reorganization Act, began working with Puyallup tribal citizens to put their former trust land back into trust status.  The Secretary's actions were met with hostility from Tacoma settlers.  In response, Tacoma filed City of Tacoma v. Andrus (1977) to halt the Secretary from any further trust action with some statements from the plaintiff side suggesting that the Puyallup Reservation no longer existed, and thus the Puyallup Tribe no longer existed. It didn’t go well for Tacoma.

Danica Sterud Miller (Puyallup Tribe of Indians) is an Associate Professor of American Indian Studies at University of Washington Tacoma, which resides on her ancestral lands. Her research focuses on textual constructions of Indigenous sovereignty and Federal Indian law. She is also the Co-Director of the UW Center of American Indian and Indigenous Studies (CAIIS), which is dedicated to offering structural support and resources for Indigenous faculty, students, and staff.

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