Ashley Cordes is an Assistant Professor of Indigenous Studies at the University of Oregon and an American Council of Learned Societies Fellow. Her research lies at the intersection of Indigenous media, critical/cultural studies, environmental storytelling, and community-based projects. Her recent work in these areas has been published in journals such as Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies, Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, and Feminist Media Studies. Her current book project, From the Gold Rush to Code Rush: Communication of Alternative and Digital Currency in Indigenous Communities is under advance contract with MIT Press. Ashley is an enrolled citizen and Chair of the Culture and Education Committee of the Kōkwel/Coquille Nation.
Want to get in touch? Email me at ACordes [AT] uoregon [DOT] edu
This StoryMap responds to the multiple crises facing the Coquille River Basin, including climate change, pollution and the fall Chinook Salmon decline. The project includes multimedia art, an interactive map, and additional learning resources for visitors to learn about the cultural history of the Coquille River, its intelligences, and what can be done to help our salmon kin.
This project examines colonial dynamics that manifest in US currency systems and counter-stories of Indigenous systems that resist them. In the past decade, humans experienced what is being framed as a payment revolution considerably enabled by communication technologies. Indigenous peoples consistently innovate methods to store memories, transmit trust, and create reciprocity, yet are largely erased from histories of newer digital currency. This project addresses the problem and articulates how currencies form small parts of much larger stories of Indigenous resistance.
As part of the Indigenous Protocol and Artificial Intelligence project, this paper explores how to build trust and care for and with artificial intelligences through Indigenous epistemologies. Coquille values are applied to the production and use of AI, exploring relationships that act as an alternative to dominant capitalist, settler relations with AI.
