Shawna
Morton Cain is a graduate student at the University of Arkansas
and an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation. Daughter
of Patsy Eads Morton, Cherokee Nation tribal councilwoman
for 12 years and Neil Morton, director of the Cherokee Nation
Education Department, Shawna comes from a family of Cherokee
activists and educators. A fourth generation Oklahoma Cherokee
residing within the Old Flint District of the Cherokee Nation
since their forced removal in 1839, Shawna is currently
working with Oklahoma Cherokees as a “Living Treasure”—traditional
artisan, cultural resource liaison, educator and advocate
of ecological and environmental issues that directly concern
the tribal government and local Cherokees. Her course of
study focuses on the inclusion of the Native perspective
as one that requires equivalent input and analyses from
Native and Western scholarship. Shawna’s familiarity
and interaction with rural Cherokees and specific cultural
practices tied closely to native interaction with the land
and environment has proven core to her interests in ethno-history,
archaeology, ethno-ecology and ethno-biology. Her current
research funded by the American Philosophical Society and
the Environmental Protection Agency involves studying the
cultural practices and on-going interaction between rural
Cherokees and their woodland environment as well as the
ecological and environmental impacts of modern society upon
indigenous peoples, specifically rurally isolated and marginalized
Cherokees.
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