Marie Cruz Soto

Marie Cruz Soto (BA University of Puerto Rico, PhD University of Michigan) is interested in imperial interventions, colonial modernities and decolonizing imaginaries. She is particularly interested in the island of Vieques, Puerto Rico, and in how militarized colonialism has shaped the Viequense community. Her work explores how the long history of dispossessions in the island has ensured a vulnerable and unruly population. Cruz Soto is also a peace activist who has participated in Viequense community initiatives, in the organization New York Solidarity with Vieques and in transnational networks of solidarity against U.S. military bases. She teaches at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study, New York University. Her courses delve into feminist and anti-colonial epistemologies, the workings of the U.S. Empire, struggles to narrate the past and claim places, community formations and the making and transgression of boundaries.

Thomas Abowd

Thomas Abowd received his PhD in Cultural Anthropology from Columbia University. He has been active in scholarly and activist initiatives around anti-racism, anti-imperialism, and Palestine/Israel for more than 25 years. He teaches in the Colonialism Studies, American Studies, and Anthropology programs at Tufts University. Abowd is the author of Colonial Jerusalem: The Spatial Construction of Identity and Difference, 1948-2012 (Syracuse University Press, 2012). He has also recently published a piece in Social Text on Martin Buber, Edward Said, and the politics of binationalism. Abowd is currently working on a book project on neoliberal urban space and the water catastrophes in Flint and Detroit, Michigan.

Desiree Kane

Desiree Kane is a Miwok woman, multi-media journalist, and organizer. She is one of the founders and the Digital Content Editor/Director at Pollen Nation Magazine. Her documentary photography can be seen at the Beyond Standing Rock exhibit in the New Mexico Museum of Indian Arts and Culture in Santa Fe, NM. She is Associate Producer, Camera Operator, and Investigative Journalist on the feature-length documentary film Akicita: The Battle of Standing Rock, which premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. Kane’s body of journalistic work ranges widely and is supplemented by experiences organizing for Indigenous rights and climate justice, as well as activist groups such as The People for Bernie Sanders and The People’s Climate March