In this article, we discuss a curricular collaboration between the art education program at Miami University and members of a research and education center, the Myaamia Center, affiliated with the Indigenous nation, the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma, whose people originally inhabited the land where the university sits. One author is a citizen of the Miami Tribe and employee of the Myaamia Center, and two authors are settler professors of art education at Miami University. In this collaboration, majority-settler preservice art educators collaborated with Myaamia scholars to develop a curriculum that was then taught in area elementary schools serving majority-settler populations. The article examines this collaboration and the teaching that emerged from it through a community-engaged methodological lens, examining complications related to positionality, appropriation, and serving multiple community partners with diverse positionalities, needs, and goals. We then discuss how this collaborative process may serve as a model to address common harmful practices in settler art education.

Faculty authors: Luke Arthur Meeken, Kristina Fox, and Stephanie Harvey Danker (Miami University)
Publication details: Meeken, L. A., Fox, K. & Danker, S. H., (2025) “Neepwaankiaki: Teaching Art and Culture in the Context of a Reciprocal Tribe–University Partnership”, Studies in Art Education 42(2), 52-73. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/00393541.2025.2472583