Sandra Garner

Sandra Garner's broad research and teaching interest focuses on culture, specifically issues of identity, belonging, difference, as well as, intercultural awareness and understanding—particularly the construct of Indigenous identities emergent from settler colonial contexts. Her pedagogical approach seeks to engage students in community outreach through experiential learning activities and the development of community-driven research projects.

Teaching

Dr. Garner has developed an interactive and long-term research partnership with the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma (ESTOO). Since 2012 students in her classroom have provided community-driven research and products for the tribe. Annually ESTOO identifies projects needed for their community and students collaborate with tribal members to complete these assignments.

Student research has resulted in an article written for the tribal newsletter, The Shooting Star, which has a readership of more than 3,000, a short film about the tribe, a collection of Shawnee myths, and in 2014 a service learning, summer workshop to support the ESTOO's summer youth culture camp was added.

Research

Sandra Garner is a past Heanon Wilkins fellow at Miami University (2010-2012), a recipient of the National Endowment of the Humanities Summer Stipend Award (2013), and was an Altman Scholar in "Globalization and Belonging" (2013-2014).

Garner's publications include: "To Come to a Better Understanding: Complicating the Two Worlds Trope" in Beyond Two Worlds, Joseph Genetin-Pilawa and James Buss, editors, (SUNY Press, 2014); "Aztec Dance, Transnational Movements: Conquest of a Different Sort," The Journal of American Folklore, (Fall 2009); three encyclopedia entries "Black Hills Dispute and Black Hills War," "Shawnee," and "Tecumseh's War," for Multicultural America: A Multimedia Encyclopedia, Carlos E. Cortés, editor (SAGE Reference, 2013); and an invited book review of "Carrying the Word: The Concheros Dance in Mexico", Susanna Rostas, American Anthropologist, (June 2011).

Dr. Garner's forthcoming book, To Come to a Better Understanding: Medicine Men and Clergy Meetings on the Rosebud Reservation, 1973-1978 (University of Nebraska Press, June 2016), examines a five-year long dialogue between Lakota medicine men and Catholic priests to consider the possibilities and limitation of inter-cultural understanding. What happens when two very different cultures, with a long history of inequitable power relationships come to the table to try to come to a better understanding?

Education

• Ph.D., The Ohio State University
• M.A., The Ohio State University
• B.A., The Ohio State University