Dr. Robin R. R. Gray

Robin R. R. Gray
Published: 
Jun 25, 2015

We are pleased to announce that Robin R. R. Gray successfully defended her Ph.D. dissertation in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her dissertation, titled “Ts’msyen Revolution: The Poetics and Politics of Reclaiming,” investigates the motivations, possibilities and obstacles associated with Ts’msyen reclamation. 

Robin explored the legal and ethical dimensions associated with reclaiming Ts’msyen songs from archives, as well as embodied heritage reclamation by a dance group.

Robin is Ts’msyen from Lax Kw’alaams and she belongs to Waap Liyaa’mlaxha, a Gisbutwada House in the Gitaxangiik Tribe. She wears the Ts’msyen name T’uu’tk, which, in its long form, roughly translates to “Always Prominent Voice of Raven.” On her father’s side, Robin is Mikisew Cree from Fort Chipewyan, Alberta. Through the lens of song and dance, her work provides critical Ts’msyen standpoints on the topics of Indigenous in/visibility, Indigenous conceptions of property and ownership, Indigenous research methodologies, settler colonialism and decolonization.

Robin’s Ph.D. co-chairs were IPinCH team members Jane Anderson and Sonya Atalay. The committee was so impressed with Robin’s work that she passed the exam with the special honors of “with distinction.”

Robin became an IPinCH Fellow in January 2013. She has served as the Student Representative on the IPinCH Steering Committee from January 2013 to the present. Robin has contributed to our video series and our blog (Appropriation (?) of the Month: First Nation Totem Poles and Repatriating Indigenous Cultural Heritage: What’s Reconciliation Got to Do With It?).

In 2014, Robin co-organized (with Joe Watkins) an IPinCH student session at the Society for Applied Anthropology. Later that year, she spearheaded and organized a workshop for students and emerging scholars at the IPinCH Fall Gathering.

Robin was recently awarded a 2015-2016 University of California President's 
Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of California Santa Cruz. Her Fellowship project will focus on Researching, Representing and Repatriating Ts’msyen Cultural Heritage.

Congratulations Robin!

View Robin’s profile >