Cecilia Marek

Cecilia Marek (she/her) is a Gender Studies PhD student at Arizona State University (ASU) and a Cotutelle PhD Candidate in Critical Indigenous Studies at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. She is Diné (Navajo), Nimiipuu (Nez Perce), and Hopi.  She grew up on the Nez Perce reservation in northern Idaho and in Flagstaff, Arizona. She has an interdisciplinary background including Bachelor of Science degrees in Applied Indigenous Studies and Political Science, and a Graduate Certificate in Ethnic Studies from Northern Arizona University. Cecilia earned a master’s degree in American Indian Studies – Indigenous Rights and Social Justice in 2020 and recently earned a master's degree in Women's and Gender Studies from ASU.

Her research interests include Indigenous feminisms, specifically Native feminisms situated in the United States, Indigenous women’s leadership in activism and resistance movements, and Indigenous resurgence and futurities. Her current research examines the intersection of gender, race, and colonialism within the recent challenge to the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) via Brackeen v. Haaland utilizing an Indigenous Reproductive Justice lens. She also looks at how Indigenous feminists use zine-making as a form of decolonial practice to share their stories and perspectives in their own words and ways. Cecilia’s work contributes to the larger goal of and discourse around full sovereignty and self-determination of tribal nations and incorporates the vital perspectives of Indigenous women into that broader conversation. She aims to empower Indigenous women and communities through a reclaiming of women's traditional cultural positions of power that have been diminished and/or erased through colonization and patriarchy.