Rowan Greywolf Moore

Rowan "Ro" Greywolf Moore (they/them, Sicangu Lakota) is a final year PhD Candidate in the Sociology program at ASU. Their dissertation, titled Red (Re)orientations and the Reels/Reals Line: Unmasking Redface, Resistance, and Indigenous Media Sovereignty is an investigative story-telling project that unravels what they call the reels/reals line, historical and ongoing colonial domination of the Indigenous Other in film media through Red film tropes and intentional psuedo-historical narratives. Their dissertation also highlights the ways in which Indigenous-centered film media resists the colonial film industry through what they call Red (re)orientations, a theoretical framework that queers white/settler-normative stories and celebrates what they call Savage Indigeneity, a deliberate (re)orientation of the margins-of-margins that embodies authentic Indigenous expression.

After entering the job market this past summer, Rowan has accepted an offer at the Phoenix Indian Center, the oldest Indian center in the "country", in an applied research and public sociology position. Their work at PIC aligns academic research with cultural protocols and true community-led initiatives for tangible change in the urban Indigenous community of Maricopa County and beyond. Working primarily in suicide prevention, Rowan and the PIC embody the belief that culture is prevention and intervention, integrating cultural revitalizations and grassroots Indigenous activism for sovereign futures where Indigenous peoples develop a strong sense of belonging and Indigenous identity. This work embodies Savage Indigeneity and, as the Phoenix Indian Center searches for a permanent home, Rowan hopes to lead initiatives for the creation of a sovereign library and archive housed within PIC. 

Outside of academia and work, Rowan is actively involved in their community as a Wiŋkte (Two Spirit) Ceremony Helper and Storyteller. They are also learning the protocols to become a water pourer for Sweat Lodge and currently designing a sovereignty ranch in honor of their late brother. They spend their free time playing cozy video games, riding motorcycles, soaking in the desert by their house, being a plant and human parent, and doing Thióšpaye (making community). 

As a mixed-race Indigenous person who also happens to be Jewish, Rowan stands in solidarity with their Indigenous relatives in Palestine as they actively resist settler colonialism and genocide. From Khéya Wita (Turtle Island) to Palestine, land back, everywhere!