DB5: Archipelago of Heritage: Border-Crossing for Trans-Indigenous and Inter-Islands Connectivity
Tracks
5
| Tuesday, December 1, 2026 |
| 10:45 AM - 12:45 PM |
| RHMZ02 |
Paper / Session Submitter
Dr Roslynn Ang
Lecturer
Lasalle College of the Arts
Archipelago of Heritage: Border-Crossing for Trans-Indigenous and Inter-Islands Connectivity
Summary Abstract
Inspired by scholarship on Indigenous territories and refuge, this session proposes the "Archipelago of Heritage" as a trans-Indigenous framework. Moving beyond colonial fragmentation, we conceptualize heritage as an active process of navigation and connectivity. Grounded in conversations with one of our research collaborators, Sasunud Mavaliu of Kuskus, this approach treats heritage as a mobile, relational ontology that fosters solidarity between Indigenous and displaced communities across oceanic contexts.
To decolonize academic hierarchies, this roundtable adopts an innovative, relational format:
Provocations: Participants share 8-minute "points of departure" rather than traditional lectures.
The "Island" Format: The audience organizes into "islands" to synthesize reflections and co-constitute knowledge.
By transforming the room into a figurative archipelago, this session moves beyond linear transmission to actively practice heritage through fluid, relational exchange, offering a potent counter-narrative to state-bound configurations of space and memory.
Part of the Heritage and Transnationalism Network Stream
To decolonize academic hierarchies, this roundtable adopts an innovative, relational format:
Provocations: Participants share 8-minute "points of departure" rather than traditional lectures.
The "Island" Format: The audience organizes into "islands" to synthesize reflections and co-constitute knowledge.
By transforming the room into a figurative archipelago, this session moves beyond linear transmission to actively practice heritage through fluid, relational exchange, offering a potent counter-narrative to state-bound configurations of space and memory.
Part of the Heritage and Transnationalism Network Stream
Biographies
Leeve Palray, also known as Liang Yu, is a PhD Candidate in anthropology at Cornell University. As a political anthropologist working in critical indigenous studies, her work examines the trans/formations of indigeneity and settler “nativeness” across Japanese imperial rule, postwar authoritarian governance, and contemporary democratic politics in Taiwan.
Megumi Chibana is a Shimanchu from Okinawa. She is currently an associate professor of politics at Kanagawa University, Yokohama, Japan. Her research examines Indigenous politics in Okinawa; Indigenous theories and their intervention; Indigenous and decolonial critiques of settler colonialism, militarism, and colonial cartographies.
Roslynn Ang is a postcolonial-settler scholar in a long-term engagement with the Sapporo Upopo Hozonkai, an intangible cultural heritage performance group dedicated to revitalizing Indigenous Ainu song and dance in Japan. Her research interests include performance and media, decolonizing methodology, Indigeneity, race and nation, and Japan’s global colonial history.
