This session explores resilient Indigenous lifeworlds within human and more-than-human communities. It examines how Indigenous knowledge, spirituality, and ecologies endure and resist colonialism, religious influences, and development pressures. Across contexts, these systems adapt and offer transformative insights, from sustaining cultural practices and navigating digital media to confronting the marginalization of Indigenous religions and threats to sacred environmental communities. The session highlights communities’ ongoing struggles and resilience in protecting their cultural worlds and more-than-human relationships.
Yuria Celidwen, Ph.D. (Nahua and Maya Bats’il K’op), is a truth-bearer and culture-shifter. Dr. Celidwen, a research scientist at UC Berkeley, explores Indigenous contemplation and transcendent experiences linked to prosocial behaviors like reverence, ethics, compassion, and sacredness. Her broader work, the “Ethics of Belonging,” promotes relational actions for planetary health rooted in honoring Life. As a Senior Fellow at the Other & Belonging Institute, she connects Indigenous concepts of belonging to rights, spirituality, and resistance against extraction within Western contexts. In 2022, the Mind and Life Institute named her a life fellow for her pioneering work in Indigenous Contemplative Sciences. She co-chairs the Indigenous Religious Traditions Unit of the American Academy of Religion (AAR) and sits on the Contemplative Studies Unit steering committee. As a public scholar, she has advised the National Parks Service, the California Academy of Sciences, the US Department of Health and Human Services, and pop culture media. Her debut book, Flourishing Kin: Indigenous Wisdom for Collective Well-Being (Sounds True, 2024), has been widely acclaimed for bridging Indigenous wisdom and Western mental health, offering a guide to shared planetary flourishing. Critics praise its mix of academic research, poetic storytelling, and practical contemplative exercises. Visit yuriacelidwen
ASWM Call for Proposals 2027
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Please note that this event will have a very limited capacity for Zoom presentations. We assume that all proposals are for in-person presentations unless otherwise indicated.
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Our conference will take place at the Wyndham Philadelphia Historic District Hotel, Special conference rates available to attendees.
There will be an option for a special tour of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, one of the nation’s pre-eminent museums, on Thursday, April 8.