Ranco named 2023 Ford Foundation Senior Fellow

Darren Ranco, professor of anthropology, chair of Native American Programs and faculty fellow at Senator George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions at the University of Maine, was named a 2023 Ford Foundation Senior Fellow.

The Ford Foundation Fellowship Programs have been administered by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine since 1979. The Ford Foundation Senior Fellowship provides funding for selected fellows to conduct innovative research that advances its mission to “reduce poverty and injustice, strengthen democratic values, promote international cooperation, and advance human achievement” as described on the Foundation website

Ranco’s fellowship will focus on a project titled “Decolonizing Land Relations in the Dawnland: Landback and Rematriation Across Wabanakik.” The project is an extension of Ranco’s previous research with Wabanaki rematriation movements, with a more explicit goal of building Indigenous institutional capacity to advance the health and well-being of Indigenous Nations. Ranco will study the tools and strategies of these landback and rematriation efforts and the supports offered by The Nature Conservancy and other land trusts to support this work and bring these tools back to the Wabanaki Commission to support its development

For more information, visit the National Academies’ Ford Foundation Senior Fellows webpage.