James Bryan
James Bryan is a PhD student in the Department of Geography and Environment at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research interests span Black, historical, and labor geographies of the US South. In his own work, James focuses on farm labor in the postbellum US South, specifically studying how farm labor markets shape built and social environments (and vice versa). Outside of his own research, James works as a research assistant for the Landback / Abolition project collaborating with other students and faculty to consider alternative ways of communicating and presenting research on issues of land, race, and relationships between people and this university.
Tia Hunt
Tia Hunt is a citizen of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina. They are a fourth year undergraduate at UNC majoring in American Studies and Religious Studies. Tia works on archiving the history of the Carolina Indian Circle with the Landback / Abolition Project. Outside of UNC, Tia is a community organizer focusing on abolition in the Triangle and beyond.
Mackie Jackson
Mackie Jackson is a fourth-year Geography undergraduate at UNC-Chapel Hill, minoring in Statistics & Analytics and Studio Art. They are a former community development intern for the North Carolina’s Electric Cooperatives and a laboratory technician for MountainTrue and the Duke MacroGas Lab. They have previously engaged in public-facing academic work with Catastrophe in Context: a spring 2024 speaker series at UNC, and currently work with the Landback / Abolition Project and Desirable Futures academic collective.
Mikayah Locklear
Mikayah Locklear is a member of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina. She graduated from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she majored in Information Science with a double minor in American Studies and Environmental Justice.
Mikayah created the first-ever public archive to document 50 years of history for Carolina Indian Circle while also working with the UNC Landback / Abolition project on campus. This passion for uplifting Native narratives extends beyond her campus and community to her current fellowship as a Native Youth Grantmaker with Native Americans in Philanthropy. In this role, she serves as a community grant reviewer for Native Voices Rising and travels coast-to-coast learning skills and building community to indigenize the philanthropic sector.
Mikayah’s professional journey as an Independent Contractor for the Triangle Native American Society has only served to magnify her passion for directing the development of an organizational archive and library. Her appreciation for archiving led to an internship in the Lumbee Tribe Department of Agriculture & Natural Resources with the Tribal Historic Preservation Office, where she works on the establishment of a tribal library and archive.
Paola Saldivias Mendez
A Bolivian student in the Global Studies MA program, Paola joined the UNC Chapel Hill scholarly community as a 2023-24 Fellow of the DUKE-UNC Rotary Peace Center. As a social entrepreneur, she co-founded a non-profit organization with the mission to foster critical skills that enable young girls to become drivers of change in their own lives and communities in the Peruvian Andes. She is a mujer Latina committed to the transformation of the of the unequal power dynamics underlying low female participation in decision-making processes.
More collaborator names and bios coming soon!