Dr. Majerle Lister successfully defends dissertation

Dear friends and colleagues, 

 

Please join me in congratulating Dr. Majerle Lister who successfully defended his dissertation, “Thawing Land Relations: Understanding Diné Land Politics After a Development Freeze.” His work explores the longstanding social impacts of the Bennett Freeze on the Navajo Nation. 

 

He spent years living and working on the reservation, interviewing community members in Tonalea, a place particularly affected by federal policy that prevented Navajo people from improving their homes for years until final boundary statues were worked out between the Navajo and Hopi tribes. This dissertation is one of the only empirical studies on the impacts of the Bennett Freeze and already advances a lot of debates in and research in these areas. 

 

His committee is Andrew Curley (chair), Lise Nelson, Jeffrey Banister, Brian Silverstein (Anthropology) and Levi Van Sant, geographer from George Mason University. 

 

Again, congratulations Majerle!