In Episode 103 of “Red Hoop Talk,” host Jennifer welcomes Dr. Luhui Whitebear, a citizen of the Coastal Band of the Chumash Nation, with Huastec and Cochimi Ancestry, whose work is grounded in staying close to culture. Rooted in her Chumash homelands in Santa Barbara and her life in Oregon, she carries that responsibility into every space she moves through. As an Assistant Professor of Indigenous Studies at Oregon State University—where she earned all four of her degrees as a first-generation college student—she centers Native Nations, land, and lived experience in her teaching and research, with a focus on Indigenous feminisms, rhetorics, land and water rights, and Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples.

Throughout the conversation, Dr. Whitebear challenges Western academic systems that separate emotion from knowledge, emphasizin ...