Jean Dennison

Jean Dennison is an Associate Professor of American Indian Studies at the University of Washington and Co-Director of the Center for American Indian and Indigenous Studies. Her research focuses on Indigenous sovereignty, governance, and decolonization, particularly through the lens of the Osage Nation. She explores how Indigenous nations navigate settler colonialism in areas like citizenship, governance, and resource management.

Her academic contributions include the book Colonial Entanglement: Constituting a Twenty-First-Century Osage Nation (2012), which examines national revitalization efforts. Her work emphasizes intergenerational knowledge transfer, participatory research methodologies, and institutional reform within academia. Recent articles highlight strategic relations of the Osage Nation, Indigenous futurism, and decolonizing educational spaces.

Key themes across her publications include sovereignty struggles, Indigenous nation-building, and the intersection of gender and power. She advocates for transformative academic practices that center Indigenous knowledge systems and empower marginalized communities through participatory research frameworks.