Mellon Foundation Native American Scholars Initiative Predoctoral Fellow
Josias Agustin Mendez is a doctoral candidate in the history department at Columbia University. He specializes in US Indigenous history and environmental history. His research examines knowledge systems and how they structure environmental practices through cultural traditions. His dissertation discusses the ways Séliš, Ql̓ispé, and the Ksanka band of the Ktunaxa Nation (confederated as CSKT) reconfigured conservationism as they ensured bison survival in the nineteenth century. The project foregrounds tensions and dialogue between distinct intellectual genealogies of stewardship, including a recalibration of sovereignty as the CSKT reclaimed management of the Bison Range through the US legal system.