Social Sciences Division
Associate Professor
Faculty
History of Art/Visual Culture
Legal Studies
Dolores Huerta Research Center for the Americas
Social Sciences 1
303 Social Sciences 1
303 Social Sciences 1
Social Sciences 1 Faculty Services
Jon holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley, a Masters in Anthropology from Portland State University, a Masters in Political Science from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and a Bachelors in Journalism from the University of Nebraska.
Jon Daehnke is Associate Professor in the Anthropology Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His research and teaching interests focus on heritage studies, cultural resource policy and law, Indigenous studies, and the history and archaeology of the Pacific Northwest Coast. He is the author of Chinook Resilience: Heritage and Cultural Revitalization on the Lower Columbia River (University of Washington Press, 2017). Chinook Resilience is a heritage ethnography done in collaboration with the Chinook Indian Nation, and it traces the complex politics of cultural heritage, Indigenous identity, and colonial legacies on the Columbia River. As a non-federally recognized tribal nation, the Chinook often face challenges in their efforts to claim and control cultural heritage and history and to assert a right to place on the Columbia River. But despite these challenges, the Chinook continue to move forward. Chinook Resilience focuses on Chinook participation in archaeological projects and sites of public history, as well as the tribe’s central role in the revitalization of canoe culture in the Pacific Northwest. Canoe culture provides an embodied form of heritage, one steeped in reciprocity and protocol, and one that offers a tribally relevant and decolonized approach to cultural survival and resilience. In addition to his book, Jon has published in the Journal of Social Archaeology, American Indian Quarterly, American Indian Culture and Research Journal, Wicazo Sa Review, and Archaeology in Washington.
Jon is also a partner in the Wapato Valley Archaeology Project (WVAP), which was developed to explore the history and archaeology of the Columbia River, specifically in the area of the Portland Basin. Jon's focus in the WVAP is on Indigenous interaction with the landscape over the long-term, especially in the context of Indigenous response to potentially catastrophic changes in the Columbia River floodplain. In addition to his work along the Columbia River, he is also involved in a project focused on documenting and recording rock-art sites in the Hart Mountain Refuge in Oregon.
