Amanda Johnson
Bonquois Postdoctoral Fellow
Biography
Amanda Johnson is the Bonquois Postdoctoral Fellow in women’s history at the Newcomb Institute. She received her doctorate in History from Oklahoma State University, a master’s in History from Arizona State University, and a bachelor’s degree in Secondary Education from Oklahoma State University. Her research and teaching focus is on Native American women in activism, self-determination movements, reproductive justice, and feminism.
Amanda’s current book project examines the ways in which Native American women contributed to and led in the Red Power and feminist movements of the 1960s – 1980s. Her research focuses on places of important intersections for Native women who network through national feminist, civil, and Indigenous rights organizations. She takes an ethnohistorical approach by emphasizing Indigenous voices, including the use of oral histories, Native American newspapers, and community-based sources. More broadly, she is especially interested in the ways in which Indigenous women have advanced the legacy of sovereignty and human rights through gendered systems of power.
Research
Selected Publications and Presentations
Amanda Johnson, “Ganienkeh, Out of the City and Away from the Reservation: The Making of an Indigenous Space, 1974-1979,” Journal of Ethnohistory (published by Duke University Press) Volume 71, Number 2 (April 2024)
Amanda Johnson, “Who She Is Film and Panel Discussion” MMIWR Day of Awareness - Co-Moderator with the League of Women Voters, Stillwater, Oklahoma Public Library, May 2024.
Amanda Johnson, “Indian Center News: Native American Women and Activism in the 1960’s Pacific Northwest” Scottish Association for the Study of America Conference, University of Sterling, Scotland, U.K., March 2024.
Amanda Johnson, “The Chairwoman Will See You Now: Ramona Bennett and the Puyallup Takeover of the Tacoma Cushman Hospital” Western History Conference, Los Angeles, 2023.
Amanda Johnson, ““New Wave Natives”: Ohoyo Sisterhood from Tahlequah to Seattle, 1977-1983” Ethnohistory Conference, November 2021.
Amanda Johnson, “Yet Si Blue,” The Woman Who Speaks Her Mind: Janet McCloud and a Lifetime of Native Activism in the Twentieth Century” Western History Conference, Portland, October 2021.
Amanda Johnson, “A “Tribute to Women Warriors,” The Northwest Indian Women’s Circle, 1979-1985” The Newberry Consortium, NCAIS Conference, Chicago, February 2021.
