David Delgado Shorter is Professor of World Arts and Cultures at UC Los Angeles where he also directs the Archive of Healing. His first book, We Will Dance Our Truth, examined Indigenous Yoeme epistemology and non-literate writing practices. He has written on sexuality, the dangers of “spiritual” language in Indigenous sovereignty movements, and he has created several digital publications, including the Wiki for Indigenous Languages. His ethnographic film, “Lutu Chuktiwa,” was a “jury selection” at three international film festivals. Most recently he has written an auto-ethnographic account of being a queer, Latino researcher learning about an Indigenous research methodology in the Borderlands. In the essay referenced in this interview, “On the Frontiers…,” Shorter illustrates the model of colonialism being engendered in the current search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
