About the Panelists
Scott Alves Barton (he/him/his) is a cultural anthropologist of African diaspora foodways at University of Notre Dame, and he previously was an executive chef for over twenty-five years. Scott’s research focuses on diasporic women’s work and knowledge, intergenerational teaching/learning, cultural heritage, and political resistance in northeastern Brazil. Scott is a public scholar at Lynden Sculpture Garden. He serves as co-chair of the African Diaspora Religions Unit in the American Academy of Religion, a trustee of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery, a board member of the Association for the Study of Food and Society and the Society for the Anthropology of Food and Nutrition, and an advisory board member to Indigo Arts Alliance. His forthcoming manuscript, Reckoning with Violence and Black Death follows his exhibition on anti-Black violence, funerary foods, and ancestrality, Buried in the Heart.
Elizabeth James-Perry (she/her) practices wampum jewelry design and restorative gardening in her Aquinnah Wampanoag tribal homelands in Massachusetts. She teaches art and responsible land stewardship to stay grounded and to benefit the next seven generations.
Kyle T. Mays (he/him) is an Afro-Indigenous (Saginaw Chippewa) scholar of urban studies, Afro-Indigenous studies, and contemporary popular culture. He is the author of three books, including City of Dispossessions: Indigenous Peoples, African Americans, and the Creation of Modern Detroit (2022) and An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States (2021).
