Book Talk: ASU hosts Ophelia Rivas, Tohono O'odham, to Discuss Spy Towers on Homeland

Book Talk with Ophelia Rivas: Significant Impact 

Tempe Campus In-person, Thursday, Oct. 1, 2026
Registration required: 8 seats left on Wednesday afternoon

https://asu.libcal.com/event/17604879

Come listen and learn from the three authors of Significant Impact, Ophelia Rivas from Tohono O'odham Nation of Ali Jeg'k village, Caitlin Blanchfield from Cornell University, New York and Nina Kolowratnik from Ghent University, Belgium about their newly released book!

Book Synopsis:

A collaboration between O'odham Elder Ophelia Rivas, human rights scholar Nina Valerie Kolowratnik, and architectural historian Caitlin Blanchfield, the book advocates against militarized infrastructures on Indigenous lands and challenges common protocols of environmental review, along with the Western frameworks of scientific classification and property embedded in them. The project makes visible the impact of surveillance when considered through Indigenous sovereignty and an O'odham epistemology of land. It offers a visual language that is sensitive to secrecy protocols within Traditional Knowledge and that challenges the colonial biases of Western cartography.

The book situates current surveillance infrastructure projects on the Tohono O'odham Nation within a longer history of settler colonialism and border militarization, and reflects on the role of environmental review within the politics of protection in Indigenous lands.

Learn more about the book here: https://urbannext.net/significant-impact-contesting-surveillance/

Date:

Thursday, October 1, 2026

Time:

11:00 am - 01:00 pm

Time Zone:

Arizona Time (change)

Location:

Hayden Library - Labriola Center 2nd Floor

Audience:

Freshman   Graduate   Transfer   Undergraduate  

Ṣapai Cui'ig

S-ke:g ‘Em-Jiwhidag

Yá'át'ééh 

Dagot’ee 

Welcome 

The Labriola National American Indian Data Center is an Indigenous-led library center where students and community members can celebrate and critically engage with American Indian and Indigenous scholarly works and creative writing. Its staff provides culturally relevant information and research support, and the center is a culturally safe learning space for Indigenous library users.

https://asu.libcal.com/event/17604879

https://lib.asu.edu/labriola

Hayden Library Parking

Hayden Library Address is 300 E. Orange St., Tempe, Arizona 85281, at the corner of Cady Mall and Orange Mall on the Tempe campus.
Garages Nearby are Apache Parking Garage, located close to the southern edge of the core campus near Apache Blvd and 10th Street Parking Garage, located within a short walking distance north/northeast of the library.

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