Professor of Philosophy and Andrew T. and Anne Ford Chair in the Liberal Arts Adriel Trott has been selected as the inaugural scholar-in-residence at the Humanities Center at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas. Trott is currently on sabbatical from Wabash. She will be in residence at Texas Tech from February to May.

Her research project, “Autochthony and Indigeneity: The Limits and Promise of Birth for Political Belonging from Athens to Turtle Island,” is concerned with how communities form and define themselves. Autochthony, the idea that people born in a geographical region belong there, relates to how people and governments define who is or is not indigenous. It is also tied to the idea of birthright citizenship, a concept written into the U.S. Constitution.

During the three-month residency, Trott will make three public presentations discussing her research. Her residency also coincides with the 150th anniversary of the 1874 Red River War, when the U.S. Army relocated members of the Kiowa, Comanche, Arapahoe, and Southern Cheyenne tribes. She anticipates including details of that war as part of her discussions.

“Indigenous people have long made the case against white settler colonialism that they have a particular relation to the land because they are native to it,” Trott said. “Indigenous philosophy thinks of the land not as property, however, but as a source of sustenance.” She is interested in exploring the idea of how shared birth defines a people or nation.

Trott’s work also relies on Aristotle’s classical definition of citizenship being determined by political involvement and involvement in a local community. This definition of citizenship can be contrasted with the notion of autochthony, in addition to enhancing it.

Trott’s work focuses on ancient, continental, and political philosophy, specifically on how ancient philosophy can be a resource both for analyzing and criticizing contemporary conceptions of political life, of being human, of nature and of gender and for presenting alternatives to these accounts.