2025 winner
Dr. Bethany Hughes is an enrolled member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. Dr. Hughes is an Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan. Her book "Redface: Race, Performance, and Indigeneity" won the 2025 Labriola Book Award. "Redface" is Dr. Hughes' first book, and draws on the fields of Native American Studies, Theatre, and Performance Studies asking questions about racialization, representation, authenticity, and authority.
Honorable mention goes to Dr. Caitline Keliiaa (Yerington Paiute and Washoe), Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Cruz, for her book "Refusing Settler Domesticity: Native Women's Labor and Resistance in the Bay Area Outing Program."
Past winners
2024
Dr. Kailtlin Reed is an enrolled member of the Yurok Tribe in Northwestern California, with ancestral ties to Hupa and Oneida. Dr. Reed is an Assistant Professor of Native American Studies at Cal Poly Humboldt in Arcata, California. Her book "Settler Cannabis: From Gold Rush to Green Rush in Indigenous Northern California" won the 2024 Labriola Book Award. In 2018, Dr. Reed was awarded the Charles Eastman Fellowship of Native American Studies at Dartmouth College.
Honorable mention goes to Kasey R. Keeler, who is an assistant professor in the Department of Civil Society and Community Studies and American Indian Studies at the University of Wisconsin, for her book, “American Indians and the American Dream: Policies, Place, and Property in Minnesota”.
2023
Dr. Valerie Lambert is an enrolled citizen of the Choctaw Nation and is a professor of anthropology at the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill. Her book "Native Agency: Indians in the Bureau of Indian Affairs" won the 2022 Labriola Book award. Valerie is also the author of "Choctaw Nation: A Story of American Indian Resurgence", winner of the 2007 North American Indian Prose Award.
Honorable mention goes to Dr. Charlotte Cote, who is associate professor in American Indian studies at the University of Washington, for her book "A Drum in One Hand, a Sockeye in the Other: Stories of Indigenous Food Sovereignty from the Northwest Coast".
2022
Dr. Max Liboiron, Associate Professor of Geography at Memorial University of Newfoundland in Canada, for their 2021 book "Pollution is Colonialism".
Honorable mention goes to Dr. Helen Agger (Anishinaabe), who holds a PhD in Native Studies from the University of Manitoba, for their 2021 book "Dadibaajim: Returning Home Through Narrative".
2020
Dr. Dylan Robinson, Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Arts at Queen's University for their 2020 book "Hungry Listening: Resonant Theory for Indigenous Sound Studies".
Honorable mention goes to Dr. Brittany Luby (Niisaachewan Anishinaabe Nation), Assistant Professor of History at the University of Guelph for their 2020 book "Dammed: The Politics of Loss and Survival in Anishnaabe Territory".
2019
Dr. Christopher Pexa, Assistant Professor of English and affiliate of American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota, for "Translated Nation: Rewriting the Dakhota Oyate".
Honorable mention goes to Dr. Philip Deloria, Professor of History at Harvard University, for "Becoming Mary Sully: Toward an American Indian Abstract."
2018
Dr. Margaret Bruchac, Assistant Professor and Coordinator, Native American & Indigenous Studies at University of Pennsylvania for "Savage Kin: Indigenous Informants and American Anthropologists".
Honorable mention goes to Dr. Cutcha Risling Baldy, for "We Are Dancing for You: Native Feminisms and the Revitalization of Women's Coming-of-Age Ceremonies".
2017
Dr. Elizabeth Hoover, Manning Assistant Professor of American Studies at Brown University for "The River is in Us: Fighting Toxics in a Mohawk Community".
Honorable mention goes to Dr. Leanne Betasamosake Simpson for "As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom Through Radical Resistance".
2016
Dr. Delphine Red Shirt, Professor at Stanford University for "George Sword's Warrior Narratives: Compositional Processes in Lakota Oral Tradition".
Honorable mention goes to Dr. William Bauer for "California Through Native Eyes: Reclaiming History".
2015
Sarah Deer, Professor of Law at Mitchell Hamline School of Law for "The Beginning and End of Rape: Confronting Sexual Violence in Native America".
Honorable mention goes to Clint Carroll for "Roots of Our Renewal: Ethnobotany and Cherokee Environmental Governance".
2014
Dr. Brenda Child, associate Professor of American Studies and America Indian Studies at University of Minnesota for "My Grandfather's Knocking Sticks: Ojibwe Family Life and labor on the Reservation".
2013
Dr. Andrew Graybill, associate professor of history at Southern Methodist University for "The Red and the White: A Family Saga of the American West".
2012
Dr. Daniel Herman, professor of history at Central Washington University for "Rim Country Exodus: A Story of Conquest, Renewal, and Race in the Making".
2011
Dr. Cathleen Cahill, Assistant Professor of History at the University of New Mexico for "Federal Fathers and Mothers: A Social History of the United States Indian Service, 1869-1933".
2010
Dr. Malinda Lowery Assistant Professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for "Lumbee Indians in the Jim Crow South: Race, Identity, and the Making of a Nation".
2009
Dr. Paul Rosier, Associate Professor of History at Villanova for "Serving Their Country: American Indian Politics and Patriotism in the Twentieth Century".
2008
Dr. Daniel Cobb, inaugural winner for his book "Native Activism in Cold War America: The Struggle for Sovereignty".