About Me

In the fall of 2022, I was thrilled to join my colleagues as an Associate (tenured) Professor in the Cultural Anthropology department at Duke University.
In July 2023, I launched, and am currently the Founding Director of, the first Native American Studies research program at Duke. What started as an initiative (formerly NASI, the Native American Studies Initiative) is now a full program: the RISE-US (“rise us”), the Research for Indigenous Studies and Engagement with Indigenous Peoples in the US. I look forward to the many research programs and relationships that it will enable for our students, faculty, and staff.

“Meet Our New Faculty: Associate Professor Courtney Lewis”
“Meet Courtney Lewis, Trinity’s first American Indian professor who’s changing the game”
“Dr. Courtney Lewis cultivates cultural bridges with Native American Studies Initiative”
“Duke to offer new Cherokee language course series”

I was previously tenured at the University of South Carolina – Columbia from 2013-2022. This position was joint between the Department of Anthropology (housed) and the Institute for Southern Studies.
During the spring semester of 2020, I was the Mellon Visiting Professor of Justice, Equality, and Community in Anthropology at Davidson College.

In 2012, I earned my PhD at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill in the Department of Anthropology. This followed two degrees in economics (B.A. University of Michigan, M.A. Wayne State University). I then began as the Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for the Americas at Wesleyan University–Middletown, CT in the fall of 2012.

I am an enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation.
My research specialties include: economic anthropology, Indigenous rights, economic justice, political economy, economic sovereignty, economic stability, public anthropology, food and agricultural sovereignty, Native Nation economic development, American Indian studies, race and entrepreneurship, and economic colonialism.

Current Research: American Indian Entrepreneurs in Mainstream Media
IRB Protocol: 2027-0085
Please contact me via my contact link below if you have thoughts and opinions on American Indian pop culture! 

Going beyond just “representation matters,” this project focuses on American Indian entrepreneurs in mainstream pop culture, such as artists, writers, performers, cosplayers, vendors, and media creators. American Indian pop culture itself has become increasingly visible in U.S. public life, including comics, graphic novels, streaming television, film and television fandoms, fan conventions, museum exhibitions, public performances, and online creative communities.
These mainstream spaces are important infrastructures through which American Indian stories, businesses, relationships, and forms of public knowledge move, spurred by the American Indian entrepreneurs in these spaces.

The project asks:
– How American Indian popular culture functions not just as entertainment or representation, but how American Indian creators and vendors use conventions, artist alleys, media events, and related public spaces to sell creative work, build audiences, form professional relationships, circulate Indigenous stories and images, and sustain Indigenous-centered creative economies.
– How do events such as comic conventions, artist alleys, exhibits, performances, and public programs support or challenge Indigenous community-building, public education, networking, and small business activity?
– How do both Indigenous and non- Indigenous audiences understand, recognize, and engage with American Indian-created popular culture in these settings?

This project will:
– Bring American Indian experiences and perspectives to cons and conferences by creating and sponsoring all-Indigenous panels on a variety of pop culture fandoms and topics.
– Work with these entrepreneurs to support their businesses through publishing collaboration (mainstream and academic), feature these businesses publicly and in press, sponsorship for talks, and provide assistance for business consultations.
– Produce a book, website, and articles, both mainstream and academic.

First book project research focus: Individual Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians small business owners and entrepreneurs.
Projects in motion: (1) Articles: Indigenous food and plant entrepreneurship (see “Food Sovereignty and Indigenous Chefs Series” page), including American Indian cannabis businesses. (2) Book: Native Nation and American Indians actions of economic justice in countering termination efforts by federal, state, and corporate entities.

My overall work is in economic development for Native Nations in the United States and, consequently, issues of sovereignty related to—and based upon the necessity of—economic sustainability and stability. My initial research was focused on small businesses located on the Qualla Boundary of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians of North Carolina. This fieldwork took place during the height of the Great Recession and revealed that small businesses provide a crucial impact on reservation economies, especially during a time of economic crisis.
This research also highlighted the historical presence of small businesses and entrepreneurs on reservations and answered the questions of how the boundaries that Native Nations work within—land, legal, representational—impact these small businesses; how these boundaries are then transformed by these businesses (e.g. impacts on issues of sovereignty); and how these transformations can truly alter the landscape of a Native Nation in both figuratively and literally.

The book based on this research is the first full-length ethnography on American Indian small businesses and was released Spring 2019 with the UNC Press Critical Indigeneities Series. Topics covered include:

• Constructions of Indigenous entrepreneurship as contextually distinctive
• Dividends as a form of Guaranteed Annual Income (also, Universal Basic Income)
• Impacts of Native Nation citizenship on small businesses
• Small business impacts on Native Nation economic sovereignty
• Small businesses place in large one-industry dominant economies (e.g. successful gaming)
• Tourism and the crafting of “authenticity” through individual businesses
• American Indian specific small business challenges and how Native Nation governments are addressing them

(Amazon Link ) (UNC Press Link )

Current Research

My current work focuses on entrepreneurship has two foci.

One is in the realm of plant sovereignty. For this, I have interviewed chefs, farmers, distributors, and restaurant owners.

This work also includes significant research into Native Nation and small business cannabis enterprises. This research examines the differential enforcement of federal law for American Indians as well as the experiences of, and differential challenges, that the current conflicts between state and federal law are creating for American Indian business owners specifically.

Second, is entrepreneurship in American India popular culture media. This includes creating a Year of American Indian Pop Culture at Duke; presentations regarding representation of Indigenous Peoples at comic-cons; preliminary interviews with artists and content creators, and publications (available for free via open access).

Please feel free to contact me here. Note that I am on sabbatical Spring/Summer 2024 and will generally be away from email: