Join us for our March 3, 2026 Healing Hour!

The Body as Archive: Trauma, Power, and Decolonial Repair in Academia

A 90-Minute Virtual Healing Hour for BIPOC Women in Academia

This Healing Hour invites BIPOC women in academia into a space of restoration that does not ask for performance, disclosure, or explanation. Instead, it offers a grounded, collective practice for understanding trauma and body-based awareness as decolonial acts of repair within institutions that have long demanded our endurance while denying our humanity.

For many of us, academic life has required a quiet disciplining of the body—learning to override fatigue, emotion, grief, and intuition to remain legible, productive, and “professional.” What often gets named as burnout, imposter syndrome, or stress is not individual failure, but the accumulated imprint of institutional histories carried in the body.

In this Healing Hour, we will explore how returning attention to the body—neck down, breath by breath—is not self-indulgence, but an act of intellectual, political, and spiritual reclamation. The body will be approached as an archive: holding memory, survival strategies, ancestral knowledge, and unfinished grief.

This session is designed to meet participants exactly where they are. There is no expectation to share personal stories. Participation is always invitational. What matters is presence, consent, and the possibility of feeling less alone.

Facilitator

Dr. Roksana Badruddoja is a scholar, writer, and embodied healing practitioner whose work bridges critical race feminism, trauma studies, and decolonial body-based practices. A tenured professor of sociology, she has spent over two decades working with BIPOC communities inside and outside higher education, exploring how bodies carry institutional memory—and how repair becomes possible through presence, consent, and relational care.

Suuhuuvii Donzia (Shoshone Bannock, Colville, Coeur d’Alene, and Interior Salish)

Willow Abrahamson is a dedicated Behavioral Health Clinician, therapist, and cultural advocate whose work centers Indigenous mental wellness and the revitalization of ceremonial lifeways. Her practice is built on a foundation of integrating clinical mental health with traditional ecological knowledge, tribal language, somatic healing, and land-based practices.

As a national consultant, trainer, and mentor, Willow influenced early childhood programming, championed culturally responsive behavioral health systems, and engaged in Tribal-state initiatives designed to foster community resilience. She holds a Master of Social Work from the University of Kansas and a Bachelor of Science in American Indian Studies from Haskell Indian Nations University.

Clinically, Willow is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and a Certified Clinical Trauma Professional. She is certified in Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART) and continually advances her expertise in evidence-based modalities, which she thoughtfully adapts for Indigenous communities. Her commitment to holistic healing is further embodied by a Medicinal Plant Certificate from Cornell University, through which she reclaims ancestral botanical knowledge disrupted by historical trauma.

Beyond the clinical space, Willow is a Champion Jingle Dress Dancer. She carries the dress’s healing origins into her work, viewing cultural movement as a transformative, living ceremony. Her roles as a QPR Gatekeeper and suicide prevention advocate reflect a deep commitment to crisis response and intergenerational wellness.

Willow’s approach is a unique confluence of clinical rigor and cultural revitalization. Guided by her Deniwap (traditional teachings and prayers) and personal story, her practice is more than therapy or advocacy, it is a sacred responsibility to nurture identity, restore balance, and weave resilience, prayer, and ancestral memory into the foundation for future generations.

Website: https://holisticindigenouswellness.online/

Dr. Nelia Viveiros is a C-Suite Executive with over 30 years of leadership experience including recruitment and retention, strategizing and policy development, inclusion, culture and organizational design, competitive intelligence and research, examining and resolving problems, collecting and analyzing data, and development and implementation of strategic plans.

Dr. Viveiros’s scholarship focuses on organizational development and repair. She has authored work in the Journal of Family Violence, The Conversation, Inside Higher Ed, Feminist Criminology, The National Academies Press, the Journal of Loss and Trauma and co-edited a book with Cognella titled: “Incivility in Higher Education”. Viveiros is a recipient of various leadership awards, including inclusion in The Marquis’ Who’s Who Publications Board (2024) and the highest civilian university award—the Thomas Jefferson Award.