UMF Professor Jennifer Reid awarded Guggenheim fellowship

FARMINGTON – A University of Maine at Farmington professor has been awarded a Guggenheim fellowship for her many years of work studying indigenous land rights struggles around the world.

Jennifer Reid of Farmington, a full-time professor of religion at UMF, was named as a 2015 Guggenheim Fellow by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation for her work, “Re-Thinking Religion Indigenous Land Rights in a Secular Age.”

The fellowship is a lifetime appointment that recognizes mid-career scholars on the basis of impressive achievement in the past and exceptional promise for future accomplishments, according to Edward Hirsch, president of the foundation.

The award will cover travel and salary costs so Reid can continue her research on a full time basis beginning on Sept. 1. She said Tuesday afternoon she will be traveling to the Carolinas, upper New York state, Canada and Australia to conduct interviews with native lawyers and land rights activists to gain first-hand knowledge of how indigenous land claims are adjudicated in modern courts.

In her 25 years of research she’s found indigenous people all over the world struggle for legal recognition of land claims. Success is limited in the courts as recognition is generally refused when it comes to indigenous religious values versus modern secular property rights. The task of intellectually clarifying indigenous land rights before the courts has fallen to anthropologists and historians due in part to a general social reluctance to bring religion to bear on secular law.

Reid joined the UMF faculty in 1995 and continued her research, while teaching courses on religion full time at UMF.

“Jennifer is an outstanding scholar and highly regarded, long-time faculty member who brings a wonderful compassion and intellectual prowess to UMF, “said Kathryn A. Foster, UMF president. “We couldn’t be prouder to have her important work recognized by this premier fellowship program.”

Reid has previously received a Maine Humanities Council/National Endowment for the Arts grant. She is currently a researcher with the Niwano Peace Foundation’s New Archê & World Peace Project, Tokyo.

Reid was “shocked” when she was notified of the award. She applied for it one year ago at the urging of a colleague.

“I didn’t think there was a chance,” she said. “I was quite surprised and elated, of course.”

The foundation receives between 3,500 and 4,000 applications each year, with approximately 200 fellowships awarded.  Applicant’s proposals go through a rigorous selection process where they are critiqued and ranked by experts in the field. Recommendations are then forwarded to a committee of selection that sends its recommendations to the Board of Trustees for final approval.