Images
Marena Bridges, Ph.D. is a 2026 graduate of the PhD Program in Leadership and Change at Antioch University.
Marena Bridges at her Dissertation Defense.
From L-R: Dr. Carol Barrett, Committee Member, Dr. Diane Richard-Allerdyce, Committee Chair, Dr. Rebecca Webster, Committee Member.
Dissertation Committee
- Diane Richard-Allerdyce, PhD, Committee Chair
- Carol Barrett, PhD, Committee Member
- Rebecca Webster, PhD, Committee Member
Keywords
Oneida, mourning practices, grief, matriliny, autoethnography, survivance, death system
Document Type
Dissertation
Publication Date
2026
Abstract
This dissertation examines how Oneida and broader Haudenosaunee mourning practices, as I have lived and understood them, shape grief, healing, and matrilineal responsibility in my family. Using Indigenous autoethnography and storywork, I first present a crafted narrative, then return to that narrative through reflexive thematic analysis. The analysis identifies patterned meanings in how grief is structured, shared, and carried across closely stacked deaths in the maternal line. Mourning practices function as community infrastructure that organizes time, redistributes labor, transmits knowledge, and sustains continuing bonds with the dead. At the same time, repeated loss produces a form of matriarchal ascension, concentrating gendered caretaking responsibilities in my life as “the aunty now,” including disability care and institutional navigation. Gallows humor emerges as everyday survivance, especially in border spaces where Oneida grieving meets a medicalized and privatized U.S. death system. Implications emphasize strengthening community-based grief supports and improving culturally safe, structurally accommodating practices in end-of-life and bereavement institutions. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA (https://aura.antioch.edu) and OhioLINK ETD Center (https://etd.ohiolink.edu)
Recommended Citation
Bridges, M. (2026). We’re the Aunties Now: Intersections of Mourning Practices, Intergenerational Trauma, and Matrilineal Responsibility in Oneida Life. https://aura.antioch.edu/etds/1241
Included in
Family, Life Course, and Society Commons, Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, Gender and Sexuality Commons, Indigenous Studies Commons, Native American Studies Commons, Race and Ethnicity Commons
Comments
Marena Bridges
ORCID No.: #0009-0006-9047-3873
Dr. Marena Bridges is a Black and Oneida woman, scholar, and member of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin. She earned her PhD in Leadership and Change (concentration in Humanities and Culture) from Antioch University.
Her interdisciplinary scholarship moves across Indigenous studies, cultural studies, and political theory, examining how power, belonging, governance, and narrative operate in both community life and popular culture. Grounded in lived experience and relational accountability, her work engages questions of matrilineal responsibility, anti-Blackness, Indigenous governance, state violence, and the ways cultural texts, from tribal political structures to genre media and speculative fiction, shape collective imagination.
Dr. Bridges is the author of a published chapter in Beyond Blood Quantum: Refusal to Disappear (Fulcrum Publishing, 2025), and her broader work spans community-based scholarship, public intellectual engagement, and critical analysis of popular culture. Across her writing and presentations, she challenges colonized epistemologies and expands what counts as legitimate academic knowledge.