Dr. Cindy Tekobbe Wins Conference on College Composition & Communication 2026 Research Impact Award
Introduction
Dr. Cindy Tekobbe, Assistant Professor in Gender & Women's Studies and Communication at UIC, has won the Conference on College Composition & Communication (CCCC) 2026 Research Impact Award for her book Indigenous Voices in Digital Spaces. This award is presented annually for the empirical research publication in the previous two years that most advances the mission of the organization or the needs of the profession.
According to the Selection Committee, "In Indigenous Voices in Digital Spaces, Cindy Tekobbe brilliantly contends that digital research methodologies extract and commodify knowledge in ways that sustain racial and socioeconomic global inequities. This anti-colonial, anti-extractive stance allows her to trace the ways that oppression and marginalization are hard-coded into digital life. In stark contrast to the routine violence encoded in everyday digital cultures, Tekobbe analyzes Native Americans’ online cultural movements through case studies of hashtags, memes, cryptocurrency, and digital artistry from the crucial vantage point of her Choctaw feminist storywork. Her approach to political analysis, counternarrative writing, and critical algorithmic study connects us with Indigenous methodologies that move research beyond white settler colonial frameworks. She rejects western empiricism and its false claims of “objectivity” and instead realigns literacy, rhetoric, and online identity-work with Indigenous storytelling, relationality, reciprocity, and respect for the experiential and the metaphysical. Tekobbe reminds us that an activist decolonial agenda that centers Land and the Water must always be central to methodological design, digital rhetorics, community-accountable research, and knowledge-making."
Dr. Tekobbe will be presented with the Research Impact Award at the 2026 CCCC Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, next month. To learn more about the award and view past winners, visit CCCC's website.
Congratulations, Dr. Tekobbe, on your invaluable critical feminist scholarships! GWS celebrates you!