ARARA 2023 Conference

The Old Pueblo welcomes you! ARARA will hold its 49th annual conference March 10-13, 2023 in Tucson, Arizona. Situated within the ancestral lands of the Sobaipuri, Tohono O’Odham, and Pascua Yaqui, Tucson began as a Spanish presidio built in 1775 to compliment and protect the nearby Mission San Xavier del Bac (founded in 1692) and O’Odham village of Wa:k. As was common in colonial New Spain, the Presidio San Augustín del Tucson owes its name to the conflation of a Catholic saint and the Indigenous name of a local community or landform. In this case, the Franciscans paired Saint Augustine with Chuk Shon (“at the base of the black hill”), an O’Odham village once situated at the base of Sentinel Peak, sometimes called A Mountain, near downtown.

While Tucson hosted the ARARA conference once before, in 1990, the city has since grown and its patina deepened. With nearly a million residents, Tucson is Arizona’s second largest city. It is home to the University of Arizona and has all the trappings of a major Southwestern cultural and economic hub. Nestled within the Sonoran Desert region of the Basin and Range country, Tucson is surrounded by what locals call “sky islands,” or isolated mountain ranges whose ecosystems rise from desert scrub at their bases to alpine-like fir forests at their summits. Vast expanses of open landscape encapsulate the city and provide unlimited opportunities for outdoor recreation, adventure, and rock art exploration. Close and popular destinations include Saguaro National Park, Tucson Mountain Park, Ironwood Forest National Monument, Coronado National Forest, and the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge.

The city’s history has deep roots. Just over a decade ago, an