Theme:
6. Contested Pasts & Presents
Session format:
Regular session
Title:
CANCELLED It’s Not Me, Its You: Indigenous Perspectives and Working with Colonizers
Content:
Canada’s residential school graves discovery highlighted the treatment of Indigenous peoples within the country and ignited global discussions on Indigenous people and issues with inter-generational trauma, racism and resources scarcity. This has created a strong call for not only reconciliation, but reconcili-action.
Indigenous archaeology has often been researched, taught and presented by colonizers. These attitudes towards Indigenous teachings, archaeology and histories have regularly pushed Indigenous archaeologists to the fringes - being consulted but rarely involved in decision making related to excavations, repatriation, and site protection. As the Indigenous archaeology community has been strongly dominated by colonizers, the field has regularly missed important teachings and colonizers have spoken for communities, instead of allowing space for communities to provide equal input.
This session asks for members of the Indigenous community who interact with archaeological and museological communities to speak on the good, the bad and the ugly aspects of being consulted upon, and the working relationship with colonizers and settler communities. This session will address the following themes:
• The challenges that working with fields that have strong colonial histories and perspectives
• Results and implications of using traditional/oral methods to further written records, academic research, and knowledge-building
• Reflections on community-based participatory research
• Perspectives on Indigenous knowledge as expert knowledge in archaeology
This session readily invites all members of the Indigenous community to come and speak on their experiences regardless of education, location and position within the archaeological community. Speakers will have 15-20 minutes to share their experiences in whatever format is most appropriate for them.
Keywords:
Indigenous, Oral traditions, Decolonizing, Archaeology, Community-based participation
Session associated with MERC:
no
Session associated with CIfA:
no
Session associated with SAfA:
no
Session associated with CAA:
no
Session associated with DGUF:
no
Session associated with other:
Main organiser:
Kiara Beaulieu (Canada) 1,2
Co-organisers:
Jordan Jamieson (Canada) 3
Emily Vella (Sweden) 4
Affiliations:
1. Universiteit Antwerpen
2. Vrije Universiteit Brussel
3. Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation
4. Uppsala Universitet
THIS SESSION CAN NOT BE SELECTED AT THIS MOMENT