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Presenting Indigenous Archaeology on the World Stage: Reflections from JAGFOS 2024 in Kyoto, Japan - Plains 06
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In this special episode of the Great Plains Archaeology Podcast, host Carlton Shield Chief Gover shares his experiences presenting his work in Indigenous Archaeology at the 2024 Japanese-American-German Frontiers of Science Symposium cohosted by the National Academy of Sciences (U.S.), the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (Germany). This prestigious gathering brings together researchers from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds, offering Carlton a unique opportunity to introduce the archaeology of the Great Plains to a global, multi-disciplinary audience. Carlton reflects on the challenges and rewards of communicating Indigenous perspectives to a broader scientific community, discussing how cross-cultural dialogue enriches our understanding of archaeology and the narratives of the past. Tune in to hear insights from his presentation, the conversations it sparked, and his takeaways from engaging with international scholars. Whether you’re interested in Indigenous Archaeology or the role of science in cross-cultural exchange, this episode provides a firsthand account of sharing Plains history and Indigenous perspectives on a world stage.
Links:
- JAGFOS 2024 National Academy of Sciences
- JAGFOS Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
- The Archaeology of the North American Great Plains by Douglas B. Bamforth (2021)
- Archaeology on the Great Plains Edited by W. Raymond Wood (1998)
- Carlton's KU Anthropology Faculty Bio
Transcripts
- For rough transcripts of this episode, go to: https://www.archpodnet.com/great-plains-archaeology/06
Contact:
- Instagram: @pawnee_archaeologist
- Email: greatplainsarchpodcast@gmail.com
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Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to the Archaeology Podcast Network
00:00:01
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network.
Exploring North America's Great Plains
00:00:05
Speaker
You're listening to the Great Plains Archaeology Podcast. Join me as we uncover the rich histories of North America's Great Plains, exploring the latest archaeological discoveries and past cultures that shaped this storied region. Welcome to the podcast.
Welcome to Episode 6 and Japan Conference Insights
00:00:22
Speaker
Welcome to Episode 6 of the Great Plains Archaeology Podcast. I am your host, Professor Carlton Shilchick-Gover, and I am thrilled to have you join me on this exciting journey through the rich and fascinating histories of North America's Great Plains. Okay, in episode five, I mentioned that I was gearing up for a conference in Japan, and so I have just returned less than 24 hours later. I got in at 1 a.m. Central time, and I had on Tuesday, October 29th, and I had left Japan
00:01:01
Speaker
and I got to my house at 1 a.m. So I landed at 11 30 p.m. on Monday and I had left Japan at 11 p.m. Monday. So like my internal clock is just nuts right now trying to you know, being in a time zone across the international date line, that's 16 hours ahead of my own. It has been a time. So we're all very deeply appreciative of Rachel and Chris's time and getting this edited at their earliest convenience. Cause I have messed up the recording schedule already until the episode six.
Conference Overview and JAGFOS Meeting Details
00:01:37
Speaker
So today I wanted to actually talk about the conference that I just attended. It is related to Great Plains archeology because I presented on my research, but the context,
00:01:51
Speaker
of that conference and being in an interdisciplinary space that is co-organized by three major governmental institutions to support science.
00:02:03
Speaker
and how that space operated and like reflecting on what I experienced there. So that's, that's where I want to go to today. So I went to Kyoto, Japan for what's called the JAGFOS meeting, which is of course an acronym and JAGFOS stands for the Japanese American German Frontiers of Science Symposium. This is a conference co-organized between the United States' National Academy of Science, ah Germany's Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, and Japan Society for the Promotion of Sciences. So these are all three major government institutions that fund and support the sciences at a national level. JAGFOS, this was the fifth time it's happened.
00:03:01
Speaker
Each of these organizations also has conferences with other organizations. The National Academy of Science doesn't just do JAGFOS. There's a couple other things they do. That's why it's the fifth JAGFOS meeting. It's an annual meeting and it rotates every year. Last year, it was in Germany. This year, it was in Kyoto, Japan. Next year, it's going to be at Irvine, California. It always stays at Irvine because the National Academy of Science that's where they're headquartered. They have their own conference space. So it makes the, it just makes it cheaper to just use their own built-in facilities. Like not the vast majority of organizations don't have their own dedicated headquarter building that has a massive conference center and auditorium. So it makes sense. So it is several days fully funded. So the way I got selected was I didn't apply for this. I didn't even know what it was.
00:03:50
Speaker
I was selected by the organizing committee, the planning group, based on my work to go and attend. Emily Van Alst was also invited, so we went together, which was really nice to have a friend. Me and Emily were the ones that co-edited and contributed chapters to and indigenizing archaeology, art-edited volumes. So it was really cool that I got to go experience that space with Emily because the vast everyone else didn't know each other unless they were had presented at this conference before.
00:04:20
Speaker
And you can only present at this conference a maximum of three times. And every time you go, if you're lucky enough to be invited all three times, you have to do something different.
Participation and Significance of JAGFOS
00:04:29
Speaker
So I did a Putme and Emily did posters. The other two roles that we're able to do are be planning committee members or give talks to a session. you So you can't just come back over and over and over again and do posters because the National Academy of Science paid for me to go. They paid for everything. This didn't cost me a cent at the conference. So it was an incredible opportunity and honor to attend.
00:04:59
Speaker
And so what is the Frontiers of Science? And this is coming directly from the National Academy of Sciences website because they're the best ones that can encapsulate this. The Frontiers of Science symposium series was created as the first program of the National Academy of Sciences targeted specifically for early career scientists. Frontiers was designed to bridge the boundaries imposed by scientific fields, by exposing exceptional young researchers to ideas and research well outside their chosen fields, and to give these researchers access to a network of colleagues from a variety of fields and institutions that will be useful to them as they advance in their career. so The network about Frontiers of Science
00:05:37
Speaker
all of them, that's just 6,000 people across all these different disciplines. right like If it was an archaeology conference, you'd be like, so what? Because there's only 8,000 archaeologists in the SCAs. This is across the entirety of the National Academy of Sciences and across the US. It includes 19 alumni who won Nobel Prizes and 355 people who've been elected to the National Academy of Sciences. so like The people that are there are just brilliant. and then there's Then there's Carlton, then there's me.
00:06:07
Speaker
hanging out. And it's it's not an archaeology or anthropology conference, not not in the slightest.
Subfields and Diverse Participation
00:06:17
Speaker
We're broken down into different disciplines, and so I'm trying to think like where I can best find that. So there's there were six sessions, and each one was dedicated to a subfield. So the anthropologists, we were thrown in in the social sciences.
00:06:34
Speaker
There's around 75 participants total. That includes just all all the attendees, not like the organizers. So each country gets to send 25 people. And out of those 25, you need a representative in every one of the sub-disciplines. So there was social sciences, which is what I was in. There was biology, physics, chemistry, like climate science. And the last one was like computer sciences.
00:07:03
Speaker
So very, very different backgrounds. And the topics of each section included, so I'm just going to list the six. Evolution of life on Earth, where do we come from? Artificial photosynthesis, solar energy conversion into chemicals, points of no return, ice ocean land interactions in the past and future Earth systems.
00:07:25
Speaker
foundation models, nuclear fusion, the future of clean energy, and conceptions of space in place, the politics and social dynamics of contemporary placemaking and social negotiations and spatial negotiation. Which one do you think the social science one was? right It was that last one. so That was the theme of the social sciences symposium. So we had three speakers, one from each country to talk about their work. And then there was a poster session, which everyone, if you weren't a speaker, was supposed to present on. There were six social science posters, three speakers, and then three organizers ah for a session.
Social Sciences Challenges and Cultural Engagement
00:08:06
Speaker
It was an incredibly cool experience, although
00:08:12
Speaker
it was difficult being in a space where like the hard capital S sciences were present, like bio, computer science, physics. And then they just threw anthropology, sociology, like all those other ologies into like a ah you know a social science field. So we were more diverse within our own little subgroup than the other ones, um which made it a little difficult. And it was also like hard, I mean, it was cool.
00:08:40
Speaker
what we got to listen to. But it was hard when like the computer science folks were talking about artificial intelligence and like it was really hard for me to try to figure out threads between us. Like the one that I claimed onto was that session on ice point of no return ice age land interactions in the past and future earth systems. Like the water folks, like a lot of the oceanographers,
00:09:08
Speaker
They're the ones that we chatted with, people that work with glaciers and Ice Age. Ice Age is, sorry, plural. So I talked with them because it was like, hey, I'm interested in paleoindian archaeology at the end of the last glacial maximum and the end of the Pleistocene. Let's chat about what would the ocean currents have looked like and the extent of the glaciers during human migration into North America. So like there was there was some overlap. But when it came to my poster session,
00:09:37
Speaker
there weren't many people that showed up. There was a couple, honestly, the the guy that loved it the most was the sound and video guy from NAS who's contracted out and has been doing this for like 20 years, the coolest cat. So he's been going to, he goes to like all the Jagfos is all the other NAS events. So, I mean, he's a background in physics, I believe. And like he was the most engaged with with with what me and Emily were talking about. He was such a cool cat, had really great questions. But other folks, you know, I presented on my, some dissertation data on Pawnee Ethnogenesis and radiocarbon dates and chronometric hygiene protocols. So that was a lot like the whole indigenous knowledge thing was well outside the wheelhouse of like everybody else in
00:10:27
Speaker
at the conference, right? The physicists and biologists were like, what the hell? It was interesting, though, because a lot of the American participants understood, right? There's clearly this discussion within America that I didn't realize how advanced it was about indigenous knowledge, indigenous ways of knowing, bringing indigenous collaborators in. So even from the other sciences, like they got it. Like, oh, cool. The Germans did not.
00:10:52
Speaker
by and large, this was such a foreign concept to them. They were like, why do you need to talk to Indigenous people to do archaeology if they wanted to talk about our content to begin with? So it was difficult because like the whole purpose of this event was to bring people together and hope that there's collaborations. And it really felt like to me,
00:11:19
Speaker
that was most difficult for the social sciences because the other fields didn't know how how to respond. And most importantly, when we did respond to the, you know, like we had, I'm trying to think, and in those symposia sessions, like the talks, they were an hour long. Each speaker had 20 minutes. They were roped together by a theme that was voted on. And then there was an hour of questions.
00:11:47
Speaker
for anyone to just get up and ask a question. And like the social sciences, we like there were some of these where I was just like, what why do we talk about? like The evolution of life on Earth, where do we come from? I was excited about that at first, and so was Emily. Because we were hoping it was going to be more hominid-based, like human evolution, paleo-man. No. They were like, yeah, we're going to talk about the last common ancestor, Luca.
00:12:11
Speaker
And we're like, they're they're like, that's weird, they're misspelling Lucy. What they meant by the last common ancestor, they meant like everything on this planet's last common ancestor. And they're like, yeah, so we know this thing probably existed anywhere between like 5.6 and 3.2 billion years ago. And I was like, we're just like, what the hell? Like they're talking about like single cell organisms.
00:12:38
Speaker
or multis soll I don't know what it was, but it was like they were looking in deep, deep time to find like every living thing on this planet from the people to the birds, to the starfish, to the trees. That's what they were looking for. It was wild. It was interesting, but I was like, how is this relevant at all to what I do as an indigenous anthropologist?
00:13:03
Speaker
I mean, I guess like, you know, I could say for all my relations or, you know, we're all relatives. It's like they were looking for the last, we were all relatives. And with that, we'll be right back with episode six of Great Plains Archaeology podcast. So we'll be right back. Welcome back to episode six of the Great Plains Archaeology podcast. So I don't want to get too much into the experiences, but I want to talk kind of the reactions from those other ah scientists about the social science session. right So the social science one was um conceptions of place and space, the politics and social dynamics of contemporary place making and spatial negotiation. I didn't drink water. I still got that airplane coffee, you know what I mean? like that ah That flight over to Japan was 12 hours.
00:13:52
Speaker
I passed out, I snore, and I just inhaled whatever God knows what in that airplane. but so This was put together. The planning group was um Nicholas Little Oak from University of California, Berkeley, who's also White Mountain Apache. a Kojiro Show from Kyushu University and Sandra Kurfurst from University of Cologne. Fantastic people. so they they presented the year before, I believe. and so They were brought into the planning community, so they plan their own. and Then ah the speakers were Naomi Schimpo from University of Hjogo, Vanessa Watts from McMaster. She's also indigenous and she's fantastic. She's First Nations of Canada. and Then Noah K. Ha from the German Center for Integration and Migration Research in Berlin.
Social Science Session Highlights and Reactions
00:14:38
Speaker
and Naomi's talk was on like Japanese gardening and placemaking, and it was fantastic, and how the gardens were set up, especially in a highly urbanized setting like a lot of Japan is. ah Vanessa was talking about like indigenous ontologies, ways of knowing and how they've like largely been ah marginalized within North American science, and how like there's this superior inferior binary in Western versus indigenous worldviews. and so heard Her talk was very much on like, indigenous people know what the hell they're talking about, stop trying to suppress them, here's some case studies. Fantastic talk.
00:15:21
Speaker
Noah K. Ha from the German Center for Integration Migration Research, that talk was bonkers. like I loved it bonkers because like one of the things that like just dropped right at the beginning was calling out Von Humboldt from you know the guy that the Humboldt Foundation's named after for being a colonizer and not a great person, especially in like Northern South America and the things they did, and then going into like colonialism and racism that's present in Berlin and like how buildings have been reconstructed post um World War II and post Union of East and West Germany, how there's this whole idea of like a Germany forward and a new Germany, but rebuilding old buildings and then having colonial holdings and material objects from the former ah colonies present.
00:16:19
Speaker
And i I recall, I love the talk because you don't hear much about German colonialism, right? Like they lost a lot of their colonial holdings after World War II and World War I and World War II. So they get flown under the radar pretty often. So to have a talk by a German talking about German colonialism, ongoing racism within Germany was phenomenal. A lot of the Germans present I felt as though they were uncomfortable. And when it came to the the question session, one, I noticed like far less people actually got up to ask questions. like ah The social science one, all the other Capital S science folks, they weren't really asking questions. Because this whole concept of placemaking in space is just so foreign to a lot of those disciplines.
00:17:17
Speaker
but there was one individual that came up and and seemed a little upset about why Berlin was the focus. And they're like, well, why did you use Berlin? You should have gone to London or Paris, then tried to say, well, there's other people that do it worse. And the response was it like, yeah, just because like and France, Spain, Portugal, and England were some of the most if not the worst contributors to colonization and the horrors that go around it, doesn't mean that countries like Germany and Belgium get a free pass, right? And that was just such an interesting talk back and forth about that. And and with the Germans in particular, like one, I had a fantastic time and everyone was nice, but like right off the bat, I get there and one of the German contributors
00:18:09
Speaker
tells me I'm too white to be native. like If you guys have seen me, you know I'm white passing. so That was like right off the bat. and and like I'm used to this. like For whatever reason, every time I go abroad it's always or at a conference, it's usually the Germans who get very like, well, you can't be indigenous, you're not brown. and so There was that. and I don't want to speak on behalf of of of them, but one of my colleagues who was also in the social science poster symposium you know, they were getting grilled by a different German member and a couple others, like basically saying like, well, how can you do this work? You're not native. And then when they responded like, yeah, I'm native, like this is my community I'm working with. They didn't believe them. And I remember the first night we went out after the conference is me and Nicola look and a couple other folks I had mentioned to Nick.
00:19:00
Speaker
that another, we had laughed that about because just Nick overheard what happened with me earlier that day with me getting, you know, my identity questioned and we had two Germans with us and they're like, really? Like that happened. And like, we just started laughing. Like it's the Germans. Like we knew it was going to be the Germans who did this. Like the Japanese didn't, um, the Japanese did not question us at all about our identity. They were super excited. We were there. And even when I got up to, we had to do flash talks about our posters.
00:19:27
Speaker
And I got up and like introduced myself in Pawnee and that threw every, like the vast majority of people off. And I realized one, I probably should have prefaced like, Hey, I'm going to speak in my language. Cause like in the U S that's now become a standard practice.
Cultural Identity and Indigenous Resources Discussion
00:19:42
Speaker
The Japanese for, for people that English isn't their first language.
00:19:47
Speaker
me coming up there and so and introducing myself and pawning you without any hint or like warning I was going to do so, threw people off. And at first I was upset because some people I heard were giggling. Then I was told later, like those, those people came up and talked to me. It's like, Hey, we weren't laughing at you. When you first got up there and started speaking, we thought your accent was so thick or we didn't know enough English. And so when we realized you were speaking your native language, we giggled because we had thought we just didn't know enough English. Like we thought it was on us. And I was, and I reflected on that. And I was like, damn, I now I know. So next time, if I'm ever offered the opportunity to, to present in an international space again,
00:20:28
Speaker
to do that. um like The Americans knew what I was doing, but I only had a minute to actually do a flash talk in my poster, and I spent like a good portion of it like talking and introducing myself in Pawnee, and then reintroducing myself in English, and then like, oh, and this is what my poster's about, you should come and visit. But it was a cool experience, and I think for the most part, other than the German stuff going on, getting to see other early career or relatively established, recently re-established professors and and and not just professors, everyone was there, it wasn't just professors in their field talking about this cutting edge stuff was just incredible. And to be a part of that and to be recognized for my work, which I don't see as that significant, to be in that same space was just was just an entirely humbling experience. And towards the end of the conference, I did
00:21:19
Speaker
drum up the courage to like ask questions myself. so When it came to the last session in particular, which was on nuclear fusion, the future of clean energy, what they're doing gave me hope for humanity and getting away from fossil fuels. and I just really hope that their timeline works out because what they're doing is incredible and can absolutely revolutionize energy production and consumption in the world. and you know um That being said, like some of the other sessions, it seems like we're kind of screwed as it is and when it comes to climate change.
00:21:57
Speaker
But I asked a question. So it was during the physics and astrophysics session, nuclear fission, the future of clean energy. You know, we had talks such as ignition in the laboratory and understanding the implications of fusion energy and research towards particle control of the high temperature plasma treated in nuclear fusion. Like the stuff they're doing is incredible. And I asked this question because everyone was mostly focused on the science and I asked this question about you know like overall concepts. and My question to them was, given that many of the critical minerals required for nuclear fusion technology like lithium and rare earth elements are found on indigenous lands, how can we ensure that the pursuit of clean energy through nuclear fusion does not perpetuate a legacy of resource extraction and environmental degradation on these territories?
00:22:53
Speaker
What role can indigenous communities play in shaping the policies and practices around these projects to ensure equitable and sustainable outcomes? so like I asked this question via chat because the lines to go to the microphone were long. and I was like, I'm going to bumble this if I get up there myself. I'm going to write it down and put it in the group chat that was on the screen. I remember when my question came up.
00:23:14
Speaker
The session organizers, so not the presenters, looked up at it and they immediately started like looking back and forth. They like started talking themselves, pointing at my question, talking, talking, talking. ah One of the guys saw me and like looked at me and I just waved. I was like, oh shit.
00:23:30
Speaker
Because someone um another professor from Wisconsin, one of the oceanographers, asked something related to you know like natural resources. and I don't think they answered the question fully. and I was like, how many more specifically talk about indigenous communities? right Because we're talking to researchers from Japan, Germany, in the US, in these multi-billion dollar labs doing this incredible stuff. and I'm like, well where does your the materials for this stuff come from?
00:23:56
Speaker
The questions that were asked were like, or that responses were pretty good. One person said, yes, this is a problem. We need to do it. And I thought, and the second guy, the American, his answer is pretty good that the Japanese person is like, well, we just use like, you know, a gram of iridium. So I don't know what the issue is. Like it's, you know, we're not using that much. I'm like, yeah, but the supercomputers you're using, the conductors, like everything you're using to create that lab or like develop the machinery, that's also part of the rare earth minerals stuff, guys. But after the session, I like went to introduce myself to the speakers um and like, hey, that was great. And they came to find me like, did you ask that question? I'm like, yes. And like that was a great question. And like we had a really good conversation about it. And other participants later, because this was the last day,
00:24:44
Speaker
Because all the social science people, like all we were ever asking to the scientists was, like how is this going to affect other communities? like How would you get other people and engaged? Because everything they we were pretty much talking about at that session, fascinating research. But it's being done in Western Civ, trying to solve problems that Western Civ caused, and the materials and resources needed to run their projects come from Africa, South America. So I felt like we played this role as the social scientists kind of being like the ethics police, like reminding some of these folks that you know other people exist and like your your work, as awesome as it is, does have consequences for other communities. so like That's always been the history of especially and resources and energy in Western Civ in general.
00:25:36
Speaker
is that what they're working on can increase the quality of life for for themselves and those around them. But at the same time, in order to get there, it is putting other communities at harm and at risk and that we need to be considerate of
Advocacy and Future Collaborations
00:25:49
Speaker
it. So that's kind of what I felt my impact of that conference was, was having those communities and being respectful, not just getting up and yelling at them like, what about Indigenous people? It was like really just kind of be the advocate for marginalized communities that are have traditionally been um, not welcome at these sorts of meetings and sciences to be like, Hey, they exist. And so does your science. And like, you can learn from indigenous archeology, anthropology, or us social science or the social sciences. You should collaborate with them more in terms of like navigating these very complex social dynamics. So at that, they like, yeah, that was, that was me in Japan. I just got back. I know this isn't archeology, but I felt that
00:26:33
Speaker
just kind of talking about it, because I did present archaeology there. Not many people came to my poster, like I said, but it was a fun time. I learned a lot. I hope others
Conclusion and Contact Information
00:26:41
Speaker
learned. I actually am excited. I think I have some collaborations with some of the climate and oceanographer folks. um I think we're going to do some cool stuff, and that's the hope, fingers crossed. But until then, I will see you all next time on episode seven. Take care. of
00:26:57
Speaker
Thank you for listening to the Great Plains archaeology podcast. You can follow me on Instagram at Pawnee underscore archaeologist. And you can also email me at Great Plains arc podcast at gmail dot.com. And remember, anybody can love the mountains, but it takes a soul to love the prairie. American author, Willa Cather.
00:27:22
Speaker
This episode was produced by Chris Webster from his ah RV traveling the United States, Tristan Boyle in Scotland, Dig Tech LLC, Culturo Media, and the Archaeology Podcast Network, and was edited by Rachel Rodin. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chris at archaeologypodcastnetwork.com.