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SAA 86th Annual Conference: An Indigenous Response
589 Plays5 years ago
In this special edition of the A Life in Ruins Podcast, Carlton co-hosts an episode with Emily Van Alst, Ash Boydston-Schmidt, and Kay Mattena. The four discuss the recent SAA controversy surrounding the "Curation, Repatriation, and Accessibility: Vital Ethical Conversations" session. Specifically, the “Has Creationism Crept Back into Archaeology?” presentation.
The four Indigenous scholars discuss their thoughts, feelings, and reactions to the content of the presentation, their disappointment in the SAA for platforming the talk, the future of the SAA, and how the society can improve its ethics and better support its Indigenous scholars.
Lastly, they discuss the fallout from the presentation and how some non-Indigenous scholars are taking advantage of Indigenous trauma to further their own careers, and how non-Indigenous scholars can truly be allies to Indigenous people.
Guest's literature recommendations:
- Indigenous Archaeology by Joe Watkins
- Archaeologies of the Heart edited by Kisha Supernant, Jane Eva Baxter, Natasha Lyons, and Sonya Atalay
- R words by Tuck and Yang
- Decolonizing Methodologies by Linda Tuhiwai-Smith
- Considering the Denigration and Destruction of Indigenous Heritage as Violence in Critical Global Perspectives on Cultural Memory and Heritage: Construction, Transformation and Destruction by George Nicholas and Claire Smith
- We Are Dancing for You Native Feminisms and the Revitalization of Women’s Coming of Age Ceremonies by Cutcha Risling Baldy
- Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Kimmer
List of scholars to search:
- George Nicholas
- Vine Deloria
- Phil Deloria
- Roger Echo-Hawk
- Larry Zimmerman
- Chip Colwell
- Steve Silliman
- Zoey Todd
- Gloria Anzaldua
Guest Contact
- Carlton Shield Chief Gover:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pawnee_archaeologist
- Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/PaniArchaeology
- email: carlton.gover@colorado.edu
- Kay Mattena
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/oh_kay13
- Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/MattenaKay
- email: K.Mattena@umass.edu
- Ash Boydston-Schmidt
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ashinthestars
- Emily Van Alst
- Emily Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/emilyvanawesome
- Emily Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/emilyvanawesome
Contact
- Email: alifeinruinspodcast@gmail.com
- Instagram: @alifeinruinspodcast
- Facebook: @alifeinruinspodcast
- Twitter: @alifeinruinspod
- Website: www.alifeinruins.com
Affiliates
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Announcement
00:00:00
Speaker
We're excited to announce that our very own podcasting platform, Zencaster, has become a new sponsor to the show. Check out the podcast discount link in our show notes and stay tuned for why we love using Zen for the podcast.
Indigenous Voices on SAA Event
00:00:25
Speaker
Hey guys, it's David here. Connor and I are not in this episode. We wanted to give this space to our indigenous friends and colleagues who wanted to discuss an event that happened at the 86th SAAs in April. So we'll catch you guys next time, but please listen to this episode because it's really important and great.
00:00:43
Speaker
Welcome to this special edition of the Life and Ruins Podcast, where we investigate the careers of those living life ruins. I'm your host, Carlton Gover, and today I am joined by my co-host, Emily Van Alst, Ash Boyston-Schmidt, and Kaye Matena. Today, we will be discussing the recent SAA 86th Annual Meeting controversy that took place on April 15th during their online conference.
00:01:03
Speaker
So, for my co-host today, as you guys, if you've been followers or listeners of Life and Roots podcast for a while now, you'll recognize that Emily has been on episodes three and 39. Ash was on episode 42 and debuting for the first time on the podcast is Kay.
Co-host Introductions and Focus Areas
00:01:18
Speaker
So, just for a brief recap for our listeners, Emily, can you please go ahead and reintroduce yourself?
00:01:23
Speaker
Yes. Thank you for having me, Carlton, and I'm really excited about our conversation tonight. Hi, everyone. My name is Emily. I am Lakota and Ojibwe descendant, and I am a PhD candidate at Indiana University and the American Indian Studies Research Institute graduate fellow.
00:01:40
Speaker
That's a lot to say. And my research is mainly focused on understanding Native women's relationship to rock art. And I'm doing this through Indigenous archaeology and community-based practices. And then more broadly, I'm really interested in Native art and activism, as well as ethics and archaeology. And I, yeah, I'm really excited about our conversation tonight. Excellent. Thank you, Emily. Ash, can you please go ahead and reintroduce yourself to the listeners?
00:02:08
Speaker
Hi, everyone. My name is Ash Boyston-Schmidt. I am currently a grad student at the University of New Mexico, and I am currently majoring in museum studies, but with a hard focus in NAGPRA and how that affects not only museums, but tribal communities as well. I am a Crow descendant from the Crow tribe of Montana, and I am also really excited about this conversation and getting to chat with you guys. Excellent. We're glad to have you back on. And Kay, please, for the first time, introduce yourself to the A Life in Ruins audience.
00:02:35
Speaker
All right, thank you. Hello, I'm Kekekindesot Matina. I am a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. I am also a master's student at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, currently studying archaeology, but definitely focusing on braiding archaeology with
00:02:57
Speaker
anthropology, traditional ecological and cultural knowledges, and art, specifically focusing around indigenous tattooing practices in the Great Lakes region, my traditional homeland, to both sort of showcase the erasure of indigenous tattooing within museum curation practices, but also with a hopeful inspiration for reawakening these tattooing traditions within my own people and culture.
00:03:21
Speaker
Excellent.
Controversial Presentation at SAA
00:03:22
Speaker
So, as you guys can all probably tell, listeners of Life Remembrance Podcast, it is an all indigenous cast this evening because the controversy that we are going to be talking about in relation to the SAA, the Society for American Archaeology, had some rather interesting talk was presented during their, gosh, I forget the title of the section itself. The title of their talk
00:03:48
Speaker
titled, has creationism crept back into archaeology? They're abstract, which you can find online, which I'm not going to repeat here, because that would take most of a segment. It was placed in a session titled curation, repatriation and accessibility, vital
00:04:05
Speaker
ethical conversations. I, Emily, and Kay all watched it together live for this 86th annual meeting. Emily, how did the story get broken, Emily, that this talk was being presented?
00:04:21
Speaker
Oh, yes. So I happened to be looking through the SAA, big giant thing they put out of all of the talks that are happening during those three or four days. And I was just scrolling through and I typed in, you know, keywords as one does. So I typed in NAGPRA and I was brought to this session and I was like, okay, seems interesting. First one, second one seems interesting. Third one, oh, what is this? So I read the abstract and it's full and realized that it was,
00:04:50
Speaker
deeply problematic stuff. So I was like, you know what? When I get really angry and upset, I normally blast stuff on Twitter. So I screenshotted the abstract and I put it on Twitter and my phone was going off. And then I looked down and I had
00:05:10
Speaker
55 notifications from Twitter, which is not a bit like, that's huge. So I checked and the whole thing had blown up in about 20 minutes and it kept going. At this point, over 900 people have liked the tweet, over 300 people have retweeted it, and it had an engagement of over 300,000 people.
00:05:31
Speaker
I tweeted it thinking maybe a few people would see it. SAAs ended up having to respond and say, we are aware of a problematic presentation that will be taking place, but remember to be civil and here are a few links to things. But people also started contacting the Omsbuds people that were at SAAs this year, which was a new sort of, I guess, structure in place for when issues like this arise. And then the actual presentation happened and the chat was spicy, we'll call it.
00:06:01
Speaker
Yeah, spicy is one way to describe the chat box. So for those who did not go to the SAA online conference, basically all these talks were recorded a month in advance. Sessions were put together back in the late fall slash early winter. So people within sessions knew who was presenting and we'll get to that later. So these were recorded a month ago.
00:06:27
Speaker
What the essays did for this conference is basically
Reaction to SAA Presentation
00:06:29
Speaker
try to do it the same style as their usual in-person conference where they had a list of talks that went back to back, which allowed, since the authors didn't have to present themselves live, there's a chat box.
00:06:39
Speaker
that they could type and text, answer questions. So yeah, as I checked, Emily, you're still, that tweet of yours is still like the number one trending tweet on SAA hashtag SAA 2021. And I had no clue this talk was going on. You're the one that brought it to my attention. Well, you brought it to my partner's attention who brought it to my attention and
00:07:01
Speaker
That's how I became aware of it. So we knew this talk was going on. You know, the main warning bells here is that the authors of this presentation, quote unquote, released a controversial book back in September, August.
00:07:17
Speaker
of 2020 that had people calling for the University of Florida Press to discontinue the book. Not great. So the same authors from this controversial talk, very much anti-NAGPRA, very much anti-Indigenous ontologies and belief systems.
00:07:34
Speaker
Not great. It's 2021. 31 years. It'll be 31 years this November since NAGPRA 1990 was passed. We'll get to that as well. Ash, you haven't, you've read the abstract. You know what all the hubbub is about, but you haven't seen the presentation for yourself.
00:07:50
Speaker
I saw about the first five minutes and had a very emotional reaction and had to remove myself from that environment. But yes, I've read the abstract. I have read sections of this book that has come out. And yes, I had much of the same reaction you guys did. Excellent. Kay, what were your reactions to watching the talk? Yeah. Thank you for asking. My initial reaction was more so
00:08:12
Speaker
rage, which I think since we all watched it together, we all exhibited our own sense of rage, especially considering I feel like I've been taught that this side of archeology has been dead. I was told by my theoretical academic elders of sorts, air quotes, that this line of thinking and theology towards
00:08:37
Speaker
objective science was not actually dead and they were well aware that it wasn't. And being able to see this and not be taught that like this is actually something that we are still fighting and still hasn't gone away. And yeah, just the whole like also the way that it's turned into complete pseudoscience and not actually scientific and like clearly within her talk, you can tell she hasn't cited any sort of indigenous like literature since Vine Deloria's work in the 1960s.
00:09:07
Speaker
So just proves like how she wants to be objective, the objective truth and scientific method, but isn't actually doing any research to investigate the actual facts in the contemporary either. So that was kind of like my initial rage.
Critique of SAA and NAGPRA Discussion
00:09:24
Speaker
Yeah, I concur. And Emily, what about you?
00:09:27
Speaker
I think by besides rage, which I mean, we all were ragey, but I think by my sort of frustration with it is the fact that she's calling for creationism, you know, creeping into anthropology and archaeology and she.
00:09:43
Speaker
quotes and cites the American Physical Anthropologists Association and SAA's about, you know, being anti-Christian creationism. And she constantly calls Native spiritual leaders religious leaders. And so I think my issue comes from the fact that yes, there are Native people who are religious and are Christian and, you know, these other religions, the big three or whatever, because Native people are diverse in their worldviews.
00:10:13
Speaker
But what the problem is is that native people's worldviews and ontologies and the way they see themselves in the world is not religious. It's just the way that we are in the world. And I think that she doesn't understand that distinction at all because there is a separation. And I've had aunties and uncles tell me this of like, yeah, going to church is religion, but doing ceremony is being Lakota or being Ojibwe.
00:10:41
Speaker
That's just who we are in the world and how we conduct ourselves. And so Weiss doesn't understand that at all. And I don't expect her to ever understand that because she's totally coming at this from like First Amendment separation of church and state thing.
00:10:59
Speaker
But that's not the issue. That's not what Native people are dealing with. So I think that that was my main issue with her argument, because a lot of other things of telling Native people that they can't be scientists. Well, guess what? We've always had science. We've always observed the world. We've always collected data. We do that. We do science. You guys just don't call it that. You think it's something different. But we've always had science.
00:11:26
Speaker
Yeah, that's a great point. We are talking about the Weiss and Springer presentation for those that are listening. We're not going to be linking any of this content because we don't want to provide them clout. If you want to, you can look it on your own. We're not going to provide it for you. You have Google. A couple of key points that Emily raised. First, when I watched it, my first thought was like, this is a just bad scholarship.
00:11:47
Speaker
fundamentally just I was more upset at someone trying to grasp at straws to make an argument than the content itself because one, you know, and I've discussed this before, I'm not.
00:12:02
Speaker
like against anti-NAGPRA viewpoints, because there are faults with NAGPRA and it has been repaired and made better over the past three decades. Like people critical of NAGPRA make NAGPRA better. So it's not being upset that this is specifically, oh, it's anti-NAGPRA where Indigenous were mad. It's the content and what she was saying. So as Emily mentioned,
00:12:25
Speaker
She claims that NAGPRA is a violation of the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment, you know, freedom of speech or, you know, protection. Like, you can't have religion in government. SAA is not a government organization. Like, fundamentally, at the bare bones minimum, the First Amendment does not apply to the SAA. It's not a government institution, this, that, you know, without even getting into the religious stuff. And as Emily talked about, indigenous religion, spirituality, whatever you may call it,
00:12:50
Speaker
is a worldview, not necessarily a belief. It's who we are as a people that's fundamental to our sense of identity. She brings up issues such as, well, you know, NAGPRA meetings are open and closed with the prayers. Like the law doesn't mandate that. That's just become the practice, best practice to do it. And not all nations do that. It's not standard. It's an interesting argument in the fact that
00:13:17
Speaker
It's not grounded in evidence. It's really just bad scholarship and really borders pseudoscience. And you can tell a lot of that talk itself and the book is rooted in pseudoscientific practices. I personally believe a lot of that has to do with the fact that Weiss's partner
00:13:38
Speaker
is a ufologist who does publish on ancient aliens and kind of you see these same strategies come out and also the presentation itself was the worst presentation i've ever seen like remove the content that presentation there was no powerpoint it was just her reading off of paper nothing it was no images
00:13:58
Speaker
It was just straight up reading. It was hard to follow. And it was a long 15 minutes. And as those 15 minutes were dragging, the chat box on the side was just blowing up with people like, oh my God, how was this allowed? And that's kind of the topic of tonight's discussion is like,
00:14:18
Speaker
How did this happen? I guess like who, I want to say who's to blame, but how did this slip through the essay review process and kind of how is the essay responded to that? So I'll just kind of volleyball that up into the air if any one of you wants to take that first. Okay. When you were speaking about how
00:14:40
Speaker
you've had people within your academic experience state that these mindsets like, oh, well, they should be gone, but they are still present very obviously. It really resonated with me because I've also experienced something like that recently with other people within academia because I'm specifically working towards a career specifically within NAGR consultation at some point.
00:15:03
Speaker
And I've had people tell me, well, your position won't be needed. We're pretty much done with this. NAGPRA is done. There's no need to go further. And I think attitudes like that are what allow things like this to slip through the cracks because so many people become complacent. And so many people think, oh, well, we did the work in the 90s. We've done the work now. There's so many
00:15:24
Speaker
inventory notices published. There's been so many repatriations. There's been so many different situations with NAGPRA that, oh, we must have taken care of all of it now. And so that complacency is what allows these different ideals to fester and grow and become what they are and then get a stage like the SAAs. And I really believe that if we don't speak up and shut these down and we don't bring education to people who don't think this is a problem, then it's just going to keep continuing.
00:15:53
Speaker
Yeah, thank you for bringing that up, Ash. And I think that there's this idea that NAGPRA passed and people did everything they were supposed to do, and it's gone. But then there's also this pervasive issue of people in general who talk about being allies within these institutions.
00:16:16
Speaker
and wanting to burn the institution to the ground or kind of bring it like decolonizing the institution. There's so many people that write about what does decolonization look, but then you look to their own institutions and they have hundreds of ancestors in their basements that they themselves have not dealt with. So it's this idea that like, oh, you're publishing research, but what are you doing on the ground?
00:16:40
Speaker
literally, no pun intended. And as far as like the allowance, going back to your specific question of the allowance of this to happen.
00:16:50
Speaker
I'm not, I'm kind of going back and forth of like, am I actually mad that this happened? Because now we know that it's not just her who gave this presentation. There's a whole group of people who are publishing and circling and having this click of this like sort of pseudo scientific 1960s prior to 1960s archaeology of grave robbing.
00:17:11
Speaker
And that's what they highlight. And now we know that that exists, which is not something I knew before. And I know some people did, but we're never told about it. And so I think that even though this was terrible, but the fact, and I think we've talked about it before, it really contextualized that session that it was in about diversity and inclusion and then repatriation as being like, so these are the good things and these are the bad things. And of course we'll get to the good things later, but
00:17:40
Speaker
Yeah, so that's kind of my thoughts about like the allowance. Like I don't necessarily think it was a bad thing because now we're having this conversation and we know that this sort of cult within archaeology exists. So then it's a talk of, so is the essay still something we need considering it allowed something like this to happen?
00:17:59
Speaker
And why was it allowed? Maybe it was to contextualize those things, but also maybe it was just a push of these sort of problematic ideas.
00:18:11
Speaker
OK, so the one thing I did want to add, and I totally love what both of you have said so far, is that I do think that we are getting to a point where everyone thinks NAGPRA is good. Like, we're good. We did the thing. We've been doing it for 30 years. What more is there to do? And I just
00:18:32
Speaker
I keep saying this, NAGPRA is the bare minimum. Think about how unethical archeology and anthropology was, that they had to pass a literal law to make archeologists more ethical.
00:18:48
Speaker
and more aware of Native people and our voices and our identity and our ancestors and our cultural heritage. And so I think a lot of people pat themselves on the back and there's just so much more that needs to be done. I mean, the inventories are great, but I know institutions who are needing to redo their inventories.
00:19:10
Speaker
that there's more things hidden. I've talked to people about the fact that, yeah, the museum seems to be the go to or the anthropology department. That's where things will be. Things are in art museums, things are in libraries, things are in archives. Native people are starting to use NAGPRA for other parts of our cultural heritage, like
00:19:28
Speaker
seeds and songs and stories. There's so much more than just what the funerary objects, human remains, and items of cultural patrimony. There's so much more heritage that has been stolen from us that are hiding in these other nooks and crannies of institutions. And so I would implore people who work in Nagpara and work in these places that
00:19:51
Speaker
NAGPRA is great. Do the consultation work, but do more and talk to those community members and see what they need and what they want. But remember, NAGPRA is the bare minimum.
00:20:03
Speaker
Excellent point, Emily. And we'll be right back with segment two of the special edition of the life and ruins podcast. Please stand by and enjoy these excellent advertisements by our sponsors. Chris Webster here for the archeology podcast network. We strive for high quality interviews and content so you can find information on any topic in archeology from around the world. One way we do that is by recording interviews with our hosts and guests located in many parts of the world all at once.
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Speaker
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00:21:33
Speaker
And welcome back to this special episode of a life ruins podcast. I am here with Emily Ash and Kay. We're discussing the essay 86 conference presentation that caused quite a stir. So I want to go ahead and just start this off by acknowledging a couple of things. One.
00:21:50
Speaker
And you guys feel free to combat me if you disagree, and that's why we're here. I want to just definitely acknowledge that over the past 30 years, SAA has lobbied in support of NAGPRA in the courts, spent a lot of money protecting NAGPRA. They were on the indigenous side of the ancient one controversy back in the late 90s.
00:22:11
Speaker
many people know it as Kennewick man. They've protected archaeological legislation, especially during this last administration. They funded a lot of money to protect archaeology, protect indigenous rights, help defend bear's ears. So I want to acknowledge that and really say like, yes,
00:22:27
Speaker
They've done this. I don't personally believe if the majority of the SAA membership was anti-Indigenous or anti-NAGPRA, that Joe Watkins would have been elected as president. Whatever that means in terms of how the society functions, in my experience as a young fraternity gentleman, I know that presidents on executive councils really don't have much power there to really just control
00:22:53
Speaker
conversation, make sure things move along. They don't have a vote in things. I'm not sure how the essay necessarily functions on its executive board. Norwood, if you look back in the 90s, Joe Watkins and Dr. Bob Kelly from the University of Wyoming developed the Committee of Native American Relations
00:23:11
Speaker
and the Native American student scholarships. Like they did that post NAGPRA. So, and through those scholarships, they've helped fund students who are indigenous in the SAA for like the past two decades. Emily is a recipient of one of those scholarships. And I won it this year, which has created quite the internal dilemma for me personally, with all this going on. And then a couple of days later, getting the official notice like, Hey, you won $11,000. Great job.
00:23:37
Speaker
So, just wanted to acknowledge that. So, when I look at this controversy personally, I look at it from the perspective of controlled demolition of things that don't work, you know, removing the mold, gutting the bad framework, only because, well maybe not only because, because there are other archaeological organizations, which many of us can be a part of, like I'm part of multiple, I know Emily's part of multiple.
Impact of SAA Controversies
00:24:02
Speaker
those other organizations do not have the same financial means to defend archeology as a whole that the SAA can. And that's my hesitancy to say, you know what, bring out the guillotines, pull them out of their homes, you know, let's French revolution this, let's just gut the SAA. That's my personal perspective, how I'm looking at it. So I'm like interested to think what you guys think, specifically because in the context of this most recent controversy last summer,
00:24:30
Speaker
was the Cal NACRA debacle in which Uncle Joe didn't quite review what he was passing along, didn't go to the Committee on Native American Relations and gave his thumbs up to a really destructive
00:24:46
Speaker
comment statement about Cal NAGPRA. Basically, California was updating its NAGPRA. University of California was updating its NAGPRA codes because they weren't following it. California is very interesting. It might be very liberal. They don't like Indians, much like Canada. Then before that was the Me Too movement in Albuquerque. That whole allowing people who have individuals within the membership who were committed
00:25:12
Speaker
either by the universities or by the law for sexual assault into the conference where their survivors were attending. That was a whole different debacle. And you can see that we've covered it on the CRM podcast here on the APN. Me, David Connor, responded with Chris Webster. If you guys want to go back to that, that's the essay 2019 Me Too episode for context. So it's basically been like three years of the essays making these goofs.
00:25:41
Speaker
that it's not like Goofy and Max, like this was a mess up. It's like, these are really bad. The things that slipped through the cracks had serious consequences for the infrastructure. Since SAA Albuquerque, membership has drastically declined in SAA as a response. SAA is struggling
00:26:03
Speaker
with membership. And I think they're having their own personal dilemma over quality over quantity, which I think is what led to this, that they were struggling to have people present. So they just took everything. But I'm very curious to know what you guys think. So please, Emily, go right ahead.
00:26:17
Speaker
Yeah. So I was just going to add that I think when these, we'll call them goofs happen within the SAA is they immediately affect the younger early career archeologists. They affect women. They affect people of color. They especially affect indigenous people. But these are also the groups in SAA that are pushing for the change.
00:26:43
Speaker
So, every time there's a goof, there's a major pushback by early career archaeologists, by queer archaeologists as well. Like, those are the people that are the most affected by these goofs, but it's those communities and those committees that are pushing for change within the SAA.
00:27:00
Speaker
And I think about changing institutions a lot, you know, whether it be SAAs or, you know, universities or museums or whatever it might be. It's hard and everyone makes their own decision, but sometimes you have to change the institution from within and sometimes you have, which I would call advocacy. And sometimes you have to change the institution from the outside.
00:27:22
Speaker
That is activism. And those are two very different things and they work in different ways. And I don't have a very clear answer as to what I want. I'm not sure if I want to change it from the inside or burn it to the ground. Haven't made that decision yet. But I would like
00:27:37
Speaker
to see the SAAs actually respond to allowing this type of person to have a platform. And the initial response, which was, oh, we want to make sure there's a diversity of views. It's like, OK, you can have a diversity of views. And I agree with Carlton. In the last segment, he talked about, no, NAGPRA isn't perfect.
00:28:00
Speaker
We need to have a critical conversation about what NAGPRA needs to look like in the next 30 years. But a diverse point of view is not the same as allowing a racist point of view. Those are two very different things. And Weiss's point of view was a racist point of view. It wasn't pushing to have a critical conversation about NAGPRA. It was inherently anti-Indigenous. And so giving that type of voice a platform really hurts SAAs
00:28:27
Speaker
indigenous archaeologists, especially there's a whole new generation of us. Like, you know, we all read and look up to Joe Watkins, and he's inspired us to be in the SAAs to to do indigenous archaeology. But I think the issue is, there's a lot of Indians in archaeology now. And we all have a voice. And we're all here. And we're and we're going to push back on when people like Weiss are given a platform. SA has to be more inclusive of us. It just has to be.
00:28:58
Speaker
What you said, Emily, really resonated. Joe Atkins was at my alma mater, University of Oklahoma, for a long time. And so I felt like the stung a little personal, to be honest, with a lot of this, because at OU, he really was Uncle Joe. And I think what a lot of
00:29:15
Speaker
What SAA doesn't realize is that young indigenous archaeologists and young people in Native American studies who are having overlap with anthropology and archaeology, we are being warned away from SAAs. I've been warned away by many mentors and been told, you may want to consider not joining this organization, you may want to consider other options, because there's nothing for you there.
00:29:37
Speaker
I think that's something that really needs to be talked about because there's a reason for that. That's not just coming out of nowhere. That is coming from years of situations like that. That is coming from years of complacency. Let's say someone makes a really horrible joke and we all just politely smile and don't say anything. Eventually, that horrible joke down the line years later
00:30:00
Speaker
becomes a situation like this, because we've been so complacent and it's just kept going. And we've just swept it under the rug to keep the peace. And sometimes you just can't keep the peace. You have to say something. You have to stand up. Yeah, thank you for Ash for bringing that up. That's definitely something I've been grappling with, which is this idea of like,
00:30:19
Speaker
We have all these folks talking and writing about what we should be doing and theorizing about what we should be doing. But when it comes to doing it in a practical way, it doesn't happen. They've made this space 100% for people like us to exist in proliferate in. However, we aren't thriving.
00:30:42
Speaker
this event has been so incredibly traumatizing for all of us and especially like calling to people like Joe and Sonya Adtolay and our folks who have been writing about this for the longest time. Like it's just the fact that SAA and other institutions have not only been complacent against these things but they have
00:31:06
Speaker
actually bullied indigenous and people of color and people with just anything alternative, air quotes around alternative knowledge practices have been literally bullied out of the SAAs.
00:31:19
Speaker
And that's where my identity kind of comes into play. I definitely grew up in the A movement. My mom was taking me to protests long before I could walk. So this is all for radical burning it down and activism. And as part of that, that also calls to, well, let's engage their sponsors. Let's engage these federal and state sponsors. Let's engage these funders.
00:31:45
Speaker
and show them just how unethical this is and how nothing has changed. They masquerade and write all these things that say they've changed, but in reality, what this talk shows to me is it hasn't.
00:32:00
Speaker
Granted, they also had a lot of really good talks that were there. So this kind of like, I go back and forth, right? My radical activist in me is like, let's burn it to the ground. And then there's also this aspect of like, well, they have been having really good conversations and having good folks talk and share really amazing insights, including Emily and Carlton. So it's just like, I don't know. I don't know. I want to say we can rebuild something else elsewhere.
00:32:29
Speaker
and deconstruct these institutions. But I also think that as Carlton brought up in the beginning, there is like real fundamental things we have to grapple with with existing within a colonial capitalist society that I don't think we really know how to grapple with yet. I would love to add to that, actually. Thank you for that. And I think as we look forward,
00:32:57
Speaker
We really need to be concerned with people like Wyse teaching because she is teaching this to our little baby Anthros who are going through Anthro 101, who are going through basic bio anthropology, physical anthropology. They're going through the basics and this is their foundation.
00:33:18
Speaker
And that is incredibly concerning because I know all of us had good foundations because of where we are today. And we had good mentors and people to look up to. But if this is the type of mindset and teaching that is being put out there, it's just going to keep perpetuating in this cycle, like you were saying.
00:33:38
Speaker
And I think it's incredibly dangerous. And I think it's something that we need to be very, very aware of. And we need to be holding people accountable with situations like this. Because when you teach the next generation that this is okay, and that this is how we should be progressing, that that is just going to set us back pre-1990 NYPRA.
00:34:02
Speaker
100%. And, you know, to K and Emily's point, I mean, as indigenous people, our existence is our resistance, you know, even just the day to day. And so from my personal perspective, I'm staying in the essays because I see a lot of my colleagues leaving and I totally support that.
00:34:21
Speaker
I'm in a very interesting kind of nexus where like it was my nation back in 1989 that sued Kansas to create the Kansas Unmarked Burial Sites Preservation Act, then to go ahead and start suing Nebraska for desecrating our remains to create the Unmarked Human Burial Sites and Skeletal Remains Protection Act in Nebraska, which led the foundations for the Native American Graves Protection Repatriations Act.
00:34:48
Speaker
And I have family members that help do that. And that, you know, which I've realized in my career that not only my Indigenous, but like had being Pawnee,
00:34:59
Speaker
and being really connected to my community and the fact that Matt Reed, who listens to this podcast, what's up Matt? I talk to my Tippo all the time. I talk to my NAC group coordinator all the time. Our tribal president is Walter Echo Hawk now, and I talk to him. I talk to Roger Echo Hawk, his brother, who wrote the American Antiquity article in 2000, calling for people to look at indigenous world traditions and take them seriously.
00:35:22
Speaker
and who worked with Larry Zimmerman. And then I have Bob Kelly as my advisor that just, I have Forrest Gumpt my way in a profession that I'm well suited to know the background of a lot of these things and have the support where I know a lot of my indigenous colleagues, like they don't have the ability just to text their tribal president or their tipo for advice or help. And I want to stay in the essays as a reminder, like, hey,
00:35:48
Speaker
we've really caused problems for your profession in the past. And that's not negating all the other amazing indigenous scholars who worked with NACPR and these other things. But the Pawnees have always been, for the past three, four decades, really up archeology's ass and telling them to be ethical.
00:36:09
Speaker
And I've just kind of become this extension of this, this, this thorn. And it's kind of like, as Emily's people called us, like the night walkers, we're like in the background of archeology all the time, just like in the shadows, like waiting for them to, for to steal their horses and stuff, you know, but
00:36:25
Speaker
It's just, when it comes to the SCA, totally disappointed. That talk physically hurt me when I saw it. And just thinking, because as Emily knows, three days after that talk, I had to drive to Nebraska for a repatriation event that I assisted with, or I had the privilege of being present.
00:36:44
Speaker
for that. And it was, and we hadn't seen these people, you know, since then, you know, how long NAGPRA takes for it to be enacted. And it was just this really emotional moment for me to just like at my professional organization to see that talk presented.
00:37:01
Speaker
And then a couple of days later to be in our homeland, which we have no land, you know, we were moved to Oklahoma to be, you know, at a mass grave where we could, like, so our ancestors could return to the stars because of Napra.
00:37:16
Speaker
and it was this really weird, and I've never been to a repatriation event before, and it really put into context this whole thing, because prior to that, I was really considering leaving the SAA, but kind of that whole week that was extremely emotional for me, reminded me of why I am as active as I am, and that is to create change into the controlled demolition. And so I respect all my colleagues that want nothing to do with the SAA. Totally get it, totally support it. I just won't, because I,
00:37:46
Speaker
I wanna see change and I'm gonna do my best to make it. And if I can't, I can't. I don't think, I don't know if I'll be able to create that change, but I'm gonna at least try before I maybe leave. But my fear is like, I really respect Joe Watkins and I know the stuff he had to do. And we've talked about this, like Joe had to do what he had to do. He had to keep his head down because he was the pioneer that allowed us the space to be here today, the four of us and others.
00:38:14
Speaker
to be able to be like, let's burn this mother effort to the ground. Joe couldn't do that, but he made the space for us. First and foremost, I just want to thank you, Carlton, for all your work that you're doing. I know you don't need the thanks because it's an honor, but it is like, I think the most important thing for me and something that I'm grappling with a lot is how we are required
00:38:41
Speaker
to speak up all the damn time, all the time, as Indigenous people. And there's definitely more of us than there was 20 years ago, but there's still not a lot of us. I know for me and Emily and other folks here and listening, there might be folks who are the only Indigenous person in their department. And that's a lot of pressure. And this event
00:39:06
Speaker
highlighted for me just how evident historical trauma is and how painful it is to reckon with when we listen to something like this. I know work like Joseph Gaughan out here in Massachusetts has done work to show that historical trauma is in our DNA. We inherit it. It's literally we feel from the time before we feel in our blood. So when I think of this talk, when I think of the work that you're doing, Carlton,
00:39:36
Speaker
I hurt for those ancestors that have been touched by people like her, by people who have wanted to study indigenous people in this gross, separated way. And it's this balance between speaking up all the damn time and speaking our truths, but also protecting ourselves for the fact that this hurts.
00:40:02
Speaker
Like this past week, I've been preparing for my master's comps, preparing for finals, and you've been doing repatriation work, and we've had to just pretend like our trauma didn't exist. I've been crying literally every night since this event, because I can't get rid of my ache. And I think that's also something that people need to recognize, that often isn't given credence or recognition, that historical trauma is a real trauma that needs healing.
00:40:33
Speaker
But we also cannot hold everyone's hand all the damn time like you are offering to do, Carlton, because it's exhausting. And I mean, the way that the Pā'ani and other indigenous nations have been speaking up when others cannot is empowering and powerful. But it's also like, why is it we, the colonized, the ones who were invaded,
00:41:02
Speaker
who have to speak up and learn and teach these people. That's like, that's my constant battle is like, why is it our job to hold their hand to teach them the ethical thing to do, which is not be gross with indigenous people's remains with people of color with quote unquote minority communities and commodifying them and objectifying them. Like why is it that we have to be the ones holding their hand?
00:41:28
Speaker
Absolutely. And I think if Ash or Emmy have nothing to follow up on, I think that's a very articulate and beautiful point to end this segment on. So we'll go ahead and wrap up segment two. We'll be right back with this special edition of Life and Rinse podcast.
00:41:45
Speaker
You may have heard my pitch from membership. It's a great idea and really helps out. However, you can also support us by picking up a fun t-shirt, sticker, or something from a large selection of items from our tea public store. Head over to arcpodnet.com slash shop for a link. That's arcpodnet.com slash shop to pick up some fun swag and support the show.
00:42:05
Speaker
All right, so welcome back to this special edition of Life and Ruins podcast. I'm still here with Emily, Kay, and Ash. So these past two segments, you've heard a couple of things. One is kind of like, why were a little upset with the essays? What has the essays done in the past? And kind of our thoughts and feelings on, can essay improve or not? And what we as indigenous people should do, can do, and are expected to do.
00:42:27
Speaker
Now, this is just setting the scene for kind of this this last part really is how can essays become better or what we or what not even just essay is but non indigenous scholars working in anthropology, archaeology and museum fields can do to be
00:42:43
Speaker
better allies and accommodate Indigenous people within the field. Because fundamentally, as we've talked several times on this podcast, collaboration with Indigenous communities just makes research better. Fundamentally, your interpretations, your results are always better because the Indigenous
00:42:59
Speaker
viewpoints, the indigenous beliefs, the indigenous histories are a piece of the puzzle that is often forgotten about. Right. So with that being said, you know, a couple of things that I off the top of my head, as some of you might be seeing being presented soon, things that I think the essays can do personally, from my end, that they could do to rebuild trust with indigenous communities. And one is why don't they create an executive board position for indigenous archaeologists, which is only voted on by indigenous essay membership?
00:43:29
Speaker
The second thing is to waive membership and registration fees for indigenous members of the society to acknowledge that generations of colonial practices have left many tribal archeologists to oppose NACR officers and nations economically disadvantaged to attend meetings. Third, of course, invite local indigenous communities to the annual essay conference at no cost. Like when we were in Albuquerque, none of those local communities knew that was happening.
00:43:52
Speaker
and specifically in Albuquerque where there's so much Southwest archaeology to be presented, that's an amazing opportunity to invite the local community, especially since a lot of our research is public funded and we're gatekeeping it, we're putting in the ivory tower, using these huge conferences is an amazing opportunity to engage the public.
00:44:09
Speaker
Last but not least, I personally believe I think the essays should make the Weiss and Springer presentation available, not to take it out because I think shortly all the presentations will be viewable and they're discussing whether or not to release the Weiss and Springer one. I say do it. With the caveat, there's a link
00:44:26
Speaker
to a comment section only for SA members where people can anonymously, if they want to, comment on the talk and have those comments once the talk is no longer available, have those comments available to the SA membership as well as present those to Weiss and Springer.
00:44:45
Speaker
So those are my thoughts. What about you guys? And this doesn't have to be in regards to the essay. I'm just saying how essay could be better in the future, but also open the floor to how can non-Indigenous scholars be better allies? I feel like
00:45:00
Speaker
There's not enough work being done for communities. And I really hope that in the future, more archaeologists and anthropologists, when they are doing work within communities, it is for the community. It is not just for your dissertation. It's not just for whatever book you're wanting to publish or whatever work you wanted to do forward. How is your work affecting the community?
00:45:21
Speaker
What are you doing for the community? What does the community need for you? If this is going to be a symbiotic relationship, it needs to be symbiotic. You can't just go in to a community and say, oh, I want to study this. And then just expect people to answer your questions and to be super welcoming. If you're not there for the community at the end of the day, we need to be asking ourselves, what is our research doing for our communities?
00:45:46
Speaker
even if you're not necessarily a part of that community, but you are indigenous, you need to be asking that questions as well.
Community-Based Archaeology and Allyship
00:45:51
Speaker
And I see too many people, not so often indigenous archeologists, because they pretty much are always there for their communities, but I have been seeing a lot of
00:46:02
Speaker
non-indigenous archaeologists saying, oh, I'm really interested in this. I want to study this. But then they don't ask what they can be doing for the community with that research. And I feel like that needs to be the base of your question. I think a lot of the time what happens is that researchers go in with questions for the community without actually having created those initial questions with the community.
00:46:22
Speaker
Like there's a very big difference between that. And I will say it is hard as a PhD student or an MA student to try to do a fully community-based project, 100% very difficult to do. You have a lot of constraints with your institution of what they expect you to do for a dissertation.
00:46:42
Speaker
And I could go into community-based work for a whole other podcast episode. And if you really want to, TAG is going to have a session with Carlton and I code sharing, and we're going to be talking about this stuff, and an edited volume in 2022, so look out for that. But to go back to SAAs and sort of the fallout post twice, it's been what, two weeks now at this point? I think my main takeaway from this is that
00:47:11
Speaker
Native people's voices need to be elevated in this moment. And I think it's very easy for non-Indigenous folks to be upset for us. We appreciate that. We love a good ally. That's really important. But sometimes I feel like non-Indigenous archaeologists and NAGPRA practitioners and those sorts of things,
00:47:35
Speaker
will talk over us without asking what we want in the situation, or even giving us the space to just, like Kay said in our last session, to just take a moment to breathe. We're all students who are dealing with a really racist thing that happened, and that is really hard to process and deal with.
00:47:56
Speaker
She, Weiss, went after what all of us are trying to do to make this discipline better for everybody. And so my big takeaway is that we need to center and elevate Indigenous voices in this moment, especially young Indigenous people who are full of great ideas. And I think this podcast and this episode is really great because
00:48:17
Speaker
what are we doing? We're centering Indigenous voices and you're hearing from us what we feel and what we think would be best moving forward. But too often, especially on social media, I see non-Indigenous people talking for us. And I don't want to go back to that. We need Indigenous people to just talk for Indigenous people. Yeah, I wholeheartedly agree with Emily and Ash's point. I think that there is this
00:48:46
Speaker
persistent issue that is just as much of a problem as the SAA's compliance in regards to allowing this talk to happen, but this pervasive issue of, frankly, white savorism in this discipline as well as others, and this idea that
00:49:08
Speaker
They can speak because they've read some of these things, but as we know that like oftentimes they cite these indigenous authors and don't actually read the entirety of the text, which is a big issue. If you are citing an indigenous author, read it front to back. I need to know what page number you're citing from. I need to know that you've read the entirety in context.
00:49:33
Speaker
And that's a big thing for me, especially as a student of Sonia Atelier. A lot of people cite community-based archaeology. But I can tell in an instant whether or not they've read the entirety of the book or just the introduction and conclusion, which tends to be what happens.
00:49:53
Speaker
And this is not appropriate. If you are going to advocate and elevate these voices, as Emily said, you need to be citing the entirety of our work and also not tokenizing those of us who are currently in the institution to educate you because we have written on it.
00:50:13
Speaker
All of us, people of color, people who are historically marginalized within these institutions, have written on these very peripheral, marginalized structures. Read them and cite them. It is not our job to tell you what to do.
00:50:31
Speaker
But when we do respond and when we do want to educate and lift up our own voices or when we feel like we have no other choice to speak up, respond to us. Acknowledge your faults and acknowledge and grow from it.
00:50:50
Speaker
I've seen a lot of folks who have been doing things to capitalize on Indigenous trauma and memeing our Indigenous trauma, as I've seen and we've discussed with Emily, and that's not appropriate. Read our works, cite us, and respond to our trauma.
00:51:08
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, going along with that, something that just I found absolutely vile in the wake of this whole thing was that there were professors and professionals who immediately tried to rally our trauma and anger to the benefit of their professional career.
00:51:31
Speaker
And it's been noted and not just by indigenous people. I've been in texts with individuals who are aware of the situation and they're calling it out fundamentally. Like, yeah, a lot of these people that are doing this trying to hold the flag are assistant professors looking to get full professorship. That's an issue. And that they're trying to speak on behalf of us
00:51:54
Speaker
And then they don't cite us, us being indigenous scholars. There's plenty of indigenous literature on NAGPRA, on repatriations, on indigenous archeology. Then these people try to platform, talk to these news outlets stating how they're so upset or they'll do the academic things, but they cite non-indigenous people.
00:52:16
Speaker
And this, you know, even prior to the Weiss thing, this has been an ongoing issue. And as we've tried to, the sad part is, is as we've kind of responded back, like, hey, this is not good scholarship. You need to incite Indigenous people. Like, it's our voice you need to promote, because this is our history that fundamentally
00:52:35
Speaker
you know, anthropology needs to be reminded that US archaeology by non-Indigenous people is not for our benefit, it's for primarily their benefit, their personal benefit, their personal interests, that we're just kind of, we're a topic of study. And I've been really upset to see that when we do, you know, we're not like, in instances that I'm talking about, we talk to these people who don't cite us and remove our voice
00:53:06
Speaker
they get upset and then they shut down or they go into their own private discords or text messages and try to rally support behind them. But I think we're starting to see, as Kay, Emily and Asheval mentioned, like,
00:53:19
Speaker
You know, there's a lot more of us today than there were back then. And fundamentally, we all talk, which I don't think many people understand is our indigenous network. It's just like the network back before colonization. It's vast, it's interconnected, and it exists. And when someone steps that line, even though many of us might be students, we're taking names. We know who not to work with.
00:53:43
Speaker
specifically. And so a lot of these people who might not even recognize what they're doing is getting around. But the fact of the matter is when something like this, as you've heard today on this podcast,
00:54:00
Speaker
This effect, that talk emotionally affected us because it attacked who we are as indigenous people and our belief systems. So when we start seeing people who call themselves allies capitalize on that for their own benefit or try to force us to do talks, to do webinars without our permission within a week, like for some instances, it was like two, three days later,
00:54:26
Speaker
That's not acceptable. You're not an ally. You're just as bad. It's not black and white for us. We have ratios of our enemies, our top priority targets. It's like the old deck of cards the military uses to find bounties. We have our aces. We have our kings and queens. But we still have the twos through tens that are maybe lower tier.
00:54:53
Speaker
but they're still not allies. You know, as give us space to like reconvene because some of us, as Kay mentioned, we're the only indigenous student in our department. Even our advisors might not understand our trauma that we have to deal with this ourselves. And since we're all college students, many of us can't go back to our home communities to do what we need to do as indigenous people to get right with ourselves. And what I mean by that is like to get right spiritually.
00:55:24
Speaker
Because the historical trauma that is in our DNA, when these events happen, it starts flaring.
00:55:33
Speaker
And we can't concentrate on many other things. And we have our own practices that we need to get these things out of our system. And for me in Colorado, I can't just drive 12 hours through to Pawnee to call someone up like, hey, I need a sweat. That's not how that works. Fundamentally, we don't have a 1-800 hotline for like, hey, I need a sweat or I need a Sundance. That's not how even those practices work, right?
00:56:00
Speaker
which I think more people need to acknowledge. If they're sitting here trying to say to support us, oh, this is traumatizing to Indigenous people, well, this secondary blast, you know, the fallout of this is even as destructive, if not more so.
00:56:15
Speaker
Weiss and Springer, we get it. They have the history of this. We were expected of this. We're upset with the SAAs that this happened. But my main hurt that's coming now is seeing these authors, these professionals try to capitalize on the pain and rage that I felt for their benefit, not mine. And those are our true enemies.
00:56:36
Speaker
Yeah, those enemies are sneaky because they're in the discipline and they look like they're doing good work and we want to trust them, right? So I was just going to add, if you're really feeling compelled to write about us,
00:56:49
Speaker
co-author something with us. It's really easy to reach out and say, hey, would you be interested in co-authoring something with me? I really think it's important to have an indigenous person on here. I'm co-authoring something with my advisor. We're talking about ethics. She's like, I'm a settler. I can't be writing about indigenous ethics without an indigenous person. It seems really simple and it's a very easy thing to do. Just co-author with someone, cite native people.
00:57:15
Speaker
But I think Carlton brought up a really good point. Some like, Native people remember. We remember shit. Like, we are going to remember who were our real allies in this moment and who were not. And we, like Carlton said, we talk.
00:57:32
Speaker
We all talk. We all have our own native discords and native text messages and everything. And so when we see the next generation who are coming up and into these fields, we're going to tell them who to work with and who not to work with. And that's not in any way a threat. But just know that native people are a community. We create community wherever we are and wherever we go. Like, for example, I have never met Ash and Kay in real life.
00:58:00
Speaker
but they are my native sisters in archaeology. We only talk on Zoom or on Instagram, but they're my native sisters, and we talk about this stuff. So just know we are a community, and we want allies. We want you guys to help us, but you have to listen to us in order to help us in the right way.
00:58:19
Speaker
Yeah, I definitely second Carlton and Emily. And I think that the important thing is, and something I've been checked on personally, just acknowledging my own checks and my own faults and microaggressions and racism, is I wanted to be an ally for the freedmen. I want to be ally for other people of color and the Black community. And I was pointed to the fact that if you call yourself an ally, you are not an ally. An ally is something that is described to you by that community.
00:58:49
Speaker
So show us, show us your allyship. This isn't something performative and it shouldn't be. And you being an ally is working with community, tying it all back around to community-based work. Obviously, that cannot be done in every situation. We are talking about the United States, specifically other places in the globe doing community-based work is far more problematic.
00:59:15
Speaker
But doing community-based work here is necessary, no matter what group you are working with, whether you're working with a group and you're digging in their backyard, or you're working with a group that's been historically removed from their traditional homeland.
00:59:33
Speaker
You need to get those perspectives in order to produce a holistic archaeology and be a true ally and find those relationships, build those relationships with community. Because doing community-based archaeology, doing community-based work is all about relationships and building fundamental connections, friendships, partnerships with indigenous communities. Not just writing about it on your own. That's not going to get you anywhere.
01:00:02
Speaker
And you're not actually fundamentally investigating the people who are affected directly by NAGPRA allegations. So the thing that we have to consider as archaeologists and anthropologists and people in any discipline, especially associated around NAGPRA, is we are innately doing a political act. And this has ramifications for people outside our discipline.
01:00:28
Speaker
And we need to consider that and call those people up and build relationships with them in order to understand how this affects them. Because like even as Indigenous archaeologists, we can come here and talk to you today and be that intersection. But for folks who are doing community engaged work, we as Indigenous archaeologists can't always be that intersection for you. You need to be doing community based work.
01:00:56
Speaker
in order to build those relationships and do an ethical archaeology and be a true ally. I would love to build on that as well and say that there are going to be situations where you mess up, whether you're indigenous or non-indigenous, because indigenous people will call you out no matter who you are, and they will let you know you are not behaving how you should be behaving. You are not living this relationship the right way, and they will let you know. And that is your moment to decide
01:01:23
Speaker
Am I going to be an actual ally? Am I going to take a step back and listen and re-examine how I am behaving, how I am acting, what I am saying? Or am I going to double down? And am I going to say, no, I'm right? And so that is the situation where you have the opportunity to grow and you have the opportunity to take a step back and listen to Indigenous people and listen to what is being said. And if you do listen, then yes, you have the opportunity to be a real ally and to go forward in a good way.
01:01:53
Speaker
but then if you just double down, you're showing us who you are. And when someone shows you their colors, you, you believe them. And just to illustrate, you know, a couple points, like, you know, being an ally, it's not co-authoring necessarily the co-authoring articles. Like Dr. Jen Shannon here at CU Boulder heard about the talk and called me to make sure I was okay. And when I started cracking up, she said, I'm staying on the phone with you and I want you to talk it out. And I sat and talked with her for an hour as she went through a lot of this stuff with me.
01:02:21
Speaker
And then she sent me the book reviews for the Weissen Springer talk, like Carlton There Is Hope. Dr. Samantha Fladd, who I'm TAing for, gave me the week off, said, you need to deal with this and you have the NACRA repatriation. That's what your focus should be. My advisors, Doug Bamforth, Dr. Casey Carlson, Dr. Eric Robinson, all reached out to me and talked with me and asked how they could help me. And even if it was just talking,
01:02:48
Speaker
I know, and even Dr. Bob Kelly, my former advisor reached out to me and we chatted. He just wanted to explain how the SA operates. That's allyship. None of those people offered to co-author anything, a response. They just wanted to talk and make sure I was okay. That's allyship.
01:03:10
Speaker
you know, and I wish more of my indigenous colleagues had that same support system. Like I've said, I acknowledge my privilege and like I've forced myself into a really good support network just unknowingly. And for a lot of people to realize all four of us here today, the majority of indigenous archaeologists, we're not in service of ourselves. We're in service of our nations and by and large to all indigenous people, we don't have the option like many of you do to just do a different project that you could just stop and look at something else.
01:03:41
Speaker
We just don't have that because in our communities, in our beliefs, we're part of a collective.
01:03:51
Speaker
and we're at the service of our people. And that's how we operate. We don't have it easy just because we're indigenous. We can go research what we want. There's been many times I've been told, you can't talk about that. This is not what we're used to. You don't have access to this information. I do what my nation wants me to do. And after I get my PhD, I have a list of projects from the community that have asked me to look up. Because that's what I'm here for. I'm not for my own fame. And I know that's true for Ash, Emily, and Kay.
01:04:21
Speaker
We're here, one, to stop the ongoing cultural genocide of our peoples, and then two, to protect and serve our people, whatever they need, because that's how we're using our knowledge, not for ourselves, but for the Pawnee Nation, for the Lakota, Crow, Ojibwe, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Potawatomi. We're here for people, for everyone else.
01:04:49
Speaker
We're kind of these knowledge keepers. And I want to give ourselves that title, but we have a specific set of skills that we want our nations to be able to have at their disposal, just as it used to be before colonization, even during colonization. That's just how all of our nations operated. You didn't do anything by yourself. You did it for your people. And that included anything from growing crops, hunting bison to even warfare. Pawnees and Lakotas didn't kill each other for themselves. They did it to protect
01:05:18
Speaker
their nations, you know? We're always thinking about the greater good. And that's what's so upsetting about Weiss or the people taking advantage of us, because they're doing it for themselves.
01:05:33
Speaker
You know, and I want to mention this, and Doug told me this, and I want to acknowledge that. You know, he reminded me that conducting any science, including archaeological science, is a privilege. It's not a right. And that goes for everybody, indigenous included. We're privileged to be able to work on behalf of our people. So for all those listening, remember that. Think about that.
01:06:00
Speaker
Any final thoughts, guys, before we end this episode? I just want to say, Yaku-kei, thank you for providing this space for us today because it has meant so much. Yeah, I just want to echo that. Thank you for creating this space. I feel like this has been also really therapeutic for us in a way.
01:06:22
Speaker
And it's, you know, especially with the ongoing pandemic, it's nice to have this supportive space, even if it's, you know, internet, digital. But yeah, thank you to Carlton and thank you to, you know, David and Connor for letting us have this space. I really appreciate that they were able to give up their roles for this episode. I think that was really great of them. So, and thank you, Carlton, for bringing us all together.
01:06:49
Speaker
Yeah, again, echoing my gwetch, thank you all for sharing this space with me. And thank you to a Life in Ruins podcast for allowing us to comedy this this podcast, this episode. I'm really excited to this is my first podcast ever. So just being a part of it is really exciting. I'm excited for like this podcast in general as being like a public archaeology exploration. And yeah, I'm just I'm really happy to be with this space and share share my rage.
01:07:19
Speaker
because we often don't get to do that a lot in academic institutions. So being able to just share and vibe in my anger, but also have like a very generative conversation with you all.
01:07:33
Speaker
Absolutely. No, thank the three of you guys so much, Emily, Ash, for coming back to the podcast, Kay, for coming on for the first time. It's meant a lot that we were able to organize this relatively quickly, especially with our Biddezy schedules at the end of the semester. And yeah, I know a really huge thanks and gratitude to Connor and David when I asked them if I could do this. Both of them immediately said yes, and they didn't want to participate because they wanted to give this our space.
01:08:04
Speaker
and they fully support what we're doing here. So everyone listening, thank you for that. And please, if you email, my email's in the description, contact me if you have any questions. I hope this gave you guys a lot to think about how you guys can do better archeology, better science, be allies, so we can make a better future in archeology, fundamentally. So, coochie edit to everybody. This has been the Life in Ruins podcast. See you next time.
01:08:39
Speaker
Thanks for listening to a life in ruins podcast. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook at a life in ruins podcast. And you can also email us at a life in ruins podcast at gmail.com. And remember, make sure to bring your archeologists in from the cold and feed them beer.
01:09:06
Speaker
This episode was produced by Chris Webster from his RV Traveling America, Tristan Boyle in Scotland, and the Archaeology Podcast Network, and was edited by Chris Webster and 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.
01:09:30
Speaker
Thanks again for listening to this episode and for supporting the Archaeology Podcast Network. If you want these shows to keep going, consider becoming a member for just $7.99 US dollars a month. That's cheaper than a venti quad eggnog latte. Go to archpodnet.com slash members for more info.