3510 announcements

ALSO NOTE: Class on Nov 28 (poster party) will be in a different room, in Curtis: CLH 110

31 October update - see here for full info on Assmt 2, and here for list of remaining readings.

10 October update - On Friday 14 October, there will be a very interesting lecture by visiting scholar Dr. Lynette Russell, on the subject of this course. Please see below.

3 October update - QUIZ on 17 October. See lecture notes for details. Readings and a short participation assignment for 17 October are also in those lecture notes.

18 Sept update - ROOM CHANGE! The class is no longer in Ross: It is now in Bethune College 215, on 19 Sept and each week onwards.

12 Sept update - oops! on the course outline it says 3510 6.0 -- that should be 3510 3.0. That is, this is a three unit course which ends in December.

This paper drawn from a forthcoming book in which Dr Ian McNiven and I explore the colonial legacy of Indigenous archaeology as it is practiced in settler societies (e.g. Australia, New Zealand Canada and the United States of America). Using post-colonial theory and a broad range of case studies, we filter our analysis through what we have identified as four intricately related colonial tenets — subjectation, disassociation, appropriation and secularization. Each of these act as canonical knowledge and subsequently frame and constrain Indigenous archaeology creating inevitable tensions between archaeologists and Indigenous peoples. In this paper I will outline our argument that the colonial tenets that underscore these tensions need to be identified, historicized, critically explored and resolved if Indigenous archaeology is to have a viable future. It is concluded that if archaeology is to survive in settler colonial contexts, it must abandon the practice of using the archaeological heritage of Indigenous peoples to develop universal laws of humanity. Alternatively, we see the development of localized research partnerships between researchers and Indigenous communities where both groups co-own the process and co-develop research agendas. Such community-based research will help produce an acceptable past that does not colonize Indigenous cultural traditions.

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Professor Lynette Russell holds the Chair in Australian Indigenous Studies at Monash University and is Director of the Centre of Australian Indigenous Studies. She has published widely in the areas of post-colonial-theory, Aboriginal History and representations of race. Her book Savage Imaginings (Australian Scholarly Publications) examines historical and contemporary constructions of Aboriginality. She is the author of A Little Bird Told Me (Allen and Unwin) which is personal account of Aboriginality. She has edited Colonial Frontiers: Indigenous-European Interactions in Settler Colonies (Manchester University Press, 2001) and co-edited Constructions of Colonialism: Perspectives on Eliza Fraser's Shipwreck (Leicester University Press, 1998). She recently completed a book with Dr Ian McNiven entitled Appropriated Pasts (AltaMira press, 2005) and an edited volume entitled Boundary Writing (University of Hawaii Press). Her current research involves an exploration of Indigenous agency and subjectivity in the early colonial period.