CASCA / AES Conference in Toronto

I will be at the Canadian Anthropology Association (CASCA) and American Ethnological Society (AES) meetings in Toronto next week. I am presenting a paper in a symposium called ‘Anthropology’s Colonial Impasse: Engaging Indigenous Peoples, the Discipline, & the State Apparatus.’ My paper abstract is below.

The conference is at the University of Toronto — my undergraduate school — and I am looking forward to visiting there again. If you are around, please say hello.

Chief Louie’s Speech at Spatsizi Plateau Wilderness Park: Iskut Challenges to Revisionist History

Abstract

In July 2004, amid great celebrations, Iskut people in northern British Columbia ‘returned home’ to a former camp in the village’s hinterland. There, the elected chief welcomed Iskut families and non-native guests with a speech in which he reflected on Iskut alienation from traditional lands and the historical inaccuracies written in non-native history books.

This paper describes that event. I show ethnographically how Iskut people use the past to debate today the political and economic changes wrought by outsider interventions. And, I remark on the challenges of documenting the local discourses of the colonial past in a place where interactions with resource companies are generating renewed arguments about development and tradition.

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