Heritage Voices · The Archaeology Podcast Network

Decolonial Approaches to Writing and Teaching Indigenous History and Geography - Ep 97

·43 min·2 clips

Lakota families kept moving seasonally, used teepees, and chose allotment blocks to preserve kin groups.

1. Heritage Voices episode 97 focuses on decolonial approaches to writing and teaching Indigenous history and geography. 2. Jessica Uquinto hosts Dr. Lindsay Montgomery, Dr. Kalani Hines, and Dusty Bridges, who connect anthropology, American Indian Studies, and archaeological geography. 3. The episode asks what “Indigenous futurities” means for classrooms, archives, museum collections, and community-led scholarship. 4. Dr. Montgomery describes a Theoretical Archaeology Group session in Santa Fe held at Hotel Santa Fe, a tribally owned hotel and conference center. 5. She says the session was co-organized with Dr. Nathan Acebo and framed around Indigenous futurities, place-making, storytelling, and mapping. 6. The session used a salon format with short papers followed by discussion at tables rather than a passive conference audience. 7. Jessica says people from different New Mexico tribes talked with scholars and even discussed forming a tribal historic preservation office. 8. Dr. Hines says her talk focused on the classroom as a space to enable Native futurities. 9. She describes starting class in casual clothes, then asking students on day one, “How many of you thought I was your professor?” 10. Dusty Bridges says her work uses archaeology and geography to reassess harmful colonial narratives in an orphaned legacy collection of Onondowaka Seneca materials. 11. Dr. Montgomery explains that she studies how an archaeology session can bring together people from academia and community organizations, including tribal historic preservation offices. 12. She names the session’s invited discussants, including Dr. Bailey Marquez, Dr. Nicholas Lalit, Dr. Wade Campbell, Dr. Robert Purcell, Dr. Joseph Suina, Dr. Desiree Martinez, and Dr. Mishawana Goman. 13. Dr. Hines and Dr. Montgomery discuss current pressure on DEI funding and curriculum review at institutions such as the CSU and the University of Arizona. 14. Dusty Bridges says Indigenous history had often been used as “a tool of erasure,” and argues for history written from Indigenous, community, decolonial, and anti-colonial perspectives. 15. Dr. Hines says students often react to her American Indian and U.S. history course by realizing that these histories are not only in the past. 16. Jessica connects that reaction to urgency, saying students want to know what they can do now. 17. Dr. Montgomery defines futurities as actions in the present that reflect on the past, and points to Laura Harjo’s 2019 book Spiral to the Stars. 18. The tone is conversational and collaborative, with several moments where the guests answer each other directly and shift between theory and concrete examples. 19. Listeners interested in Indigenous studies, archaeology, geography, and classroom pedagogy will get the most from this episode. 20. Listeners wanting a tightly focused single-author interview or a short answer segment may skip it.

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