Boarding And Residential Schools: Healing, Survivance And Indigenous Persistence

Part of: Society for Historical Archaeology 2023

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Boarding And Residential Schools: Healing, Survivance And Indigenous Persistence," at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Current archaeological research about boarding and residential schools in North America is contributing to better understandings of the complicated and dynamic experiences within Indigenous educational contexts. Collaborative research underpinned by intergenerational storytelling, least impact methodologies and overarching respect highlights Indigenous social agency and experiences in boarding and residential school contexts. This session aims to foreground various questions including: How do we continue to challenge colonial narratives that speak to Indigenous absence more than presence? What does intergenerational knowledge tell us about reckonings of trauma, Indigenous futurities and survivance? Are there certain types of Indigenous methodologies or traditions of resistance that can be utilized in contemporary times to address issues of large scale pandemics, climate change and issues of social justice? As archaeologists it is necessary to challenge dominant narratives and help mobilize knowledge and practice in ways that are responsive to Indigenous and descendant communities we are working with.

Other Keywords
boarding school • Geophysics • Infrastructure • Unmarked Graves • Canada • Memory • Indigenous • Collaborative • Navajo • Resistance

Geographic Keywords
Alberta (State / Territory) • Nunavut (State / Territory) • Massachusetts (State / Territory) • New York (State / Territory) • Yukon Territory (State / Territory) • New Hampshire (State / Territory) • Idaho (State / Territory) • Maine (State / Territory) • British Columbia (State / Territory) • Wisconsin (State / Territory)

Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-8 of 8)

  • Documents (8)
Documents
  • Community Accountable Archaeology at Old Leupp (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Timothy D Wilcox. Jun Sunseri. Davina Two Bears. Koji Lau-Ozawa.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "Boarding And Residential Schools: Healing, Survivance And Indigenous Persistence", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Our team of Navajo and Nikkei scholars is negotiating community-accountable research design, following the interests of descendant communities near the carceral site of Old Leupp on the Navajo reservation. This former United States federal Indian boarding school and war relocation site echoes in...

  • Emergence Geographies during the Boarding School on the Rosebud Reservation, South Dakota. (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Lindsay M. Montgomery.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "Boarding And Residential Schools: Healing, Survivance And Indigenous Persistence", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Over the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth century, the US federal government sought to fundamentally reconfigure the cultural geography of Sicangu (Brulé) people through the creation of the Rosebud reservation and the imposition of Western education. In this talk, I use archival...

  • Finding the Children: Searching for Unmarked Graves at Indian Residential School Sites in Canada (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Kisha Supernant.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "Boarding And Residential Schools: Healing, Survivance And Indigenous Persistence", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. In May 2021, the Tk’emlúps te Secwe̓pemc First Nation in British Columbia, Canada, announced that 215 potential unmarked graves were located near the Kamloops Indian Residential School using ground-penetrating radar conducted by archaeologists. While this was not the first announcement of...

  • Overlapping and Underexplored Histories: The Convergence of Settler Colonial and Carceral Infrastructures (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Koji Lau-Ozawa.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "Boarding And Residential Schools: Healing, Survivance And Indigenous Persistence", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. While a growing body of work has focused on the convergence of Native American histories with Japanese American incarceration, there are still many facets of these relationships that remain underexplored. This paper focuses on the Gila River Incarceration Camp, located on the land of the Gila...

  • Reflecting on the Past and the Shaping of the Present at the Theodore Roosevelt School (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Michael C. Spears. Nicholas C. Laluk. Benrita Burnette. Maren P. Hopkins.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "Boarding And Residential Schools: Healing, Survivance And Indigenous Persistence", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. The Theodore Roosevelt Boarding School on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation was an active part of a federal policy aimed at divorcing Indigenous youth from their culture and identity. The school removed children from their families, physically disciplined them for use of the Ndee language, and...

  • Searching For Unmarked Burials At Residential Schools in Canada: Leave No Child Behind (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Paulette Steeves.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "Boarding And Residential Schools: Healing, Survivance And Indigenous Persistence", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Discussions on Residential Schools in Canada have been focused on a system that began in the late 1800,s. However, those discussions ignore the first 240 years of Residential School history. The first Residential School in Canada opened in 1620 in Quebec City. Minimally this history includes 886...

  • Survivance at the Old Leupp Boarding School Site on the Navajo Reservation, Arizona, USA (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Davina R Two Bears.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "Boarding And Residential Schools: Healing, Survivance And Indigenous Persistence", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. As a Diné (Navajo) archaeologist I aim to decolonize the field of archaeology by researching my tribe’s history for the benefit of the Navajo people and others. The Old Leupp Boarding School was a federal Indian boarding school in operation on the southwest Navajo Reservation in northern Arizona,...

  • The Theodore Roosevelt Boarding School: Ndee (Apache) Cultural Persistence and Survivance (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Nicholas C Laluk. Michael C Spears. Benrita Burnette. Maren P Hopkins.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "Boarding And Residential Schools: Healing, Survivance And Indigenous Persistence", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Indigenous boarding school experiences in North America are dynamic and diverse, ranging from traumatic and isolating to adventurous and amplifying. Recent partnerships and collaborations between Indigenous communities and researchers are providing new insights into the complex histories of...