Re-imagining the colonial encounter through Gitxaała eyes

Summary

Archaeology on the north coast of British Columbia has focussed on three zones of attention: Namu, Haida Gwaii, and Prince Rupert Harbour. These loci have created a kind of orthodoxy that, while reasonable in certain aspects, has unduly shaped contemporary political interactions between First Nations and the state. This paper draws from an Indigenous intellectual framework (that has appropriated the tools and techniques of anthropological archaeology) to challenge and redefine the orthodox view of the Tsimshianic north coast. By focussing on the intersection of archaeological record, settler-capitalist ships’ logs, and Indigenous historical narratives this paper argues that the current archaeological understanding of the north coast of BC is serious flawed and mired within a contemporary political economic struggle whereby the state has preferentially allied with some regional First Nations to the detriment of others.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• Tsimshian Archaeology: 50 Years of Research and 10,000 years of History

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 17001