Owning History: Indigenous Histories and Records Access; Conference Proceedings, 26 April 2024

Abstract

(From the Introduction:) As anyone who has set out to do research with Indigenous records knows, this research, already difficult just by the nature of the topic itself, can be even more challenging when researchers must negotiate labyrinths of confusing access requirements across a range of different organizations and archives. For academic Indigenous historical researchers and Indigenous families and communities alike, locating and accessing critical Indigenous records can be extraordinarily difficult and frustrating. Over the course of our work with the Manitoba Indigenous Tuberculosis History Project (MITHP), we’ve faced challenges and delays in accessing Indigenous records held in colonial archives, and in disseminating the information we have found when we have been able to gain access. As other researchers can attest, these challenges and delays can be exhausting, and have drawn on resources that could have been otherwise used toward actual research and knowledge creation. In addition, the ways in which access is managed deeply impacts the questions researchers can ask and the histories we can tell. During the Owning History conference, we discussed the challenges of undertaking Indigenous archival research and explored how these experiences might inspire concrete changes in records access that could lead us toward a more respectful and honourable future.... We hope that the presentations shared, and the dialogues they inspire, will support research and researchers, stimulate new ways of engaging in and approaching this kind of research, inform strategies, and deepen our understanding of the many ways records access impacted and continues to impact Indigenous individuals, families, and communities and the pursuit of justice."The Owning History: Indigenous Histories and Records Access conference and the conference proceedings were made possible in part with the generous support of the support of the University of Winnipeg, the University of Winnipeg Department of History, the Riley Fellowship in Canadian History, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and the Social Science and Humanities Research Council.