Dear all,



We are organizing a session on indigenous perspectives on historical archaeology of colonialism in the SHA 2017 conference.  We still have room for a few more presentations, so if you are interested, please send us an email. Below are the session abstract and the current list of participants.



Best wishes,

Tiina Äikäs ([log in to unmask])

Anna-Kaisa Salmi ([log in to unmask])





Indigenous perspectives on historical archaeology of colonialism

Colonial encounters between indigenous peoples and European state powers are overarching themes in the historical archaeology of the modern era, and postcolonial historical archaeology has repeatedly emphasized the complex two-way nature of colonial encounters. In this session, we focus on comparative indigenism – a theoretical approach which includes both emic and etic interpretations and compares indigenous cultures around the world. We hope to find common trajectories in indigenous colonial histories. We also wish to explore new ways to understand cultural contact, hybridization and power relations between indigenous peoples and colonial powers from the indigenous point of view. We hope to bring together researchers working on indigenous archaeology from all over the world to discuss new ways to

  *   “provincialize” historical archaeology – to emphasize local histories and interpretations over Eurocentric ones

  *   find new multivocal interpretations of colonial histories

  *   understand the role of material culture in transformation of indigenous cultures in colonial contact.


List of participants:

Tiina Äikäs, University of Oulu

Anna-Kaisa Salmi, University of Oulu

Danny Zborover, Brown University

Madeline Fowler, Flinders University

Lisa Overholtzer, McGill University

Ellen Hsieh, UCLA