Dr. Tricia Logan, head of research and engagement the Centre, is speaking at a UBC iSchool colloquia in early February. The talk will look at memory institutions, and the role of libraries, archives and museums in creating space for (de)colonization.
Increasingly, memory institutions are reconsidering modes of memory transfer and (de)colonization. In traditionally Western-academic institutions like museums, archives and libraries, creating space for (de)colonization is often considered a counter-current or an action in activism. As decolonized voices push back against memory institutions originally designed to colonize them, we hear languages, stories, knowledge and pedagogies of colonized peoples, who were left out of traditionally dominant, historical narratives.
This talk will consider if this is activism or if this a method of maintaining continuity in Indigenous peoples’ existing pedagogies and modes of knowledge or memory transmission. Are these actions one in the same or, as the work of (de)colonization carries on in memory institutions do members of Indigenous communities feel safe and respected to maintain their own memory-continuity? Considering how we position ideas like “survival is protest” how can we reflect on how continuity as seen as activism? Moreover, if Indigenous peoples have to continue to fight to create the spaces or persist against colonial narratives, will their memory work always include a role for activism? Indigenous communities have responsibilities and inherent rights to transmit memory using their own methods and through building their own memory institutions. This talk will consider varied perspectives on memory institutions and power relations and how memory activism can be seen as continuity, disturbance, resistance, persistence and/or activism.
When: Thursday, February 6 from 12 to 1 p.m.
Where: Dodson Room (Level 3), Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, 1961 East Mall
This event is part of UBC iSchool’s colloquia series, and is free and open to the public.
About the speaker
Tricia Logan is the head of Research and Engagement at the Residential School History and Dialogue Centre. Tricia is a Métis scholar with more than 18 years of experience working with Indigenous communities in Canada. She joined the Centre in January 2019, and has held roles at the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, the Aboriginal Healing Foundation and the Legacy of Hope Foundation. She has a Master of Arts in Native Studies from the University of Manitoba, and completed her PhD in History at Royal Holloway, University of London. Her PhD is entitled Indian Residential Schools, Settler Colonialism and Their Narratives in Canadian History. Originally from Kakabeka Falls, Ontario, Tricia has worked with survivors of residential schools, completed research on the Métis experience in residential schools, and worked with Métis communities on a Michif language revitalization project.