Towards a New Ethnohistory - by Keith Thor Carlson & John Sutton Lutz & David M Schaepe & McHalsie (Paperback)

About the Book

Community-engaged scholarship invites members of the Indigenous community themselves to identify the research questions, host the researchers while they conduct the research, and participate meaningfully in the analysis of the researchers' findings.

Book Synopsis

Towards a New Ethnohistory engages respectfully in cross-cultural dialogue and interdisciplinary methods to co-create with Indigenous people a new, decolonized ethnohistory. This new ethnohistory reflects Indigenous ways of knowing and is a direct response to critiques of scholars who have for too long foisted their own research agendas onto Indigenous communities. Community-engaged scholarship invites members of the Indigenous community themselves to identify the research questions, host the researchers while they conduct the research, and participate meaningfully in the analysis of the researchers' findings.

The historical research topics chosen by the Stó lō community leaders and knowledge keepers for the contributors to this collection range from the intimate and personal, to the broad and collective. But what principally distinguishes the analyses is the way settler colonialism is positioned as something that unfolds in sometimes unexpected ways within Stó lō history, as opposed to the other way around.

This collection presents the best work to come out of the world's only graduate-level humanities-based ethnohistory field school. The blending of methodologies and approaches from the humanities and social sciences is a model of twenty-first century interdisciplinarity.

Review Quotes

"Navigating the roiling waters of contemporary identity politics, Indigenous issues, and scholarly debates are challenges in and of themselves, but, in this collection of essays, the contributors attempt to manage all three at once and calm the waters in the process."--Kerry Abel "University of Toronto Quarterly"

"Blending archival research with critical theory, oral history, and personal observation, the individual pieces explore the interplay of continuity and change in Stó lō culture with a high degree of nuance and sophistication."--Andrew H. Fisher "Pacific Northwest Quarterly"

"Exemplifies a new, transdisciplinary approach to ethnohistory, in which the researcher recognizes not only the legacy of settler colonialism in Canada, but also the subjectivity and relativity of their own views and western knowledge as a whole. This new ethnohistory aims to work with the community at all levels of research and form and sustain relationships that last long after fieldwork is conducted. Its hope is to produce scholarship that is cutting edge, complex, accessible and relevant to members of the community."--Daniel Sims "NICHE"

"In a time when many scholars are looking to decolonize their approaches to research--especially when working with Indigenous communities--this book stands as a clear exemplar of community-engaged research and demonstrates how it can be done well."--Jennifer Megan Markides "Qualitative Research in Education"

"Settler scholars concerned with disciplinary crises need look no further than this excellent anthology for models of respectful intercommunity engagement, radical methodology and pedagogy, and a paradigm for solidarity work that chooses to develop respectful relationships over moribund agonizing."--Madeleine Reddon "Canadian Literature"

"The strength of the collection is its appreciation for and attention to interpreting history with reference to Stó lō interpretative frames."--Tyler McCreary "BC Booklook"

About the Author

KEITH THOR CARLSON is Professor of History at the University of Saskatchewan where he holds the Research Chair in Indigenous and Community-Engaged History.

JOHN SUTTON LUTZ is the Chair and a Professor in the Department of History at the University of Victoria with a research focus on the relations between Indigenous people and Europeans in the Pacific Northwest.

DAVID M. SCHAEPE is the Director and Senior Archaeologist of the Stó lō Research and Resource Management Centre at Stó lō Nation.

NAXAXALHTS'I, also know as Albert "Sonny" McHalsie, is a historical researcher and cultural interpreter who is employed as Sxweyxweyá m (Historian)/Cultural Advisor for the Stó lō Research and Resource Management Centre in Chilliwack, British Columbia.