2024 Hall Annual Lecture

Braiding Knowledges to Overcome Colonial Pasts: A glimpse into Archaeology’s future

The University of Queensland's School of Social Science invites you to attend our 2024 Hall Annual Lecture. All are welcome to attend.

Join us for an enlightening event that explores how Indigenous archaeology is reshaping the field by integrating Indigenous knowledge and practices. This approach supports Tribal sovereignty and counters colonial narratives, creating opportunities for Indigenous Peoples to engage in archaeological research that honours their ancestors, homelands, and future generations. The presentation will highlight how blending Indigenous knowledge with archaeological methods is forging a new path forward, revealing new insights about the past while reclaiming Indigenous connections. This event is crucial for understanding the social, political, and cultural impacts of colonialism in archaeology and training future archaeologists to avoid the trappings of colonial-based research.

About the lecture 

Building upon recent work by Indigenous archaeologists to reframe and reclaim archaeological knowledge about the past, the future of archaeology is dependent upon the lessons learned and practices utilized within Indigenous archaeology. This is particularly salient when used within the context of research that supports Tribal sovereignty as an approach to counter colonial research that has mythologized Indigenous pasts, cultures, and connections. Using Indigenous archaeology as an anti-colonial approach to archaeological research has created spaces and opportunities for Indigenous Peoples to engage archaeologists in learning as “human beings”- recognizing their sacred responsibilities and learning with, by, and for their ancestors, their homelands, and their future generations. This approach, borrowed from Applied Indigenous Studies, focuses on the political sovereignty of Native Nations to ensure the survivance of their People, practices, and homelands. Using the example of this concept- the use of Indigenous knowledge about the past braided with archaeological methods, this presentation will discuss how this approach has created a new pathway forward for the field of archaeology, one that not only divests itself from its colonial underpinnings, but also invests in Indigenous knowledge and research methods to reveal new information about the deep past, while simultaneously reclaiming Indigenous connections to the deep past. Understanding the social, political, and cultural impacts of the colonial underpinnings of archaeological research on Indigenous Peoples and other historically excluded groups is critical for much needed change for archaeology, in addition to training future generations of archaeologists to avoid the trappings of colonial-based research.

About the presenter 

Dr Ora Marek-Martinez is a citizen of the Diné (Navajo) Nation and is Mountain Cove clan, she is also Nez Perce from Northern Idaho. As the Associate Vice-President in the Office of Native American Initiatives, Ora’s work includes supporting and ensuring the success of Northern Arizona University Native and Indigenous students through Indigenized programming and services. She is also responsible for providing support and insights for the Tribal Consultation Program and assists the ONAI Vice-President in this work. Dr Marek-Martinez currently serves as the Seven Generations Indigenous Knowledge Center (7Gen Center) Director and serves as the Faculty Co-Chair of the Commission for Indigenous Peoples.

Dr Marek-Martinez started her career as an archaeologist for the Navajo Nation Archaeology Department in 1999 and continued her work throughout her educational journey. She started at the Navajo Nation Heritage and Historic Preservation Department in 2008 as a Supervisory archaeologist in the Roads Planning Department, while she conducted her dissertation research on articulating a Diné (Navajo) archaeology with, by, and for the Navajo People. Before she left the Navajo Nation, Dr Marek-Martinez served as the Navajo Nation’s Tribal Historic Preservation Officer. Starting in 2016, she returned to Northern Arizona University as an Assistant Professor in the Anthropology Department, her research interests include Indigenous archaeology and Indigenous Heritage management, including research and approaches that utilize ancestral or cultural knowledge in the creation of archaeological knowledge. Dr Marek-Martinez’s other research interests include southwestern archaeology, Indigenous futurisms, and decolonizing and Indigenizing archaeological narratives of the cultural landscape on Indigenous homelands as a way to reaffirm Indigenous connections to land and place. Her current research focuses on an NSF awarded STC entitled “Center for Braiding Indigenous Knowledge in Science”. NAU will be the CBIKS’ Southwest Hub researching with Indigenous Communities, NAU Faculty and Students in the areas of climate change, protection of heritage places, and food sovereignty. This work personifies her goal to contribute to the efforts in our discipline to move archaeology beyond its colonial origin. Dr Marek-Martinez is also a founding member of the Indigenous Archaeology Coalition and was recently a consultant and featured in episode one on Streaming Curiosity’s documentary series “The Real Wild West”.

Event details 

Date: Tuesday 29 October 2024

Time: 5:45pm for 6–7pm. The lecture will be followed by a post event reception from 7–8pm.  

Venue: GHD Auditorium, Level 3, Advanced Engineering Building (49), UQ St Lucia (view map)

Enquiries

engagement@hass.uq.edu.au

The Hall Annual Lecture is given in honour of the founder of archaeology at The University of Queensland, Associate Professor Jay Hall, and is sponsored by Everick Heritage.  

Event image: Photograph from the Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.