Publications
Becoming Our Future: Global Indigenous Curatorial Practice
Edited by: Julie Nagam, Carly Lane, Megan Tamati-Quennell
This book investigates international Indigenous methodologies in curatorial practice from the geographic spaces of Canada, Aotearoa (New Zealand) and Australia. From a perspective of Indigenous peoples important place within society, this collection explores how Indigenous art and culture operate within and from a structural framework that is unique and is positioned outside of the non-Indigenous cultural milieu. Through a selection of contributions, Becoming Our Future articulates this perspective, defines Indigenous curatorial practice and celebrates Indigenous sovereignty within the three countries. It begins to explore the connections and historical moments that draw Indigenous curatorial practices together and the differences that set them apart. This knowledge is grounded in continuous international exchanges and draws on the breadth of work within the field.
With contributions from Nigel Borell, Freja Carmichael, Karl Chitham, Nici Cumpston, Léuli Eshra ̄ghi, Reuben Friend, Jarita Greyeyes, Ioana Gordon-Smith, Dr. Heather Igloliorte, Jaimie Isaac, Carly Lane, Cathy Mattes, Kimberley Moulton, Lisa Myers, Dr. Julie Nagam, Dr. Jolene Rickard, Megan Tamati-Quennell, Josh Tengan and Daina Warren.
“Transmissions: The Future Possibilities of Indigenous Digital and New Media Art”
Authors: Heather Igloliorte, Julie Nagam, Carla Taunton
In PUBLIC 54 Art, Culture + Ideas: INDIGENOUS ART: NEW MEDIA AND THE DIGITAL. Edited by Heather Igloliorte, Julie Nagam, Carla Taunton. Winter 2016.
“Because We Love our Communities: Indigenous Women Talk about their Experiences as Community Based Health Researchers”
Dr. Kim Anderson and Dr. Jaime Cidro
Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement, 24(2), 2020, pp. 3-17.
An increasing focus on Indigenous scholars in faculty hiring across academic institutions in North America has led to burgeoning scholarship and discourse about Indigenous research methodologies. Indigenous health research has set the pathway around Indigenous research ethics and community-based participatory research. Embedded in this scholarship is the discussion of relationships as central to the research, so who we are, personally and professionally, is integral to the research that is done. This article explores the experiences of university-based Indigenous women who perform community-based participatory health research and how personal and professional identities factor into this kind of work. Several key findings emerged, including identity, emotional investment and responsibility, workplace challenges related to gender and Indigeneity, and the needs of university-based Indigenous women researchers.
“Canada’s forced birth travel: Towards feminist indigenous reproductive mobilities”
Dr. Jaime Cidro, Rachel Bach, and Dr. Susan Frohlich
Mobilities, 15(2), 2020, pp. 173-187. Special Issue on Reproductive Mobilities.
The mandatory travel for birth experienced by Indigenous women living in rural and remote areas of Canada is examined using an emergent lens of Indigenous reproductive mobilities. Current evacuation practices are contextualized within the historic and ongoing systems of oppression experienced by Indigenous people in Canada. Indigenous feminist and decolonial theoretical approaches are used to outline one way in which Indigenous women counter settler colonialism to assert sovereignty over their birth experiences – through the resurgence of culturally-based doulas or birth workers. A further contribution of these analyses is the inclusion and centering of the voices and experiences of those previously neglected within this particular body of scholarship, shifting the power relations underpinning reproductive mobilities.
Indigenous Experiences of Birthing and Pregnancy (Demeter Press, 2017)
Editors: Dr. Hannah Tait Neufeld and Dr. Jaime Cidro
Traditional midwifery, culture, customs, understandings, and meanings surrounding pregnancy and birth are grounded in distinct epistemologies and worldviews that have sustained Indigenous women and their families since time immemorial. Years of colonization, however, have impacted the degree to which women have choice in the place and ways they carry and deliver their babies. The authors in this book carefully consider these historic interactions and their impacts on Indigenous women’s experiences. As the first section of the book describes, pregnancy is a time when women reflect on their bodies as a space for the development of life. Foods prepared and consumed, ceremony and other activities engaged in are no longer a focus solely for the mother, but also for the child she is carrying. Authors from a variety of places and perspectives thoughtfully express the historical along with contemporary forces positively and negatively impacting prenatal behaviours and traditional practices. Place and culture in relation to birth are explored in the second half of the book from locations in Canada such as Manitoba, Ontario, British Columbia, the Northwest Territories, and Aotearoa. The reclaiming and revitalization of birthing practices along with rejuvenating forms of traditional knowledge form the foundation for exploration into these experiences from a political perspective.
PUBLIC: Culture, Art + Ideas, Winter 2016
Editors: Dr. Julie Nagam, Dr. Heather Igloliorte, Dr. Carla Taunton
INDIGENOUS ART: NEW MEDIA AND THE DIGITAL convenes leading scholars, curators, and artists from the Indigenous territories in Canada, the United States of America, Australia, and Aotearoa (New Zealand). It brings forth urgent conversations about resistance to colonial modernism, and highlights the historic and ongoing use of technology by Indigenous communities and artists as vehicles of resilience and cultural continuity. This issue ignites productive dialogue around the definitions of new and digital media art and practice-based work within the framework of Indigenous art and theory. While showcasing Indigenous artists’ work, it also probes the significant ways that this work contributes to—yet also intervenes on—the fields of art history, visual, cultural and media studies. PUBLIC 54 contributors investigate contemporary Indigenous digital and new media art’s relationships with sovereignty, self-determination, and nationhood. Altogether, the diverse articles, artworks, and dialogues illustrate the ways that Indigenous new media art can dynamically activate and embody Indigenous epistemologies, cosmologies, and methodologies.
“Deciphering the Refusal of the Digital and Binary Codes of Sovereignty/Self-Determination and Civilized/Savage”
Dr. Julie Nagam
PUBLIC: Culture, Art + Ideas 54 (2016): 78-89
Excerpt: “In this essay I discuss the debates between sovereignty/self-determination and civilized/savage as they relate to Indigenous and global theoretical positions. This debate is framed by selected art- works including in pursuit of Venus (2012) and in pursuit of Venus [infected] (2015) by Māori artist Lisa Reihana, and Métis artist Cheryl L’Hirondelle’s web-based Vancouver song lines project titled, nikamon ohci askiy (Songs Because of the Land) (2008). The multimedia installations of Bear Witness, Madeskimo, Kevin Lee Burton, Jordan Bennett, Nicholas Galanin, Jackson 2bears, and Maria Hupfield included in the exhibition Beat Nation (2010) will also be mentioned. At the nucleus of this research are the tensions between Indigenous and colonial histories within the politics of technologies and in the context of digital and new media art.”