From collection to community to collections again: Urban Indigenous women, material culture and belonging

Abstract

First Story Toronto -a community organization dedicated to the Indigenous histories of Toronto, Canada -is steward to a collection of items mostly made and collected during the 20th century. With origins in the Anglican Church Women, the collection reflects a time when policies and actions of the state and churches internalized colonial processes within Canada. Yet the donation of the ACW material to a Native woman and housing advocate in 1976 hints at the shifting political and cultural contexts of this collection. Native crafts were used by Indigenous women in the city in displays of both Indigenous sovereignty and multiculturalism. Recently, the collection has been taken up by another group of Indigenous women in the Memory, Meaning-Making and Collections project. Handling sessions with artefacts and 'talking circles', initially designed to research the role of objects in collective memory and life-history processes, have been appropriated by the participating seniors toward their own goals. The collection has become a source of continuing education, sparking the women to teach and learn beadwork and quillwork; compare life experiences among urban Indigenous people; question history-making processes; and visit museum stores to handle collections and learn with curators. The histories intersecting with this collection thus push back against a range of tropes, provide more nuanced insights into

Affective Presence: The Metonymical Catalogue

“…The affective quality of the object record presented by Aanischaaukamikw resonates with Krmpotich's current research that brings Anishinaabeg and Cree seniors into physical contact with a community artifact collection and museum collections (Howarth and Knight ; Krmpotich et al. ). Anishinaabe senior Evelyn Wolfe responded to a toy tikinaagan with a doll wrapped in a moss bag:

I was raised in one of these and so were my brothers and sisters.

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Decolonizing Care at Diagnosis: Culture, History, and Family at an Urban Inter‐tribal Clinic

“…2016), and to the distinctive but diverse needs of Indigenous communities seeking culturally commensurate healing modalities (Kelm 2004; Krmpotich et al. 2016; Phelan‐Glasscock 2019; Wendt and Gone 2012a). Through their engagement with biomedical health care, Native Americans have moved in recent decades from being vulnerable subjects to occupying positions of greater autonomy and authorship.…”

Co-Producing Community and Knowledge: Indigenous Epistemologies of Engaged, Ethical Research in an Urban Context

“…The TNCHP rebranded itself in 2012 as First Story Toronto, which is composed primarily of a volunteer committee of "history activists," who provide one mechanism through which the NCCT is held accountable in its relational responsibilities within the community, beyond the usual accountability of non-profit organization membership. Ongoing First Story Toronto activities include bus tours of the city (Johnson, 2013), the First Story Toronto smartphone application (Howard, 2015), and specific projects such as "Indigenous, Women, Memory and Power" (Abel, Freeman, Howard and Shirt, In Press), and Memory, Meaning-Making and Collections (Howarth & Knight, 2015;Krmpotich, Howard, & Knight, 2016). These research-action projects are informed by the original vision of the TNCHP and understanding of local Indigenous epistemological framings of the city as a site of self-determining reclamation, which I explain further in the next section.…”