On February 6, the UBC School of Information held a colloquium entitled (De)Colonial Spaces of Memory Activism, featuring speaker Dr. Tricia Logan. Logan discussed the place of Indigenous histories and voices in memory institutions in the West, such as museums and archives, and the necessary role of activism within these Indigenous communities.
Logan is a Métis scholar who currently holds the position of head of research and engagement at the Residential School History and Dialogue Centre, situated here at UBC. She has over 18 years experience working with Canadian Indigenous communities, having held positions at the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR), the Aboriginal Healing Foundation and the Legacy of Hope Foundation.
Throughout her time working with the CMHR between 2010 and 2013, she was very aware of the limits on Indigenous exhibits, especially limiting “negative stories” about missing and murdered Indigenous women.
According to Logan,“finding a space for Indigenous knowledge in memory spaces where they have never been present before” is seen as activism to many in the Western perspective.
Logan, who worked as a curator at the CMHR, considered her role as curator to be bureaucratic and does not think of her work and the work of indigenous communities as activism in the sense that it is often perceived. However, she sees it as facilitating the continuity of language, culture and histories, to ensure that “individuals have space to carry on their histories in the spaces they always have been.”
Memory institutions, such as the CMHR and other archival spaces, “shape society by what and who they choose to represent,” or in other words “what and who they make and allow space for,” said Logan. (can we just have a full quote for this?)
“How do you create a space for Indigenous rights activism in Canada when Canada is the violator of those rights?”
When discussing the role of memory institutions, Logan asserted that “inclusive spaces are sustainable spaces” — spaces are sustainable when they include not just the oppressed histories of Indigenous communities, but also stories of both good and evil. In the CMHR and other archives, this means making information on the atrocities of colonialism accessible, while equally so the beautiful stories of resilience, revitalization and culture of Indigenous peoples accessible as well.
Logan also made the distinction between “literal activism,” such as sit-ins and writing to the government, and the type of activism that people don’t typically see. The latter is “continuity,” consisting of the “everyday acts of trying to make space” for Indigenous voices and histories and resisting the complacency that may not be seen or heard.
In the context of UBC, making this distinction between activism and continuity fosters a “new way of thinking about the role of archives” and knowledge institutions.
It is Logan’s hope that the redefinition of what constitutes history and the centering of Indigenous voices in places such as UBC will help to create the will among institutions in control of the information about these colonized voices to genuinely “fund and Indigenize” memory institutions across Canada.
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