Jennifer O’Neal (Grand Ronde, Corrigan Solari University Historian and Archivist) and Kevin Hatfield (History, Clark Honors College, Academic Initiatives)

Monday, March 9, 2015

Noon-1:30pm

Many Nations Longhouse

Event is free and open to the public. Bring your own lunch.

This presentation will highlight the experience of the University of Oregon’s Clark Honors College colloquium “Decolonizing Research: The Northern Paiute History Project,” taught in fall 2014 by Dr. Kevin Hatfield and Jennifer O’Neal, which engaged students with local tribal community members from The Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs and Burns Paiute to document previously unexamined or lesser known portions of tribal history. This course espouses the values of community‐based, inter‐cultural, de‐colonizing, multidisciplinary research, and authentic discourse among Native and non‐Native students, historians, and scholars. The course invited students to participate in an “apprenticeship” in the historian’s craft, and perform primary-source research projects organized around a set of topics and questions developed in collaboration with Northern Paiute community partners. In preparation for their archival, oral, and field research, students critically examined the ethics, methodology, and historiography imperative to academic historians engaging in inquiry with indigenous source communities. Additionally, students learned appropriate protocols and guidelines for researching and interacting with cultural heritage collections and local community members.

Ultimately, students created new knowledge and contributed original interpretations and findings to the existing scholarship on the Northern Great Basin and Northern Paiute through sustained engagement with visiting scholars, including Native and non‐Native historians, and tribal community members. In addition, students also provided their research and papers to the tribal communities studied. The session will provide a review of the course pedagogy, protocols, field research trip, student feedback, and lessons learned. Short oral history videos from tribal community members will also be shared.

Kevin Hatfield is an Adjunct Assistant Professor with the Department of History and affiliated faculty with the Robert D. Clark Honors College at the University of Oregon.  He specializes in the history of the American West, environment, and immigration, with a particular emphasis on the intersections of race/ethnicity, property, and community.  Since 1998, Kevin’s research and scholarship has embodied a collaboration with the Biskaian Basque community of eastern Oregon, Western Idaho, and northern Nevada. Kevin has served on the advisory board of the International Basque Studies Consortium, and published his research in the Journal of the Society of Basque Studies in America and the Nevada Historical Society Quarterly.  He has also presented his research at academic conferences and invited public talks, including the Western History Association, Association for Environmental History, American Historical Association, and most recently the Oregon Encyclopedia and Oregon Historical Society. He continues to work closely with the Basque community to collect oral histories and develop a documentary film and possibly feature film inspired by his research with the working title of Bedarra (Grass). A dramatic reading of the screenplay, authored by director, writer, and founder of the Idaho Shakespeare Festival (ISF), Doug Copsey, was performed by ISF actors and local Basque community members in September 2011 at the Basque Cultural Center in Boise, Idaho.” In August 2013 the University of Nevada, Reno Department of History hosted Kevin as a Visiting Scholars to share his research with faculty and graduate students.

Jennifer R. O’Neal is the University Historian and Archivist at the University of Oregon Libraries Special Collections and Archives and adjunct instructor in the Robert D. Clark Honors College. Previously, she served as the Head Archivist for the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center. She has held prior archival positions at the U.S. Department of State, Princeton University, University of Arizona, and Utah State University. She specializes in the history of the American West, with a specific emphasis on race and ethnicity and the social, cultural, and historical contexts that archives exist for marginalized or underrepresented communities. She has specifically focused on social justice regarding cultural heritage, traditional knowledge, and intellectual property rights affecting indigenous archives. She currently serves on various groups in the Society of American Archivists, including the Native American Archives Roundtable (Immediate Past Chair) and the Cultural Heritage Working Group (Co-Chair), as well as serving on the Advisory Board for the Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums.  In 2006 she participated in drafting the best practices for the respectful care and use of Native American archival materials, which produced the Protocols for Native American Archival Materials. Most recently she published the article “’The Right To Know’: Decolonizing Native American Archives,” in the Journal of Western Archives. She is the recent recipient of the Society of American Archivists Diversity Award. She holds a Masters in Library Science from the University of Arizona and a Masters in History from Utah State University, and is currently completing a PhD in History from Georgetown University. She is member of The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde in Oregon.