We are delighted to welcome Professor Chris Anderson, Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Native Studies, University of Alberta who will give a guest lecture entitled: ‘Making Indigenous Studies Critical, at the heart of empire: intellectual, institutional and ethical considerations’ on Monday 16th October, at 6pm in Grimond Lecture Theatre 3.
Abstract of the lecture
“What would an ethical Indigenous studies unit look like in the absence of sustained connections to local Indigenous communities? In this talk, I will lay out the importance of Indigenous studies units to the discipline in two contexts – institutional and intellectual – with an eye for thinking through the complexities of engaging in Indigenous Studies in locales without an Indigenous presence. What responsibilities accrue, more specifically, from doing Indigenous studies at the heart of empire but at the periphery of the Indigenous world, and what can this teach us about how to practice good allyship in this ethical space?”
About the speaker
Chris Andersen is the former Director of the Rupertsland Centre for Métis Research and is currently the Dean of the Faculty of Native Studies at the University of Alberta. He is the author Indigenous Statistics: A Quantitative Indigenous Methodology (Left Coast Press, 2013 with Maggie Walter) and “Métis”: Race, Recognition and the Struggle for Indigenous Peoplehood (UBC Press, 2014). In 2015, the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association awarded “Métis” the “2014 Prize for Best Subsequent Book in Native American and Indigenous Studies” and in 2016, it was shortlisted for the 2015 Canada Prize. He also co-edited the recently published Sources and Methods in Indigenous Studies (Taylor & Francis, 2017, with Jean O’Brien). Andersen was a founding member of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association Executive Council, is a member of Statistics Canada’s Advisory Committee on Social Conditions and is editor of the journal aboriginal policy studies. He was recently named as a Member of the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists.
The talk is co-sponsored by the School of English, the Centre for American Studies and the Postcolonial Seminar Series. We hope you can make it.