The majority of cultural resource work carried in Alberta is undertaken by private consultants triggered by development within a regulatory environment facilitated through the authority of a public bureaucracy.  As a result, cultural resource management work and the engagement with the results of this work by practitioners, academics and the general public is mediated and controlled through this authority.
This presentation will discuss the practice of cultural resource management work in Alberta as it has been defined through the regulatory authority of a public bureaucracy.  I will outline the concept of bureaucracy and public management and discuss its contemporary expression in cultural resource work in Alberta will be discussed.  The influence of a public bureaucracy upon cultural resource work will be illustrated through assessments derived from specific case studies.  Through a comparative analysis between expected and practical outcomes, I will present limitations to cultural resource work resulting from the current regulatory context in Alberta.
As a result of this discussion and in reference to the case studies presented, I will propose that the employment of a rational bureaucratic management structure utilizing general rules will produce predictable and beneficial cultural resource management outcomes.  Outcomes which are predictable, beneficial and free from exceptions will act as incentives to both practitioners and proponents to proactively engage in the regulatory environment without advocacy for or enthusiasm in any specific interest.

While Huron-Wendat teachings indicate a close relationship with eastern lands, such as in the Quebec City region, archaeological tradition has only recently begun to consider this possibility. Our research project was initiated by Nation members and developed as a partnership between the Bureau Nionwentsïo of the Huron-Wendat Nation and archaeological and historical researchers. We investigate this relationship using analysis of oral traditions and archaeology. In an effort to undertake a sustainable archaeological practice, we analyse pottery from across southern Ontario and Quebec from pre-existing collections. We employ micro CT analysis, petrography, and laser ablation ICP-MS to compare pottery from across this region to ask if the potters belonged broadly to the same community of practice. Our research process and results are being shared throughout the project using community media and social media, and through meetings and workshops at Wendake. Data created will reside at the Nation and all project members have the opportunity to participate in presentations and publications about the project. Using this approach, one of our goals is to assist with restoring Wendat voices to the telling of Wendat history.

Archaeology field schools are integral to the post-secondary training regime for students, and they are amenable to “unsettling” the way in which archaeological training and research is conducted in partnership with Indigenous communities. Since 2000 the UNBC archaeology field school has partnered with eight different indigenous communities and organizations throughout the interior and coast of British Columbia.  In this unique set up community members enrol in the field school for full credit alongside university students, regardless of educational background.  Where possible Elders and other community members co-teach the field school through sharing of knowledge, stories, and songs. The entire training and research program including classes, mapping, and fieldwork, takes place within the host community, either on Reserve or nearby.  University students are immersed within the culture and landscapes of the host community, and community members participate in university-level training in archaeology and heritage within their home territory. One goal of the program is to encourage dialogue and thought about restructuring (unsettling) the way in which archaeological research and training is conducted in these areas. This is a continually developing model with no blueprint, but one that is borne out of necessity. Successes and problems are highlighted.

The Inuit Community Government of Hopedale, Nunatsiavut, initiated the Avertok Archaeology Project (AAP) through the Tradition and Transition: Piusitukaujuit Asianguvalliajuillu research partnership between Memorial University and the Nunatsiavut Government to generate tourism activity and support local interest in the history of Hopedale. The Hopedale community articulated that they need community involvement in the AAP, preferably in ways that facilitate knowledge exchange between Elders and youth. The project had its inaugural field season in Hopedale, Labrador in 2017, during which we hired three local youth to catalogue artifacts, work on excavations, and conduct traditional knowledge interviews. This presentation discusses my experiences working with Nunatsiavutmiut youth as part of the AAP and how it has shaped my plans for future field seasons. I am working to develop a strength-based approach for working with youth that encompasses education, employment, and healing. This requires developing a safe space for youth to learn, share their knowledge and skills, and build their confidence. By fostering existing interest in their past and ancestors through the development of approaches to learning and working that appeal to youth, we can help empower them and create projects that have lasting effects that align with community goals.

Unsettling archaeology requires that we examine the ways we categorize, divide, and characterize the material record and understand the relationships between our analytical frameworks and settler colonialism. The Métis people of Canada have often been categorized as a mixed, hybrid ethnic group, based largely on racialized understandings of the early encounters between Indigenous women and European men. Métis scholars have begun to critique the racial basis for "Métis-as-mixed" and shift toward ways of identifying the Métis based on peoplehood and nationhood. In this paper, I discuss how settler colonial categories of hybridity have influenced past archaeological research on the Métis in Canada and explore how archaeological analysis of Métis sites based on a Métis ontology that centers kinship, mobility, and nationhood can unsettle colonial characterizations of identity. Using examples from my research, I present a framework to conceptualize the rise of a new people through the archaeological record that does not rely on logics of mixedness, but rather considers the spatial and material patterns as representative of an emergent Métis worldview. 

This paper is a narrative of the challenges I’ve experienced as a White passing Indigenous scholar.  It will include a discussion of my conscious decision to conceal my Indigenous heritage during my undergraduate education due to subtle and overt forms of marginalization.  I will also examine the role of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and some community engagement experiences that inspired me to proudly divulge my Indigenous identity during my graduate career.   Through my personal narrative, I will outline some of the issues that exist for Indigenous peoples studying in a colonial setting and how I engage with my culture, and the Indigenous teachings I have received, to cope with these challenges.  It is my hope that my Truth will allow fellow colleagues to reflect on their own experiences of marginalization, complacency and/or culpability so that we can work together and move forward with Reconciliation in a good way.

“Unsettling” archaeology involves identifying and understanding colonial and other frameworks (both institutional and cultural) that underlie and shape the way we as heritage professionals view the past. Wylie (2017:204) argues that our understandings of the material record are a result of archaeological “scaffolding”: the assumptions we hold about cultural subjects, our background knowledge, and our technical resources. This paper examines the scaffolding that shapes archaeological understandings of gender in the Arctic past through a retrospective survey of the published and grey literature documenting Thule-Inuit and Inuvialuit archaeological sites within the Inuvialuit Settlement Region, NWT. Our analysis highlights how archaeologists have traditionally created and reinforced simple gender binaries through the uncritical use of gendered language and the classification of objects and spaces. We also consider how to apply queer theory to move beyond these normative approaches, towards a more nuanced understanding of the ways in which past Arctic peoples performed their gender identities.

While research related to equity issues in archaeology in Canada stagnated after its emergence in the late 1980s-early 1990s, there has been a recent resurgence in studies aimed toward understanding how identity-based politics affect both the archaeological community and the production of knowledge in the discipline. In an effort to add to this body of work, this paper will present results from my Ph.D. research that seeks to understand current gendered dynamics within the archaeological workplace. Conducted through a mixed-methods approach that collected both survey and interview data, I intend to present participant’s qualitative responses that illuminate how traditional modes of archaeological practice and interactions with fellow practitioners might be operating to marginalize and exclude. This will broadly include education and employment experiences and identity related discriminatory attitudes or practices that emerged in these spheres. With consideration toward intersectional analyses, I intend to use this data to further develop relational understandings beyond the male/female dichotomy, complementing yet disrupting past analyses of the social composition of archaeology.