November 2023

My mom was a family genealogist when I was growing up. I spent most school breaks in archives, libraries, and cemeteries helping her track down family records. That exercise translated into a keen interest in how historical records shape knowledge of the past. As I matured as a scholar, I became interested in non-written records (material culture, physical landscapes, oral histories, etc.) and how those records compare, contrast, and illuminate our knowledge.

Data culture is tied to the individuals, communities, institutions, and larger cultural milieu who are involved in its creation, documentation, analysis, and dissemination. Yet, so much knowledge from the 19^th and 20^th centuries is not held by Native communities and institutions but by non-Indigenous cultural heritage institutions. First and foremost, the question I ask is about identity politics: who has the right to speak for and about whom and what role should non-members play in articulating a community’s history, authority, or beliefs? Significantly, in colonial-centric collections, only legal access is required and/or commonly completed. Every community, every tribe, and even a single family might differ in their sense of what is appropriate for research or reuse and dissemination. When national borders divide those families, the question of research ethics becomes more complex.

While many people might think that Native cultural heritage is held geographically close to the Indigenous community it was extracted from, the reality is that materials are often held in cultural heritage institutions far away from those originating communities. You can find Indigenous holdings around the globe; often, those institutions have little if any contact with the Indigenous communities that those collections are about. Part of what my scholarship does is raise awareness about those holdings and the ethical and epistemological questions “owning” these collections introduce. The other part of my work is about working with cultural heritage institutions to develop narratives around their own local histories.

One of my favorite parts of my research is discussing how to write histories so that members of the public are interested in learning more. I love getting to help people incorporate new viewpoints or knowledge into the stories they tell.

Students in my "Introduction to Digital Humanities" course and my "Digital Public History" course spend time working with different types of cultural data; they research the records, write analysis, and contribute to public repositories of knowledge. They not only learn about local history and culture, but also about digital platforms and their use in publishing research.

I’m honored to have worked with community members throughout Indiana and the Midwest as they’ve developed their own digital cultural collections; they are incredible researchers and generously allow me to listen as they discuss their needs and approaches to complex historical records.

Right now, I’m writing up my research as a couple of peer-reviewed articles. One is an exploration of the practice of historians and how colonial records introduce very specific types of questions when using Indigenous records. The other is about how to work with under resourced cultural heritage organizations to incorporate emerging themes in historical research.