{"id":218,"date":"2024-02-18T16:04:36","date_gmt":"2024-02-18T16:04:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gildedgreen.com\/indigital\/?page_id=218"},"modified":"2026-04-20T18:21:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T18:21:17","slug":"rehistorying","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/gildedgreen.com\/indigital\/rehistorying\/","title":{"rendered":"(Re)(Hi)storying"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This module introduces a variety of artists who surface and center Indigenous histories of land and people. Regarding history, education scholars Eve Tuck (Unangax\u0302) and Marcia McKenzie (2015<\/a>) wrote that<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“[w]hen land is recast as property, place becomes exchangeable, saleable, and steal-able. The most important aim of recasting land as property is to make it ahistorical in order to hack away the narratives that invoke prior claims and thus reaffirm the myth of terra nullius.\u201d (p. 64)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By erasing Indigenous histories of land and place, settlers could perpetuate (and still do perpetuate) the idea that the land they live on was terra nullius<\/em>, or blank land awaiting settler arrival. One way that Indigenous artists address this is by creating work which reasserts Indigenous narratives and histories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reading, Listening, and Learning<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

First<\/strong>, watch this brief video by PBS Crash Course, surfacing some common ways Indigenous histories have been displaced by settler ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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CrashCourse. (2025, May 27). Myths & misconceptions about Native Americans: Ep 3 of crash course Native American history<\/em> . YouTube.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this video, host Che Jim (enrolled member, Navajo Nation) talks about several common American myths about Indigenous peoples and histories, and how they are propagated by pop culture stories (like the Thanksgiving story) and pop culture symbols (like sports mascots).<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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(Note that this video is an example of digital media being used to surface Indigenous histories! For more information, you might watch the introduction to this series<\/a>, or the overall series playlist<\/a>.)<\/sub><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, choose one<\/strong> of the three readings\/listenings below to explore. Each conveys a different attempt at telling\/sharing\/preserving a history of Indigenous land or people using digital technologies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Myaamia Center. (2021, March 26). A Brief History of Myaamiaki ‘the Downstream People’ [Audio podcast episode]. In Neepwaantiinki: Stories from Myaamia Revitalization<\/em>.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Myaamia Center, affiliated with the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma and Miami University in Oxford, OH, uses a variety of digital media for cultural preservation and revitalization efforts. In this podcast episode, Myaamia Center scholars Kara Strass, Kristina Fox, and George Ironstrack briefly share a Myaamia account of the history of their people and land. This includes the original coming-out story of the Myaamia people, and their later experience of forced removals, land loss, and population fragmentation due to settler-colonial incursion. <\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Solly, M. (2017, September 11). This replica of a Tlingit killer whale hat Is spurring dialogue about digitization. Smithsonian Magazine<\/em>.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This magazine article discusses the reciprocal collaboration between the Smithsonian Institution and the Dakl\u2019aweidi clan on the 3D scanning of repatriated heritage items. The piece explores the complexities of digital scanning of Indigenous material history, and the ethnical responsibilities of settler institutions like the Smithsonian.
(It should be noted that while the Smithsonian engages in collaborative stewardship in this article, its presentation of its collection in both physical and digital space is still shaped by histories of colonialism (Wintle, 2016<\/a>).)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Loban, R. & Apperley, T. (2019). Eurocentric values at play: Modding the colonial from the Indigenous perspective. In P. Penix-Tadsen (Ed.) Video games and the global south<\/em> (pp. 87-100). ETC Press.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rhett Loban (Torres Strait Islander) and Thomas Apperley discuss how “4X” (“EXplore, EXpand, EXploit and EXterminate”) strategy video games center colonizer historic narratives and portray uncolonized lands as terra nullius<\/em>. They describe how they modified (or “modded”) the game code to include histories and peoples of uncolonized lands as agentic forces in the game’s world, system, and emergent narrative.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Reflect After Reading<\/h2>\n\n\n\n