Scan your eyes over a standard-issue map of North America, and you will find names of European political leaders, explorers, and places repeated across the Canadian Arctic: Victoria Island, Melville Peninsula, Cambridge Bay. These names offer little acknowledgement of Inuit presence, which extends for millennia across the land, ice, and water today known as the Canadian Arctic. For my final project in Historical Archaeology, I explored community-based research on Inuit place names and how that can help us understand memory, identity, colonialism, and interpretation in the Arctic. Interwoven with place names are the politics of colonialism, the sovereignty of language, and the creation of historical narratives through interpretation.
The most striking result of my research was how colonial legacies continue to influence narratives of history, identity, and indigeneity today. Archaeologists have the ability to use their work to deconstruct colonial systems put in place to disrupt the communication of traditional knowledge––known as Inuit qaujimajatuqangit––and to advance social justice in the Arctic. For academics used to controlling every aspect of research design and execution, sharing authority with communities can be an unsettling. But I would argue that for archaeology to remain relevant in today’s world, the field can no longer hold itself apart and above the people in it.
Hello! my name is Clàudia Esplugas Masvidal, and I am an (intending) anthropology senior here at the University of Washington, all along with a minor in DXARTS, as well as GWSS. If I were to clarify a couple of things to better explain the so necessary context that surrounds my persona, I would say that:
1) My name is Clàudia with an open accent on the “a” as my parent’s little form of Catalan resilience: I was born in Barcelona, Catalonia, where for a long time we were not allowed to speak our fist language (Catalan). As language was re-incorporated in the academic curriculum when my parents were young, they found it very important to give me that accent as a variation of the Spanish/Latin version (which has no accent.) As a child I wouldn’t really understand such need, but nowadays with our Catalan parliament shut down by a coup from the Spanish government because of our independence referendum, I find it more important than ever.
2) I say “intending” because I have traveled a long road cruising this unexpected world of the undergraduate, with “ups and downs” if we look at my strictly academic record, but ultimately happy to say that I have explored the multiple intersections of those areas of study that I was always passionate about, and that altogether with my finished and in-progress projects and research, by the time I graduate this June I will definitely, most surely know where my passion, skills and values meet, and what activities I should keep on doing so I lead a fulfilling and happy live in this midst of capitalistic-induced climate change-era we have been born to.
Those activities and skills are: Writing poetry, short fiction, investigative journalism, documentary, photo journalism, reading anthropology, contemporary ethnography, social activism, de-colonization, researching what sovereignty means in all its faces, non-violence, civil-disobedience, singing and performing contemporary arts, experimental art film.
On 2016 I transferred to this university thanks to the student disability resources at Bellevue College , The Daily and started following Standing Rock and interviewing AIS faculty and students to understand Settler Colonialism resilience locally as well: Catalonia was about to hold a referendum and I needed to see different forms of resilience to take with me. My favorite anthropology classes were with professor Radhika Govindrajan, never had I seen what contemporary ethnography and anthropology of decolonization look like, and how I can apply them to myself as an individual.
In 2017 I started experiencing what it means to work and study full-time while having a learning disability in this country. I worked as a legal assistant and Spanish interpreter for an
Immigration Law office downtown Seattle, and I saw with my own eyes the devastating affects of the Trump administration on refugee families being detained at the Tacoma center: I saw how justice is a bureaucratic system invented by the same ones who incarcerate you and who release you by finding loops and wholes, which you can fill with money and your own blood. I feel very identified with Valeria Luiselli’s book Tell Me How it Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions, and would like to write down my experiences as well before I forget them.
I tried to keep up with the research project lead by professor Walter Andrews, the Svoboda Diaries Project where historical transcription and technology meet, and I started a small documentary mentored by Holly Barker, where I followed Pacific Islander students and their events as The Burke museum explores what it means to decolonize its structure and give back materials to their communities so they can use them for their events. It’s still on editing process.
Over the course of this summer, while also working, I have explored my voice, contemporary dance and visual poetry through a video collaboration with several artists, which we showed on our first art show on Capitol Hill early this month, and which I will keep on developing as I present it in future festivals if possible. It has been liberating to find creativity to be the most healing way of living, and as I focus on graduate school and other life adventures, it must keep on being explored.
This year, thanks to family friends and great professors who have supported my journey all these years, I am the director of the Womxn’s Action Commission (ASUW) and I will be incorporating aspects of decolonization, resilience, and will seek to partner with all the other diversity student commissions to put on programs and events that represent all of us and our struggles as womxn on the 21st century. I am partnering with the Intellectual House and with Dr. Luana Ross to put on an Indigenous Feminisms event on Spring, and I cannot wait to see what wonderful fruits come out of our new team, as I seek the intersectionality of my fields of interest, my creativity and our team’s passion.
I have been in love with several archaeological projects all my live, and I’ve been following Professor Gonzalez’s work for some time since I transferred in this university: I can’t wait to see how my view on community based archaeology shape my understanding of the discipline!
We usually take colonialism as more than a unidirectional power relationship in archaeology now, since so many cases show us about resistance, negotiation and creolization.
In Japanese Colonial Period (JCP) in Taiwan, the Japanese Colonial Government applied multiple approaches which included military power, political system, ideology and economic system to maintain their ruing.
When I traced my own family history, I found that there are so many little habits are actually the creolized product of Taiwanese culture and Japanese culture. There was once a tatami (Japanese style bedroom) in our family house. My grand grand father built that room when he was recruited by the Japanese Colonial Government as a local representative. My families began to attend Japanese school in the same time, I think this is why my grandpa alway spoke Japanese to me when I was young. And he always revealed a close emotion to Japanese and nostalgia to JCP. Oh right, I believe the raw clam marinated by soy sauce is also the heritage of hybrid culture of Taiwan and Japan, it is delicious!
When I participated in several CRM project in Taipei area, the ceramics imported from Japan was always the largest remain in in JCP site. Amount these ceramics, there was a specific crane-motif bowl. Honestly it looked just not like Japanese ware, whether color, style or manufacturing technique. We could not figure it out until we luckily found the location and remains of Beitou kiln site in northern Taipei. We final confirm the sourcing of this specific ware.
Recently, combining with statistical data, some historical records and some JCP governmental policies, I found this locally made crane-motif bowl might reflect the negotiation between colonizer and colonized and also indicate a creolization of two culture. This Japanese style motif and Han style body shape bowl was made by Beitou kiln company that its boss had great relation with the Japanese Colonial Government. When this kiln company established, the Japanese Colonial Government published an assimilation policy in the same time in 1920. According to the price setting of this bowl, we can strongly believe that this product was targeted to Han commoners. Not only encourage Han people to speak Japanese, but also try to change the foodway gradually.
Anyway, the data I have now is quite insufficient for me to do further research. I just hope that I can find more related documents or find a Han settlement with complete deposit with crane-motif bowl, then I might tell you more story about it!
