Indigenous Labor and Indigenous History

This article was originally a response to a call from the Western History Association for papers by Indigenous academics. The call aimed to showcase Indigenous scholarship on certain terms: that it delves into some of the opportunities, challenges, and obstacles involved with "working from home" or doing research that bridges a space called "home" (family, community, and tribal history) and what is indelibly defined in opposition to it--the university and professional Aboriginal or American Indian history. In the first section of this article, the author shows how history as a profession has remained largely isolated from Aboriginal scholarly critique, questions of equity and access, and discussions of Indigenous professionalism in other fields. Next, the author uses the modernization of professional history as a frame to study how Aboriginal people became marginalized and displaced in singular roles as subjects rather than producers of history. The working culture of homogeneity in the Canadian historical profession reinforces the divisions between "home" and history. Third, the author explores how Aboriginal history's myths of origin, stamped onto their historiography, serve to protect professional boundaries and preclude the presence and even the possibility of the presence of Indigenous scholars. Last, the author shows how the dominant position of the nation-state in professional history and narrow definitions of identity and historical labor work to alienate Indigenous historians. (Contains 46 notes.)