Negotiating the dominance of a colonial narrative: the challenging work of historical interpreters

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My PhD will detail the mechanisms that preserve colonial narratives at heritage sites, providing timely, practical insights for Native and non-Native historical interpreters, who I define as those who renegotiate and share a historical narrative. I propose a multi-method study, incorporating ethnography, historical discourse analysis and archival research at four core heritage sites in England, Northern Ireland and Turtle Island (Vancouver and Massachusetts). During seven months of multi-sited fieldwork, I plan to examine entanglements between Indigenous and non-Native historical interpreters, through participant observation and semi-structured interviews. To understand the historical contexts of Indigenous representations evoked in these exchanges, I will consult on-site archives. I aim to undertake historical discourse analysis with particular attention to how the heritage site's public-facing narratives have changed, including exhibition signage and promotional materials. I also plan to draw on secondary historical accounts, and will work collaboratively with historians, David Stirrup (UK), Coll Thrush (Canada) and Thomas Wickman (USA), as well as a network of Native American and First Nation's public historians.My research and fieldwork aspirations will be supported by Kent's Centre for American Studies, with its rare focus on Indigenous Studies, early European colonisation and strong connections with US and Canadian universities. My work will also contribute significantly to the new Centre for Indigenous and Settler Colonial Studies. My research expands on a growing movement in American Studies, to apply decolonised methodologies to relocate Indigenous people at the centre, rather than the periphery of historical narratives. Coll Thrush, and David Stirrup with the Beyond the Spectacle project, examine historical records to reveal the instrumental role of Indigenous people in shaping the UK. Drawing on Jace Weaver's Red Atlantic, Thrush and Stirrup reject the notion that they are rediscovering Indigenous influence but argue that they are reclaiming accounts from an enforced silence. My PhD will meaningfully build on this work, by changing the focus from Indigenous historical experience to a detailed analysis of contemporary Native engagements with settler-colonial heritage sites and historical narratives. Through this focus, I will uncover the structures and representations that continue to 'enforce' the silencing of Indigenous history.This research addresses a gap in existing literature that fails to examine the challenging, emotive work of historical interpretation. In examining this practice, my study sits at the intersection of postcolonial theory, critical heritage studies, ethnohistory, decolonisation theory and Indigenous studies. Postcolonial heritage theorists such as Tim Luke, Patricia Davison, Alex Tyrrell and James Walvin, present a fundamental challenge to naturalised notions of history in demonstrating the nation-building role of heritage. My thesis will draw on these studies to consider how the Indigenous 'other', and a celebratory colonial narrative, are produced through the heritage site. Nevertheless, I suggest that these studies have consistently underexamined the work of historical interpreters, and the diversity of their professional and personal identities. I argue that the dominant image of the historical interpreter as a nation-building curator overlooks the use of historical interpretation to challenge and subvert self-affirming national narratives. I suggest that a theoretical foundation for the examination of this 'subversive' use of historical interpretation is essential for understanding central debates in heritage, such as appropriate memorialisation, repatriation and the impact of Black Lives Matter.