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Publications from Twenty-five Years of Community Engagement

Posted on October 19, 2023 | Comments Off on Publications from Twenty-five Years of Community Engagement

For twenty plus years students have worked with me on collaborative projects within Laxyuup Gitxaała. Some have conducted research as part of ethnographic field schools (2006, 2007), others have worked as research interns with Gitxaała Nation, and others still have been research assistants working directly with me as research assistants and/or collaborators.  Providing student research opportunities is an expectation placed on faculty at research universities like UBC.

Under the collaborative research relationship with Gitxaała all research data collected is considered to belong to Gitxaała Nation, but the Forests and Oceans for the Future Research Group has been granted a license to publish results of our ongoing research.  Publications are reviewed by appropriate members of community leadership and/or community agencies.  Some of the students have produced final reports for internal community distribution, others have gone on to produce theses and some have published peer reviewed articles. This post is a summary of theses and peer-reviewed publications that have emerged from the past twenty-five years of collaborative research and highlights the work done by students.

Readers will note that most of the student researchers’ published peer reviewed articles are sole authored pieces by the students themselves (the exceptions reflect long term professional collaborations).   While acknowledging that the data belongs to Gitxaała Nation, it is important to ensure that the intellectual work of preparing reports, theses, and publishable articles of student authors is clearly recognized. Where the working relationship developed into one of professional colleagues in which we both come equally to the writing table then there is a trajectory of co-authorship.

For most of the students their involvement ended with the submission of a report to Gitxaała Nation. Their reports included any interviews or related data for use by Gitxaała as community leadership saw fit.  The data attached to those reports remained the intellectual property of Gitxaała Nation.  My own publications do not make use of or (usually) reference to the student reports. My objective has been to encourage the student authors to prepare their own materials for publication, as long as it has been reviewed by Gitxaała prior to publication.

One other technical point of note: UBC ethics requirements. Under the terms of UBC’s Behavioural Research Ethics Board (which follows the Tri-Council Policy on Research Ethics) research data must be held at UBC in a secure location for at least five years after the close of a research project. In addition, UBC considers the faculty member supervising student research (either in courses or for graduate study) to be the principal investigator (PI).  Sometimes students misunderstand this point. Being the PI of record doesn’t mean that the faculty member ‘owns’ the student’s work, it merely lays out legal obligations and responsibilities of the faculty member. Thus,  as a faculty member supervising student work I am legally responsible for the research practices of students under my supervision and have therefore a legal obligation to ensure, to the best of my ability, that proper ethical practices are followed.  This also means that I am obligated to store research data in a UBC facility for at least five years.  After five years I destroy what data may have been left with me.  Original copies of research data are held permanently by Gitxaała Nation in their research archives. Sometimes students also hold copies of research data, but for field school students Gitxaała expected them to return all materials to Gitxaała Nation at the close of their course when they handed in their final projects.

Research Reports that Became Theses

Developing out of two ethnographic field schools (2006, 2007) and a host of research internships have come a strong collection of MA Theses, listed here in reverse chronological order.

Research Reports that Became Peer Reviewed Publications.

Each student in the two ethnographic field schools submitted a written report on their fieldwork to Gtixaała Nation (or, to their community partner if they weren’t working with Gitxaała). Some of these students turned their reports into peer reviewed publications.  Five students published reflections on fieldwork in a special section of the journal Collaborative Anthropologies: “Collaborative Service Learning and Anthropology with Gitxaała Nation.” 2011.  4:169-242.

  • Solen Roth. “In and Then Out of Gitxaała, Becoming One of Its “Butterflies”
  • Natalie Baloy.  “Getting the Story Right.”
  • Robin Anderson. “Whose Field is it Anyway?”
  • Jennifer Wolowic.  “See What Happens When You Give Us the Camera.”
  • Oralia Gómez-Ramírez.  “Racial and Gender Politics in Service Learning.”

Several other students have published peer reviewed chapters or articles independently of the above project.

Miscellaneous Related Research Reports

Over the period of field research a number of research reports have been produced by students, associates, and contractors working within the Forests and Oceans for the Future reserach group.  Though these reports do not arise from specific fieldschool or internship projects they are relevant to the general corpus of materials produced through the collaborative project.

Research Associates and Assistants

Between 1997 and 2002 the provincial agency, Forest Renewal BC, funded a series of community-based reserach projects.  A range of different types of publications were produced which included curriculum materials for the K-12 school system and a special section of the Canadian Journal of Native Education.

In addition, Caroline Butler, PhD, ( formerly a UBC graduate student) and I produced a series of papers that started with the FRBC project but have continued since as our own collaborative relationship shifted from student/ research supervisor to colleagues and co-researchers. These papers are all based upon research conducted by Butler and Menzies in collaboration with Gitxaała community researchers.

  • 2000.    Caroline Butler and Menzies. “Out of the Woods: Tsimshian Women and Forestry Work. Anthropology of Work Review. 21(2):12-17.
  • 2001    Menzies and Caroline Butler. “Working in the Woods: Tsimshian Resource Workers and the Forest Industry of BC.” American Indian Quarterly. 25(3):409-430.
  • 2006. Menzies and Caroline Butler. “Introduction: Understanding Ecological Knowledge.”   In Charles R. Menzies (ed). Traditional Level Ecological Knowledge and Natural Resource Management. 1-17. Lincoln, Nebraska: Nebraska University Press.
  • 2007    Caroline Butler and Menzies. “Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Indigenous Tourism.” In R. W. Butler and T. Hinch (Eds). Tourism and Indigenous Peoples. Pp. 18-31. London: Elsevier.
  • 2007.  Menzies and Caroline Butler. “Returning to Selective Fishing Through Indigenous Fisheries Knowledge: The Example of K’moda, Gitxaała Territory.” American Indian Quarterly 31(3):441-464.
  • 2008.  Menzies and Caroline Butler. “The Indigenous Foundation of the Resource Economy of BC’s North Coast.” Labour/Le Travail 61:131-149.
  • 2011.   Menzies and Caroline F. Butler.  “Collaborative Service Learning and Anthropology with Gitxaała Nation.” Collaborative Anthropologies 4:169-242.
  • Caroline Butler, Linda Matson, and Menzies. “Newcomer Self-Provisioning on the North Coast of British Columbia. New Proposals.” Vol. 8(1).
  • 2019. Menzies and Caroline Butler. “Redefining University Research Enterprises: partnership and collaboration in Laxyuup Gitxaała.” In Irene Bellier and Jennifer Hayes (eds). Scales of governance and Indigenous Peoples’ rights in a globalized world: New rights or same old wrongs? London: Routledge.
  • 2021. Menzies, Charles R. and Caroline Butler. “Centering Community Knowledge in Resource Management Research.” BC Studies no. 209 (Spring 2021): 103-124.

Menzies’ own papers

Over this period I have also published papers that emerged out of my ongoing research with members of my family and community. Listed here are the most relevant ones.

  • 2022. hagwil hayetsk  (Charles R. Menzies). “Grief, Extinction, and Bilhaa (Abalone).” In Valérie Bienvenue and Nicholas Chare (Eds). Animals, Plants, and Afterimages: The Art and Science of Representing Extinction.  New York / Oxford: Berghan Press.
  • 2015. Charles R Menzies. “REVISITING “DM SIBILHAA’NM DA LAXYUUBM GITXAAŁA (PICKING ABALONE IN GITXAAŁA TERRITORY)”: Vindication, Appropriation, and Archaeology.” BC studies 187(Autumn):129-153.
  • 2015. Charles R. Menzies. “In Our Grandmothers’ Garden: An Indigenous Approach to Collaborative Film.” In Aline Gubrium, Krista Harper, and Marty Otañez, (eds). Participatory Visual and Digital Research in Action.  Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Books.
  • 2015. Charles R. Menzies.  “Oil, Energy, and Anthropological Collaboration on the Northwest Coast of Canada.” Journal of Anthropological Research. Vol. 71(1):5-21
  • 2013. Charles R Menzies.  “Standing on the Shore with Saaban: an anthropological rapprochement with an Indigenous intellectual tradition.” Collaborative Anthropologies  6:171-199.
  • 2012     Charles R. Menzies. “The Disturbed Environment.  The Indigenous Cultivation of Salmon.”  In Benedict J. Colombi and James F. Brooks (Eds.) Keystone nations: Indigenous Peoples and Salmon across the North Pacific. Santa Fe: School for Advanced Research. Pp. 161-182
  • 2010. Charles R. Menzies. “Dm sibilhaa’nm da laxyuubm Gitxaała: Picking Abalone in Gitxaała Territory.”  Human Organization 69(3):213-220.
  • 2006     Charles R. Menzies. “Ecological Knowledge, Subsistence, and Livelihood Practices:  The Case of the Pine Mushroom Harvest in Northwestern British Columbia.”  In Charles R. Menzies (ed). Traditional Level Ecological Knowledge and Natural Resource Management.  Pp. 87-104. Lincoln, Nebraska: Nebraska University Press
  • 2004. Charles R. Menzies. “Putting Words into Action:  Negotiating Collaborative Research in Gitxaała.”  Canadian Journal of Native Education  27(3):15-32.
  • 2001. Charles R. Menzies. “Reflections on Research With, For, and Among Indigenous Peoples.”  Canadian Journal of Native Education  25(1):19-36.

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Posted in Aboriginal Title and Rights, Climate Change, Fieldschool, Fisheries, Forestry, Health Issues, Research Projects

No place for Indians – a story about development on the north coast of BC

Posted on November 9, 2012 | Comments Off on No place for Indians – a story about development on the north coast of BC

ABSTRACT: No Place for Indians:  (presentation to soils science group, Land and Food Systems, UBC.  Nov. 9, 2012).

Energy exports and related development projects are rapidly restructuring traffic and access along BC’s North Coast.  Famed for both the well known Inside Passage and lesser known ‘Outside’ Passage, this area of the coast lies mostly beyond the gaze of the rest of North America.  Recent development plans to export tar sands crude to the Orient has brought the region under closer scrutiny as urban-based environmentalists voice their opposition and concerns.  While much of the public focus has been on the risks associated with oil spills on land and sea the significant impact on Coastal First Nations will be reduced access to traditional waterways and fishing grounds.  Between the proposed tar sands facility and planned LNG plants more than 1000 large bulk tankers (oil and LNG) will be travelling through this part of BC’s north coast leaving no place for Indians in their wake.

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Posted in Aboriginal Title and Rights, Fisheries, Forestry, Health Issues

Comments from the American Anthropology Association Meetings, 2010

Posted on November 20, 2010 | 3 comments

It was one of those moments that you wonder why bother, what’s the point of intervening, yet you do it anyway.  Here I was enjoying myself skipping from session to session -marine protected areas in one session, women and democracy at a poster session, forestry, public anthropology and then -why not- a session on the circulation of indigenous though it’s others.  It looked engaging.  I knew some of the people.  Why not go and have a listen to a set of papers that ranged from research in Labrador to research in Australia through Hawaiian soldiers and Navajo country singers.

I realized that my patience was being tested when my long time friend and fellow graduate of CUNY’s Grad Centre started talking about the parochialism of the sort of research that I engage in.  That is, anthropological study of Indigenous issues is locked in a vantage point that reproduces elite knowledge within Indigenous communities and which does not examine the realities of violence, class, and social disruption.   Fair enough, I’d be the first to agree that most of the research with and on behalf of First Nations is of limited appeal in the rarified worlds academic knowledge production and rarely rates the press given to sexy (literally and figuratively) subjects that inspire the many overheard corridor conversations.

Yet there was something about Kirk’s take that didn’t sit well with me.  I can’t really put a finger on it, even now as I roll the words and ideas around in my mind, reflecting on them, reconsidering them.  I agree with much of with Kirk said, yet, yet, somehow, somewhere there’s something amiss in the idea he presented.  Perhaps it’s because I’m part of the Indigenous elite that he so strenuously critiques.  I would like to think not; but I’ll at least consider it.

A few papers later came a paper on Labrador with the engaging title: “Hardly anybody never goes off anymore: time and belonging in a Labrador Inuit community.” The paper picked up from the title quote – “hardly anybody never goes off any more”- and chased down the idea that of the 300 people interviewed barely a half dozen or so actually engaged in hunting or ‘going off’ beyond the boundary of Nairn, Labrador.  Fact was, those who were presented internally as knowledgeable either couldn’t or wouldn’t “go off.”  Those who made it off were apparently part of the disinterested elites who were able to control or monopolize sufficient resources to buy fuel and supplies.  Though the network plots presented (but not truly described) seemed to suggest a fairly wide distribution of food even if harvested by a handful of people, the focus was upon the dysfunction and abdication of responsibility by the elite. This is when I really started to connect the dots between my friend Kirk’s introduction and the apparent underlying theme.

The ‘we don’t go off’ paper picked up on the critique of the parochialism of Indigenous studies. This was achieved with a thorough going critique of the immorality of the political leadership (erstwhile called elites by the panelists). Not to miss a stone unturned traditional ecological knowledge literature was also soundly criticized.  The fault – it doesn’t reflect the reality of practice.  The critique – it is romantic nonsense. Yes there is a lot written by natural resource management types that takes a rather naive and simplistic perspective on TEK.  But, I’m not certain that I’d be so quick to dismiss the reality of engaged and longstanding relationships with ecological and related social knowledge and then suggest that traditional knowledge is bunk.

Rather than sit silent and then leave I stood up and spoke.  Usually, the extent of conference commentary is the ‘thank you for your paper, you did a great job, can you tell more about this or that.’   Sometimes there is a sharing of a similar case.  People might even call some minor parts of a paper into question.  Rarely does one stand up and, as I did this time,  and lay out a full-blown critique of the panel and papers within it.

I began by saying straight out that my comment was a criticism.

“I’m not able to comment directly on the Labrador case but I can say from a decade of research and a lifetime of experience that there is something wrong with the picture being painted here today.”

Three points figure in my comments:

(1)  The pattern of resource harvesting was presented as unusual.  In fact is a fairly common and longstanding one of the development of community ‘experts’ in harvesting –the practitioners- on one side and the knowledge holders –best thought of as local intellectuals- on the other.  Thus the model in the paper was fairly ahistorical –a snapshot in time- rather than one that placed the data into the sweep of history.  Had the full sweep of time been considered it would have gone a long way toward explaining and then through explanation toward solution (if that was what was needed) of the problem presented.

(2)  The critique of traditional ecological knowledge seemed to fetishize the idea of ‘tradition’ in the moniker.   I suggested that we should not allow ourselves to be confused by the label of ‘traditional’ in the tag TEK.  Traditional Ecological Knowledge is a process of knowledge making that is dynamic.  It is a process through which people actively shift and change.  Irrespective of the internal discourses on cultural loss (a discourse that is in reality produced by the external process of colonials ideology represented in histories of salvage ethnography) the researcher would be well served by consider the nature of knowledge required to navigate the social world (which includes whether or not ‘one goes off’).

(3)  In response to the idea that Indigenous Studies is parochial and thus those of us engaged in it are in some way self serving and blinded by the Elites I offered this –the forces shaping what kind of research to do are controlled by the colonizing states.  That is, in the creation of legal frameworks for rights and title Indigenous communities in Canada and Australia are completed to engage researchers and to commission particular types of studies to prove that they are in fact real social beings with history, law, culture, and personhood.  It is only from a narcissistic sense of one’s own academic importance that one can actually overlook this social reality.

No one -I think- is denying the existence of real problems in Indigenous communities.  But what defines the situation is not really crises and mayhem. There are good things, positive things, things to pride and pleasure in. Of course the world is not all rosy.  What I am questioning is whether the focus on Elites as the source of the real problems in Indigenous communities makes any real sense.  I think that my anger arises at this point .  It is so easy to cast blame and to find fault.  But unless you are dealing with this on a day-to-day basis trying to work out real answers that work now I questions your criticisms that seem more suitable to the rarefied audiences of lecterns and classrooms.

What, I wonder, is the difference between conservative commentators who blame all the problems on corrupt leaders and self-serving Elites and  academic radicals who identify corrupt and disinterested Elites as the source of the problem. If only things were so simple as giving free gas to impoverished hunters so that they could ‘go off again.’

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Posted in Aboriginal Title and Rights, Health Issues, Speakers