Week 5

The underlying topic that I am thinking about for my individual project surrounds water, water infrastructure, and the ways in which water influences the lives of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people within Philadelphia and the surrounding area.

Here are a collection of ideas that I am putting together, supported by archival resources.

1. Water infrastructure, namely sewers and other municipal systems

For this part of my project, I will look at planning documents for Philadelphia using readily available, publicly accessible documents from the city’s archives. Throughout my navigation of this collection, I will collect things specifically related to Dock Creek to accentuate the group project the Ecological group has selected for this course. One specific example related to Dock Creek would be the resource “From Scenic River to City Sewer” which is a report written in the early 2000s as to the shifting of Dock Creek from a navigable, healthy river to a city waste disposal method throughout the 18th century.

I will be approaching the research of this collection through a temporal lens specifically – moving from the incorporation of Philadelphia (and before if available – potentially in other collections) through the first 100 years to make claims as to the motivations/overarching strategy of the city in its choices regarding such infrastructure.

2. Water as a source of subsistence and entertainment.

When I first went into the archive I didn’t realize that there was a long history of maritime entertainment and fishing/whaling in the area. I will be looking at documents related to these practices – namely from the records of the American Philosophical Society – to track the ways in which the settler population interacted with water and compare it to documents that my othergroup members are researching related to how Indigenous peoples related to the waters of the surrounding areas.

A key part of this research will be looking through the meteorological journals of William Adair, who has a surprising number of notes related to ships going to and fro down the Delaware River. One interesting element of this research is Adair’s knowledge and documentation of sicknesses that came and went through the city like the tide.

3. Water Rights for Indigenous Peoples

I will be concentrating on the relationships between Indigenous peoples of the area and the water sources prior to colonization when documented, or documented right at first contact. This will be heavily accentuated by documents I am finding for question 2 and with documents that my group members are specifically looking at – namely those about settlers documenting Indigenous religious ceremonies. Stella has found some fascinating materials related to water being used throughout a young Lenape’s life for developmental stages and rituals.

Week 4

Our trip to the “birthplace of American Freedom” left me with a deep sense of cynicism in the potential for Native peoples to see themselves accurately reflected in the archival institutions of the United States, much less achieve true safety and sovereignty.

Backdropped by the current genocide against the Indigenous people of Palestine, funded and armed by the U.S. government and its allies, I was left with a sense of disillusionment as to whether it was a viable option to trust Indigenous histories and futures to American institutions period. What I did find on this trip was a comradery with other young Indigenous people in intersecting professions with equally deep commitments to our peoples and their futures.

When we first arrived, we walked through TSA-like security, one of many reminders of the increasing surveillance of bodies, particularly those of marginalized populations. One of our cohortmates was even pulled aside and searched by the security team while others of us reflected on the state violence and surveillance we ourselves had experienced in a variety of circumstances.

Within the building, there were two stages of our tour – tagging along with a public tour on the first floor and then a private tour on the second. The first consisted of a guide escorting a mixed group through the national myth of America and its supposed commitment to democratic and egalitarian ideals.

The tour guide, to her credit, mentioned the original draft’s inclusion of a condemnation of American slavery, following it up with the fact that this was removed before the official adoption of the Declaration. I was left with yet another reminder from this the agency and power of the Founding Fathers to chart the course of American history through their personal choices.

While the practice of slavery and Indigenous genocide were ones made up of thousands and thousands of individual decisions, I was reminded of the importance of this piece of writing and the supposed critical thinking and dedication to individual rights that went into its adoption.

To put it simply, the Founding Fathers made a choice to continue the oppression of groups within the borders of their so-called United States, choosing their economic and political power over the rights of millions. None of this was spoken of past the tour guide’s original comment.

The tour closed with the tour guide calling the children on tour to the front and explaining to them the power they held in a democracy and the way that they could change the society if they wanted. Against the backdrop of American settler colonialism and the fascism that presents itself in this country today, this claim rang hollowest of all.

Throughout this trip I have received solace in the face of these circumstances from the immediate community I have formed with other Storymakers involved with this project. Investigating archives, brainstorming ways to get resources back in the hands of our respective people, I was left with a general feeling of hope and faith that things could be better. I believe that there are ways in which we can conduct activism in the archive and move toward further Indigenous Data Sovereignty and data ownership through the collection of all our actions.

Week 2: Peace Collection at Swarthmore College

I’ve started researching the Peace Collection at Swarthmore College for this project. The Peace Collection is a collection of materials related to the anti-nuclear war movement and intersects with my research interest of the weaponization of energy for warfare – particularly against Native populations directly and indirectly (disproportionate resource extraction from Native lands).

This is the link to the overarching special collections at Swarthmore which is located 30 minutes from Philly by train at 500 College Avenue, Swarthmore, PA 19081: https://www.swarthmore.edu/libraries/special-collections

General contact information for archival staff is:
archives@swarthmore.edu
(610) 328-8477 (main library number)
(610) 690-3386 (special collections)

Anyone can visit the archive if they schedule an appointment 9am-4pm sans 12-1pm for the library’s lunch break. Photographs can be taken of the materials in the collection and photocopies/scans can be made of the collection materials – sometimes with the assistance of special collections staff and sometimes by special collections staff if the materials are fragile.

There are a number of resources available to make the research process simpler, including a link to finding aids that give a useful breakdown for researchers to locate specific materials they are interested in engaging with: https://archives.tricolib.brynmawr.edu/challenge?destination=%2Frepositories%2F7%2Fclassifications%2F7.

There is an “ask a librarian”, but the institution is clear that librarians can only provide general reference information and guidance to navigating the collection – not in-depth research.

Here is the link to the online database for the entire collection: https://www.swarthmore.edu/libraries/digital-collections.

Here is the link to a number of additional resources that the library provides researchers: https://www.swarthmore.edu/libraries/research-scholarship.

Interestingly, the library provides specific guidance for researching individuals here: https://www.swarthmore.edu/libraries/how-to-research-a-person-college-archives.

In addition to subject specialist librarians and varied citation tools and guides, my favorite resource that the library offers, which unfortunately is only offered on specific days in-person is a series of special learning sessions called “30 minutes on...” where students can visit and learn about a specific collection or topic in a crash course kind of format. I love this idea and I think it would be incredibly useful for the archives at NYU to do.

The archive is also available via worldcat, with the Peace Collection available specifically here: https://search.worldcat.org/libraries/3951.

As someone who has worked quite extensively with special collections and archives, I was very impressed with how Swarthmore’s library operates – specifically their extensive breakdown of their collections and clear dedication to access even when they are a private institution which I don’t usually associate with a proficiency in access.

Speaking of, one of the benefits of this being a private institution is that Swarthmore library has benefited from large donations of materials – including rare books with an associated, designated rare book room. For this reason they also have extensive digital resources and subject specialist librarians which I definitely associate with a more generous amount of financial support.

One thing that I am working on in association with this collection is identifying specifically revolutionary war collections that I’d like to research in to stay consistent with the goals of this internship. My first lead is the collection of Quaker materials that are available in the special collections and I am interested in identifying the dimensions of the relationship between the Quakers and the Native peoples in this area.

Hopes & Gifts

I really appreciate the framing of this week’s topic. I’m a big believer in the fact that one of the most surefire ways to impactful scholarly collaboration is from-the-get-go vulnerability in the form of being open and honest about your own hopes, needs, and gifts which you’re bringing to any collaborative project. I’ve found that in academia, at least on the graduate school level, that there is a particularly heightened aversion to such vulnerability – perhaps due to a heightened sense of competition or sense of scarcity.

In relation to that, I find that vulnerability is the greatest gift that I bring to this internship. Although it can be painful, I’ve found deep fulfillment in my work, I think, due to my ability to center my personal experiences and perspectives within my scholarly writing. Being open in that way definitely takes more energy than I have at times, but it’s also led to some of the most rewarding personal and professional relationships I’ve ever had through this open articulation of who I am and want to be in my scholarship.

I felt that way during our opening sessions when we spoke about our experiences as Native students in the academy. It was a weird collection of feelings – both happy and sad – to hear about feelings that my colleagues had throughout their experiences. Feelings of isolation, being misunderstood, etc. in a way was validating to see my own experience represented, but at the same time a sadness in being reminded of how I felt in undergrad as well as imagining how that must feel for people in this current moment.

These feelings are connected to my hopes for this program – to receive a similar degree of openness from others as we work toward individual and collaborative projects. I think this sense of intimacy heightens the quality of the work we will produce as well as drawing us all together more strongly on a personal level too. I hope, too, to learn more ways in which I can bring this gift and this hope to the work that I do with various tribes – adapting my approach to specific cultural contexts while making my research even more materially impactful.

Finally, for areas of help, I would like to learn how to read more effectively in other disciplines/fields. I’m used to reading things solely from a literature/english perspective, but I’d like to learn more about the methodologies that you all engage with to increase the success of my interdisciplinary approach.