00:00.10 archpodnet Welcome to heritage voices episode 71 I'm Jessica you quinto and I'm your host and today we are talking about tribal collaboration at archeology southwest before we begin I'd like to honor and acknowledge that the lands I'm recording on today are part of the nooch or you people's treaty lands. The danta and the ancestral pueblo in Homeland today we have Ashley Thompson back on the show. Ashley would you like to introduce yourself. 00:29.97 ASHLEIGH Of course hello everybody I am Ashley Thompson ayuhi her hers pronouns I am currently based in Bana Aham and pasqueaki lands also known as Tucson Arizona. I am a ojibwe or an ishnae archaeologist working as director of tribal collaboration. Archeology southwest which is a nonprofit organization based in Tucson um, I have my master's in anthropology from the University Of Arizona um I come from. Um. The red lake ojibwe community though I was raised away from Red Lake um and I currently um, am working full time. 01:33.22 archpodnet All right? Well welcome back to the show Ashley and for those of you that haven't already. You should go back and listen to Ashley's first episode on the show and that was episode 21 can you believe. Was 50 episodes ago. Um, so that was yeah four and a half years four and a half years that's crazy. Um, but that episode episode 21 ah food sovereignty and natives outdoors. So if you if you haven't um, listened to that one yet. Definitely. 01:54.82 ASHLEIGH Wow. 02:01.24 ASHLEIGH Are. 02:11.25 archpodnet Um, go back and and take a listen and we're going to kind of jump jump straight in um, from ah where we were at that episode. But um, but yeah, so excited to have you back and to to get to chat some more. 02:31.21 ASHLEIGH I'm excited to be here. 02:34.87 archpodnet All right? Okay, so well I guess um, I'd asked you ah to I had said let's start with your your masters. But I suppose. Um, for for those that um, that haven't listened to your last episode. Um, do you want to give the sixty second ah you know super quick version of um how you you got into this field and and what got you interested in this kind of work just to throw that at you. 03:06.42 ASHLEIGH Sure. So um, he now I um I first got into anthropology as an undergraduate student at the University Of Minnesota Morris and I serendipitously ended up in um, a freshman seminar class that was taught by an anthropologist and I really loved her class and so I took more anthropology classes and she also happened to be an American Indian Studies Faculty member and so I found that I really loved. Um, both of those subjects and um I really found people and their cultures fascinating I really loved studying indigenous history as well as contemporary issues and um. Thought that archeology would be a good fit for me as someone who enjoys doing fieldwork learning about the past interacting with material culture. Um and and wanting to work with tribes and so I saw that there was a need for more indigenous archaeologists. 04:19.40 ASHLEIGH And I decided to study it um in undergrad as well as graduate school and now it's the field that I work in. 04:29.51 archpodnet That's awesome. Okay, so yeah, last time we we talked four and a half years ago which is again just crazy. Um, you were you were working on your masters. 04:37.60 ASHLEIGH Um. 04:41.68 archpodnet Ah, you had the topic and everything but you were still um, you were still writing and um, figuring out what you wanted to bring back to the community specifically. So Can you First of all, refresh briefly. Our listeners on. The the topic of your masters and then um, what what ended up happening there. 05:09.44 ASHLEIGH Yeah, so for my masters I wanted to work with my tribe. The red lake ojibwe and so I was in contact with um, the historic or the tribal historic preservation officer there and we came up with a project. That would look into the traditional food ways at Red Lake um and so we decided that I could do an overview of what they are and their importance to the community part of the methodology was doing interviews with community members who. Worked or are knowledgeable with food and so um I got to talk to elders about um, our traditional food ways and they really um were the backbone of my thesis what they were. Willing to share with me and um I identified seven major food ways of the community. Um, and then outline their importance which includes um, not only physical health but also um. Cultural survivance or like continuation of our traditional ways via food. Um, it's important to um, the community's emotional and um, spiritual wellbeing and. 06:45.10 ASHLEIGH Um, an important way to ah connect with the land and um, further develop tribal members relationships with the land and so ah I I finished my masters Um, and then. About a year later or less than a year later the pandemic happened and so um, it it I was going to build off of the masters for the dissertation. Um, but I was treading water in graduate school while while the pandemic was going On. Um because I wanted to continue doing community interviews. But um I felt really uncomfortable interviewing at-risk people. Um for my dissertation and so I held off on the project and. 07:30.17 archpodnet Yeah. 07:37.21 ASHLEIGH I ended up um, taking a step back from Academia I'm technically on a leave of absence I'm not really sure if I'm going to return or not I'm still trying to see what direction I want to go in and but I'm I'm happy right now working full time in my field. So um, that's kind of where I. 07:56.39 archpodnet Mean. 07:56.61 ASHLEIGH Left off with you because I remember I think when we were talking I was transcribing interviews for my master's project. Um, and so yeah, it's been a while and a lot has happened since then. 08:05.66 archpodnet Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, just a couple things um shows. So so um, are you hoping? ah or is there. Any. 08:12.96 ASHLEIGH Yeah. 08:23.19 archpodnet Interest in the future. Um, maybe not like through a ph d or something like that. But um, obviously you're working with archeology southwest right now and that's based in Tucson which is and very far from from Red Lake ah is there an interest at some point in in continuing that work or or doing work again with with your community. 08:46.79 ASHLEIGH Yeah I would definitely say there is an interest um I'm not really sure what that would look like in the future I think it kind of depends where I'm based out of um and what's needed in the community on a personal level I learned a lot about. 08:58.33 archpodnet And. 09:04.10 ASHLEIGH Um, food and community and um I'm going to pause for a sec. 09:10.28 archpodnet Yeah. 09:16.54 ASHLEIGH Sorry about that there's commotion. Um, going to start that segment over. Um, okay sorry my partner was leaving Ray as I was trying to think in there I feel like there was a lot of noise. Um. 09:33.70 ASHLEIGH So let's see. 09:43.23 archpodnet We Also like don't have to like if you're if you're not interested in talking about this one like we can cut this all and move on like if you're. Feeling like there's more there than what you want to talk about or something. 10:05.78 ASHLEIGH Um, yeah I guess the thing is is I don't really know the answer to that question. So um, yeah, the 1 thing I was going to say is um, like doing the research. 10:11.40 archpodnet Yeah, yeah, yeah. 10:22.55 ASHLEIGH Made me really interested in our traditional foods on a personal level and um I think like cooking and working with food um has been more of an interest of of mine because of my research. And I on a personal level I'm not in a place where I can really engage in our traditional food ways just because I'm based in the desert and um I don't even have like a garden because I don't have a yard. But um I think that it taught me a lot about. Food Sovereignty and why it's important and um has definitely been ah in the back of my mind for like if I move back to the great lakes region or even if I can um have my own garden someday I've always wanted to learn hunting as Well. That like. I am interested in learning more on a personal level. Um, and then if the opportunity in the future presents itself I Definitely would love to work again. Um with Red Lake because I feel like it's one of my homes and I feel very comfortable there and I Love. Um, learning and being part of the community there. So. 11:39.62 archpodnet Um, okay, do you have um, any thoughts on how you want that edited like are you good with everything that you said and we'll just cut out that talk or we're part where we're talking in the middle or do you want to like cut that first part. 11:51.35 ASHLEIGH Yeah, that that sounds good to me like we could end where I just I know like maybe a few seconds before I asked for a pause and then we can yeah and then we could so they could start up again. 12:02.40 archpodnet So yeah, Okay, perfect. Awesome. 12:10.65 ASHLEIGH Where where where I started talking about. Um how it peaked my personal connection to food. 12:16.90 archpodnet Yeah, yeah I think that'll flow nicely. Once it's all edited. Thank you Editors Um, all right is let's see where were we um, personal interest like okay. 12:23.80 ASHLEIGH Okay, thank you. 12:34.72 archpodnet Um, yeah, so let's let's switch to your your current position which I'm really excited to hear more about this is this was actually like what got off starting about started talking about Re or not rerecording but recording another episode again was was this current work that you're doing. So Can you tell us a little bit about um, kind of more of an overview of your position to start and then we could go into to some specific projects. 13:09.36 ASHLEIGH Sure so ah for people unfamiliar with the organization archeology southwest is a nonprofit organization based in Tucson Arizona I think we have something like. 20 over twenty full time staff and ah we do a lot. Um, and so there's um, there's people that do research there's people that work on advocacy. Um, campaigns to protect cultural landscapes we do outreach and education about archeology and as well as like respectful engagement with with cultural sites and so um and then we we do things in the community and have volunteers and so. There's a lot going on but 1 of the um aspects of the organization that really drew me to the work was they tried to practice preservation archeology which I think is in line with a lot of ah. Tenants and values of indigenous archeology. But um, basically they try to like not do as destructive methodology that traditional archeology does so like. For example, you know when we're Excavating. You're actually destroying and disturbing a site. 14:44.63 ASHLEIGH Um, and so and part of preservation archeology as well is um, using Descendant Communities values and input in the work and so the organization. Was looking to do more and I think maybe better tribal collaboration. Um, and in their work and so this position um it was listed as director trot of tribal of the tribal collaboration initiative and um. Job description when I was looking at it was really long but um, it was a ah newly created position that was meant to um, help guide the research team The education educator people. The communications people. Everyone at the organization. Um and working with indigenous communities and um, another aspect of my job was um, we have this anti-luting and anti- vandalism program called save History. And so um, that was and another big portion of my work is helping to maintain the website and the social media and the content we put out um about respectful engagement with archeological sites and so. 16:16.15 ASHLEIGH Um, that's a little bit about what I do and it's pretty ah diverse and I work with um, a lot of different people. Um, but but I really enjoy it and um I get to keep working with indigenous people. Which is really great. 16:39.00 archpodnet Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so um I think we're we're about at a breakpoint but when we come back First let me ask you. About you know what does what does the day in the life actually look like in your job and I mean I know I'm sure that imagines that varies a lot. But ah, you know if you could just paint a picture for us when we get back of of ah what that job actually like looks like on ah on a day-to-day basis. Um, and we will be right back here in a moment. 17:12.66 ASHLEIGH Sounds good.