Jenny Lewis

Jenny Lewis

IPinCH Fellow: Sept 2012-Aug 2014

PhD Candidate, Department of Archaeology, Simon Fraser University 

Jenny is a PhD student (2015 expected graduation) in the Department of Archaeology at Simon Fraser University. Her research examines various stakeholders’ use, commodification, and rehabilitation of archaeological heritage associated with Fort Apache-Theodore Roosevelt School (FA-TRS) in Arizona. This site has recently been designated a National Historic Landmark (NHL) and still operates as an Indian boarding school.

Begun as an archaeological inventory requested by the Fort Apache Heritage Foundation, a non-profit organization chartered by the White Mountain Apache Tribe—an IPinCH partnering organization—this project has grown into a comparison of customary and US heritage management policy and practice, as well as issues of intellectual property (IP). During conversations with Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples associated with FA-TRS (as school students and staff or as historic park personnel), it became clear that this site is not strictly Indigenous or non-Indigenous; more than “entanglement” exists at FA-TRS. Specifically, if the site of FA-TRS is associated with memory and cultural identity for people from diverse backgrounds (including European settlers, Chinese Americans, Latin Americans, African Americans, Western Apaches, Hopi, Zuni, Navajo, US military, tribal and educational officials), who “owns” these memories? Can a cultural identity associated with a particular site be claimed by any one cultural group? Does accepting multiple groups’ and individuals’ claim on FA-TRS as representative of “their” past diminish others’ similar claims? This examination presents the opportunity to examine larger IP issues emerging at previously-colonial sites, as Indigenous groups assert their active role in colonial processes, and non-Indigenous group claim these sites as representative of their own history.

Jenny’s senior supervisor is Dr. John Welch.