Now a Ph.D. student, working with Regna Darnell at the University of Western Ontario, Joshua Smith was IPinCH’s only undergraduate student Associate. Joshua sees action anthropology as a key to addressing contemporary issues, including the decolonization of research methods and Indigenous knowledge rights. In the final year of his B.A. degree at the University of Victoria in the Department of Anthropology, he focused on the history and historiography of anthropology, as well as applied research methodologies. A main interest is the work of action anthropologist Sol Tax in the mid-20th century. In Tax’s work, Joshua sees the merging of anthropology and political philosophy, the search to overcome cultural barriers to Indigenous and non-Indigenous relations, and the creation of programs that addressed issues in education, policy, and development in American Indigenous communities. Joshua has worked with IPinCH team members Michael Asch and Brian Noble. He sees his association with IPinCH as a great opportunity to learn from experts in the field. At the same time, he hopes to contribute to the project by exploring current collaborative research projects with Indigenous peoples and sharing the knowledge gained from such projects.
