Award provides opportunities for archeology student

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Michael White was "ecstatic" when he found out he would be one of this year's recipients of the University of Toronto President's Award for Outstanding Native Students of the Year, handed out each year to two Aboriginal students who have demonstrated excellence through their academic achievements and contributions to the Aboriginal community.

The honor came with a monetary award that the U of T archeology student put to good use-it allowed him to accept a 10-week internship at the Smithsonian Institute's National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C.

"It was really good," White said of the experience. "The one place where the Americans have really got us beat is awareness of cultural affiliation and integration of Indigenous cultures and the archeological record, anthropology and museum studies ... There's really a spirit of partnership down there."

While that same approach may be missing on this side of the border, White is hoping to be part of the movement that changes that situation.

"Within our own traditional communities there's a well-deserved mistrust of anthropological research. This is the interplay with anthropologists and Indians-they show up, do their research and leave and don't really leave any viable mark on the communities in which they study. There's a huge economic disparity between reserve life and the lives of these people that are studying us and that's got to change. So I saw an opportunity for myself to sort of help that process along, getting a clear place for our voice," he said.

"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past," he said, quoting from George Orwell's 1984. "I really think that has a lot to do with us because our past has been controlled through Indian Affairs, through residential schools, and now through the marketing of the past through anthropology and historians and museums," he said.

What he'd like to see is to see more of the past controlled by Aboriginal people, he said, "Having our own museums and representing our own past instead of having a white middle class male presenting our histories for us. Because their ideologies will pervade the versions of history that they tell."

White is set to complete his masters degree in September 2007, then he expects he'll either begin working toward earning his PhD, or will try to find employment in some aspect of archeology. As an Aboriginal archeologist, he sees a number of possible avenues open to him.

"There's a lot of places it can go," he said. "It's really an emerging field, Indigenous perspectives in archeology."

One of the options he's considering is starting up his own cultural resource management firm, focusing on protection and management of Aboriginal cultural resources. And he'd like to give local Aboriginal youth a chance to work on archeological projects taking place in their communities.

"It gives them a sense of history that we haven't really embraced in the past," he said. "From my experience, I don't really see that historical pride ... looking at archeological evidence and embracing that as our own."

White was quick to share the credit for his success at the U of T with First Nations House, a gathering place for Aboriginal students at the university that houses the Office of Aboriginal Student Services and the Native Students' Association.

"Without First Nations House I don't think I would have got where I am now," he said.