2017 Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, Genders and Sexualities

June 01 - 04, 2017

Cholena Smith, from the Shinnecock Indian Nation, Long Island, New York and Aunty Ellen Trevorrow, from the Ngarrindjeri nation, South Australia, share and discuss a selection of rare historical photographs they have curated from the early and mid-twentieth century, which focus on significant women in their respective communities. Their stories bring these images to life in rich detail, illumining the varied public and private roles Indigenous women have taken on in their own communities and across the broader society of these contrasting, yet also remarkably similar, settler-colonial nations. The photos highlight transnational issues around cultural sovereignty, cultural strength, human rights, and labor history, and demonstrate the significance of Indigenous photography and photographic repatriation in processes of intergenerational knowledge transfer. Many images are taken by Indigenous photographers and sourced from private collections, including those held in the Ngarrindjeri and Shinnecock cultural heritage centers; others are from public collections, such as the Long Island Collection, Easthampton Library and the South Australian Museum Archives.  This forum arises from a collaborative cultural exchange -- in partnership with Swinburne University -- between the Ngarrindjeri Nation of South Australia and the Shinnecock Indian Nation of Long Island, coastal peoples who have each experienced a long history of invasion, colonization and settlement in their lands. The photographs will be digitally displayed during the event and scholarly discussion will follow the presentation.