In this episode we discuss opinions in Native inspired conferences. Conferences have been integrated in as a mode of convening and disseminating knowledge across Tribal Nations. They have become the mainstay for meeting and sharing some cultural pursuits and identities. We briefly discuss ideas that we have about conferences in general and touch on some pathways to reinventing a way to meet and discuss in a fashion that is less reflective of academic institutions.
As always, thank you for listening!
Hosts: Aaron Brien (Apsáalooke), Shandin Pete (Salish/Diné)
Episode Sponsor: Wyld Gallery - Austin Texas
Podcast Website: tribalresearchspecialist.buzzsprout.com
Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tribal-research-specialist-the-podcast/id1512551396
Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/1H5Y1pWYI8N6SYZAaawwxb
Twitter: @tribalresearchspecialist
Facebook: www.facebook.com/TribalResearchSpecialist
YouTube: www.youtube.com/channel/UCL9HR4B2ubGK_aaQKEt179Q
Website: www.tribalresearchspecialist.com
Click below ↓ to...
In this episode we discuss opinions in Native inspired conferences. Conferences have been integrated in as a mode of convening and disseminating knowledge across Tribal Nations. They have become the mainstay for meeting and sharing some cultural pursuits and identities. We briefly discuss ideas that we have about conferences in general and touch on some pathways to reinventing a way to meet and discuss in a fashion that is less reflective of academic institutions.
As always, thank you for listening!
Hosts: Aaron Brien (Apsáalooke), Shandin Pete (Salish/Diné)
Episode Sponsor: Wyld Gallery - Austin Texas
Podcast Website: tribalresearchspecialist.buzzsprout.com
Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tribal-research-specialist-the-podcast/id1512551396
Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/1H5Y1pWYI8N6SYZAaawwxb
Twitter: @tribalresearchspecialist
Facebook: www.facebook.com/TribalResearchSpecialist
YouTube: www.youtube.com/channel/UCL9HR4B2ubGK_aaQKEt179Q
Website: www.tribalresearchspecialist.com
Click below ↓ to...
The Human Torch was denied a bank loan
Shandin Pete:Yeah, it did some who don't do us.
Aaron Brien:How come we don't do a song anymore?
Shandin Pete:Oh yeah, it was I put it in afterwards. Let me do one right now. Let me find one row because I got a couple lined up.
Aaron Brien:Check it out good just because you got to listen to what we have
Shandin Pete:okay yeah, I've been putting songs in the beginning of them I don't know if you've been listening to him some really good signs.
Unknown:I haven't listened to them
Aaron Brien:I've never listened to a full one. I've listened to the beginning of about four or five maybe
Shandin Pete:you get too boring
Aaron Brien:Well, it's kind of yourself
Unknown:this guy know
Aaron Brien:me oh my name totally probably wrong to start with there. No. So cre would listen to it and be like What the hell is he saying?
Shandin Pete:Yeah, but you're going to talk about your your experience your most recent experience at this event you want to know which event I don't know he's in California or something.
Aaron Brien:Since since the time I was in California, I've been to Denver and Great Falls
Shandin Pete:man everywhere I'm in I mean, that's a lot of places. Well, here's one let's check this one out. Okay, play check it out. See if this works you ready for it?
Aaron Brien:I'm so ready. It's
Shandin Pete:ready. You're not sounding excited enough. You're ready you're kind of in the dumps man you don't be I'm not
Aaron Brien:dumpy Scott Hall I just got back from great phone no the whole way the road okay all
Shandin Pete:right all right, here we go. This will this will sue you. I don't know what's the unit where we went Wait a minute. We played this one already once. Do you remember it?
Aaron Brien:Rocky Boy. Yeah,
Shandin Pete:it's a good one Yeah, it's a good one. War Dance. All right, now. Let's get to the I got this. I don't know. I don't know who this is. But I've been pulling all these tracks from the same reel to reel. And it's a mix the first Horse Song Shabak song and the next ones are our dance that's what they aren't dance song
Unknown:yeah yeah, I like that
Shandin Pete:Yeah, good one.
Aaron Brien:Sensual song
Shandin Pete:man,
Aaron Brien:that was a Shinto soul. Song did Tommy remind me of winter night see?
Shandin Pete:You yeah that's a good one Yeah, I don't know. I've been pulling all these songs off of this one reel to reel I have about 30 others I don't know who this is. I don't know anything about it but sounds good deadly once you drink in there again a chicken Tang again is that the needy society? They're both orange it's hard to tell the tell tale Oh
Aaron Brien:yeah, that sound was about as tasty as this Sunday go to your local store. Get yourself Sunday the
Shandin Pete:honor we can get Sunny D to pitching some advertisement dollars because we've named dropped them at least at least maybe half dozen times.
Aaron Brien:Yeah, so so I will get back to the song but sometimes I don't want to drink a pop. But then waters like too plain for the moment. Oh, yeah. If we got some Sunny D I'm going Sunny D
Shandin Pete:going all the way with the Sunny D
Aaron Brien:Yeah, I'm going Sunny D with it. But that song let's get to that song. Okay. What is that song? What is that song make you feel? Chandi
Shandin Pete:feels like it. It feels a holistic and it makes space for traditional thought. In
Aaron Brien:does that sound make you want to acknowledge the land?
Shandin Pete:Yeah, it conjures up. well crafted land acknowledgement. Who? Yeah. Followed by
Aaron Brien:forgetting this is dogs land. We should do like dog land T shirts.
Shandin Pete:Oh, yeah. We are a well, you know, we do we know we need we need some additional sponsors. So this is a I hate to do it.
Aaron Brien:I think if we go, okay, we, if we're gonna have a plead for sponsorship, we gotta go. We got to, we got to put out more content. See, that's the problem. Okay. The idea of not having the sponsors doesn't marry us to having like a weekly thing or like, I feel like if people are really kicking out the dollars to us, like we've wasted at least.
Shandin Pete:Okay, you cut out there. But I think you said you think you think we need weekly content?
Aaron Brien:If I wouldn't? Wouldn't you want that? If you're a sponsor? I would. I would want you would want more you would want yeah, name recognition you would want? Yeah, and I just don't know if you're committed to this podcast
Shandin Pete:all right. All right. Let's, let's let's, let's look at the division of labor.
Aaron Brien:Know, isn't great. But, you know, this is the classic artist, the songwriter and the drummer argument. You know, mean you you have your role. You're good at it. I mean, you're better than I would be but you know, I bring the pizzazz.
Shandin Pete:Bring the cowbell.
Aaron Brien:I bring the razzle dazzle.
Shandin Pete:No, I enjoyed doing it. If I could, if I could increase the frequency. Yeah, man. I just don't know. I just don't know if it's
Aaron Brien:I feel like that was an attack on me. Like if I could
Unknown:would you say like, could what?
Shandin Pete:I let me break it down for you. I do it but I don't think I can keep up. Oh, yeah, I was talking about like, like a pure academic. Based on the frequency of content, which we produce about indigenous matters, I think would compromise my sustainability in my workflow.
Aaron Brien:Could we do bi weekly?
Shandin Pete:I think we can do weekly. I honestly think
Aaron Brien:I think I think we could but do we want to do weekly?
Shandin Pete:No, it'd be hard.
Aaron Brien:I mean, it'd be hard to do. I've seen I mean Do you can turn the mic on and I'll talk anytime, right? I know, this will be not the one editing. I'm not the one providing content. I'm not the one lining up guests and coming up with stories like subject ideas. I'm not I just come here. Freakin I'm the polar bear on the ball that's all I do,
Shandin Pete:man. No, I think I think bi weekly is probably a better, a better schedule. We have some guests that are eager to participate.
Aaron Brien:Well, let's talk about them. Who are you? Who do you got? On the hook to do the podcast?
Shandin Pete:Well, I don't want to say because we want to build some suspense. But I have some. I have a gentleman who's pretty well known in power world that is pretty eager to join the conversation. He's got a lot to say a lot of knowledge.
Aaron Brien:Yeah. What is his area of study? Or profession? or hobby? What is it?
Shandin Pete:Well, was this 20 questions or what? Would a beach and guess who it is?
Aaron Brien:No, no, I'm not sure. I know who it is.
Shandin Pete:Oh, do you?
Aaron Brien:I'm pretty sure yeah. I will give you an idea. Something to look forward to.
Shandin Pete:I don't think you know, this is not somebody we've talked about. Oh, settle down. Price. Guest.
Aaron Brien:I don't need to know. Okay. Know, what I'm getting at is okay. Just sort of listener kind of has something to look forward to, you know, yeah.
Shandin Pete:Yeah, you know, there's a number there's, so there's two types of people in the power world, you know, you know, those two types, right. There's the singer. And then there's the dancer. And I think both have a perspective about number one about singing. They both require a certain or have a degree of familiarity. Even if the dancer is not a singer himself. They know, they know good music. But they also know if they've been around for a while they know the ins and outs of some of the history of the of that world. And that's interesting.
Aaron Brien:The only one was too. Damn, there's gonna be some power people that listen to this. And we like to do
Shandin Pete:that. Well. I mean, there's the spectator. Then there's all the
Aaron Brien:code about the MC. Oh,
Shandin Pete:yeah, the MC See, now we need to get an MC on here. I think that would be I don't know. I don't know.
Aaron Brien:We don't need to get I don't know. I'm just I'm just kidding. No, I'm
Shandin Pete:what I'm curious of is. Um, so in the last 10 episodes, we've had a number of downloads a number of listeners a lot from the Seattle area, who picked up a lot of folks from British Columbia. But a good following in Missoula in Denver. A decent number of downloads and, you know, overseas and Germany. And, yeah, because shame dunka. So I'm curious what I mean, we've talked about a lot of things. I don't know if we have great. We're not great at following up on some of the things we thought are cool to talk about, because we just show up one day and talk about some random thing.
Aaron Brien:Yeah, maybe we should like come spill the beans a little bit on how we do this podcast. I think people see the podcast and they think I liked your topic. For the podcast in I forget. Because we don't really come up with a topic until after like you you put a title on on the podcast. Yeah. But from the conversation from the conversation. Normally we just press record and we just talk and then something comes out of it and then you fix it up, clean it up and and you put it out there. You do that i i Don't do any of that. So so sometimes I forget that the podcast has titles. So I have to like go back and look if somebody be like, Oh, we listened to your whatever, whatever episode number Yeah. What did we talk? I don't talk about that. It's cool because it makes me sound kind of like arrogant. But um, I'm not really not trying to be arrogant. I just don't listen to the podcast. I should. I should that way. I know like, what you said, what I said, what what I shouldn't have said and yeah, I think that's part of the magic though
Shandin Pete:it is I don't think we should feel censored in any way but cautious about what we say so that we're not cautious just blabbing off whatever comes to our mind. Yeah, I don't know, man. But you know, what I'd like to is if we could get some ratings. If people listen on, especially on the Apple podcast app, just throw up some stars, man so we can know how we're doing. So far, we got 33 ratings. They're all five stars, which is good. But you know, what if we got some haters out there that are listening, and they don't like something? I'd like to know. I want to address it.
Aaron Brien:They have every right to tell us
Shandin Pete:every rate. Yeah, that's the way it should be. We
Aaron Brien:don't have any obligation to listen. But
Shandin Pete:True, true. Yeah.
Aaron Brien:Anyway, what do you want to talk about? Let's do it.
Shandin Pete:I was you had something because he said, you said to me on the phone when you were in California. He said, Oh, yeah, I want let's do podcast. Man. You're like hyping me up. So we send me a link, we add a date and then I was waiting for you to say, let's do it. I reached out anyway. Yeah.
Aaron Brien:Let's have a Sunday. I said Sunday. Yeah, ever Sterling.
Shandin Pete:Okay. It didn't have all my fun.
Aaron Brien:So then I landed Friday night. Yeah. And then Tuesday, I flew out again. Yeah, Denver came back Friday. Had a good weekend. And then Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Today's Wednesday, I was in Great Falls for Air Force. Consultation, which we were trying to draft a memorandum of agreement with the other Montana tipos. We had that going for us and and now I drove back and I'm here but um, yeah, you system on the road.
Shandin Pete:You were at you had something in California, a conference at home a Tom, a Tom, and you wanted to talk about some things that you observed there. But what is a Tom first
Aaron Brien:American Association of tribal libraries and museums, our tribal libraries, archives and museums.
Shandin Pete:Oh, okay. Sounds riveting.
Aaron Brien:It wasn't.
Shandin Pete:Well, okay. So here's this is a cool thing talk about is. Yeah, libraries. Oh, yeah. Yeah, libraries. In particular, indigenous, LED or run libraries. That's kind of the theme, right? Or that was the, that's the organization. Archivists. Yeah,
Aaron Brien:I don't know. I'm not versed in at home. But what I do know what I saw what was made evident, was really just anybody doing work in those fields in those institutions related to tribal people. So you had people that were working at the Autry Museum, the Chicago Field Museum. Yeah. I mean, even little tiny community libraries, if they're working with tribal communities, our tribal content, they seem to be involved in a tone. This was my first time I'm not involved in libraries or archives really, other than just doing research. And as far as Museum, the extent of it goes, it's just kind of like nag press stuff, and what little exhibit experience I have. Yeah. Working with small exhibits, and then the biggest one is the Field Museum thing, but that that wasn't really like me. I was like, I helped with it.
Shandin Pete:Yeah, yeah. So
Aaron Brien:it was interesting. It was a very eclectic people. They all seem like good people. Okay, well meaning people but I don't know if it's my crowd, you know, because, yeah. I kind of run with the dry drunks. You know what I mean? Like I kind of run a kind of run with like I don't know that the people on the edge. Yeah, the periphery the periphery the satellites, you know, these were there were some heavy hitters man, Richard West who was original curator for the Museum of the American Indian horse Joe Horse Capture who he probably doesn't see himself as a heavy hitter, but he is in the museum world. That might be a good one to have on the podcast. I mean, Billy Mills was there, you know what I mean? Like it's that was a Columbian
Shandin Pete:Yeah, banquet. Banderas Bay
Aaron Brien:banquets. There was like ticketed only events. There keynotes keynotes plein air in every session. I mean, the whole deal, you know, so bad. More of like a powdered eggs kind of guy. You know? Yeah.
Shandin Pete:You get a bag. Oh, yeah. A book bag and where it is. You got a book bag out of it. Yeah.
Aaron Brien:No, it was it was one of them canvas like old lady bags, you know that they take
Shandin Pete:get to get some groceries or something. Put their put their mail in it or they're cutting out there, dude.
Aaron Brien:I know. I am purposely froze up because I I heard my mic crack. And so I stopped. And I just kind of let my I don't know sometimes it feels like my internet's got to breathe.
Shandin Pete:Elon Musk's, got to breathe.
Aaron Brien:Yeah, I have the Elon Musk internet.
Shandin Pete:Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's cool and exciting. But well, I don't know if that's exciting. I don't know, man. Remember, we were going to do this. It was cool. It was it was Yeah. Yeah, we were going to do this thing. And whenever whenever I got around, to getting it done, we were sent a reimagine what the what a conference would be like, from, from the folks who are on the periphery? Not the academic. Not the, what do they call them? The NGOs? Not the not the GIOS. But just like, I call it look like, like so what's what's okay, first of all, what's the what's the purpose of a conference? Right, you get a bunch of a bunch of people together, talk about what they're up to what they did. Cool stuff, best practices? I don't know. All that kind of stuff. How do you how do you wrap that up into something that is familiar to folks on the periphery of things. That's what we're trying to do. Remember? Do you remember where that was? objective of the research center at one time we were gonna
Unknown:Oh, so I was wondering where you're going? Yeah. Okay.
Aaron Brien:One time, during the IRC days, we wanted to have we were calling it a conference, but I don't think that was the goal was to have like a tradition like what people know. Yeah. Conference. Yeah. We were. Okay, I'm not against conferences. Yeah. Yeah. But for the purposes of what we were trying to accomplish. I would I personally remember kind of questioning the current form of conference in on like, I don't know. And I know people where it's like, we're trained to say, Oh, it was a good conference. It's like, almost like, especially if somebody else pays for it. We're not like supposed to say that, you know?
Shandin Pete:Yeah. Yeah.
Aaron Brien:But like, oh, excuse me. I was in Temecula, California from Monday to Friday. And I can tell you with all honesty, without feeling bad. I only needed to be there for Wednesday and Thursday. Good. Yeah. I mean, you know what I mean? Yeah, those were very productive days for me. Yeah. I met a lot of people that might, it might turn into something. I wanted some sessions where I learned some things. I was disappointed in a few sessions, like, a lot of people bragging on themselves. But that I think that's kind of people feel like they're, they need to be in that world. So like, if I was to give a talk, I typically don't talk about myself for the first 10 minutes, right. Like, yeah, I'll just say, Oh, I've done this work. This is kind of my background. And I can go on. I do notice sometimes at conferences where the entire talk is people like telling us their CV. Right, right. It's like, well, I mean, that's cool. Like, I'm assuming, I would assume and maybe it's bad for me to assume that you're qualified. And that's why you're here. That's why we're sitting in here listening to you. But I really want useful things like when, when I, when someone gives a talk, I want to be able to take something from the talk and say, hey, I can put I can use that in something, whatever that is. Yeah. And I got that I got some of that there. So I think the IRC goal was more like that, wasn't it? If I remember correctly?
Shandin Pete:Yeah. I mean, so. Yeah. So the goal, I guess, and still hold true to this goal is really to just trying to get a handle on what what we think of as, as indigenous research, not necessarily from an academic standpoint, but for from a community standpoint. And then how that would translate over into conference style meeting to convene folks who thought in that similar manner, without the preliminary, the key note, you know, that standard format, I didn't, I didn't know if it's possible to do it like that. I don't know what the format would be like, if we had no idea what that's what we were trying to reimagine what that would look like. And I don't know, of course, we never, we never came to an answer to that. And we never even got a chance to test anything out in that area. But that was the idea. So if you think about, think about that, in terms of so what, okay, so who's producing new knowledge in your community right now? Who was doing is that that's happening? Right? Yeah, that's happening.
Aaron Brien:I wouldn't pretend to know all of them. But
Shandin Pete:no, but just, you know, there's some folks. Yeah, and they're doing it. They're, they're doing it in a way that you feel represents the beliefs and protocols, and the processes of your community. It's not it's not situated anywhere else. But in what is a tradition in your community?
Aaron Brien:Yeah, and I would say it's not all academically driven.
Shandin Pete:No, that's that's the point. I get that. It's not it's not academically driven.
Aaron Brien:Most of it? Yeah. Most of it's not, it's not, it's
Shandin Pete:driven by the need of the community. Have a process that is traditional, to your lands?
Aaron Brien:It's traditional as it can be. It's traditionally
Shandin Pete:okay. Yeah traditionalist can be. So then what venue? Is there for those folks doing that, to share across how they do something, what they've discovered some of the mistakes they've made some of the, you know, the connections they have, because that's kind of what conferences conferences are, right, is that you sharing out what you did how you did it, hopes to make a connection to help somebody else along. Because that was really the idea was take folks who are producing knowledge in the in the manner in which is traditional for our day and age, not necessarily of an academic nature, but potentially, and then some forum for folks to come together to share those. Those ideas and thoughts out. Mm hmm. That was that goal.
Aaron Brien:Yeah. And, and I think it's still possible, but the problem is is like the, the culture calm come native conferences. How do we shake that? Because, yeah, if you say, Shawn Dean, you're coming to this conference? A, B, and C, right? Yeah. You you're going there. You have a thing already in your head of what's going to happen. Yeah, and, and the truth is, is you're not far off, right.
Shandin Pete:I know. Yeah. I know what kind of clothes I need to wear.
Aaron Brien:You can even you can even know what other people are gonna wear? Yeah, you
Shandin Pete:know? Yeah. You know, there's gonna be a bunch of sessions and there might be one or two that are of interest to you, and they're gonna last for an hour. And it might not be what you thought it was gonna be. Or maybe it is. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Anyway, yeah, we know. So,
Aaron Brien:how do you put on something in the world of tribal people? It's kind of this nature of native conference going, how do you put on something that That doesn't bring those preconceived notions, because I think you have to shed some of that in order for this to be successful. Now my thinking, they aren't thinking too much. But I do know that like, I haven't been to like a conference in a long time. So like, yeah, most of my travel for work is related to consultation. So it's MOH driven, like it's, it's, it's federal agencies discussing with tribes. So like to just to go to a conference to be a listener. It's been a long time. Like, it's been a long time. And it was a good reminder. And it is a massive conference. Like it's massive. It's not. Yeah, it's, it's crazy man. Like, it's the biggest conference I've ever been to. It's in. I mean, the most beautiful place and forever, right, like, it's holy smokes. Like there's palm trees, the sun, the weather's. It's kind of not realistic anyway, it's not to me, it's not a realistic reflection of tribal people, and tribal issues and tribal needs. It's kind of this it's like a manufactured world. Right? Right. Man, I worry about like, for me that like, I don't know if it's if it's authenticity or insecurity, because sometimes those things can cause you to do the same thing. And I worry about myself going to conferences like that, because, and I don't want to I don't want to sound cheesy, but like, I've always kind of felt a little bit punk rock, you know what I mean? Like, that was kind of my style. Like, I like the idea of questioning everything and kind of being on the edge. So when I was under palm trees in Temecula, California talking about standards and practices of museums, and some of these are the most elite museums in North America. It's like, is this really like my thing? Like, is this really a tribal thing? Like what I'm doing right now? made me question my punk rock Ness.
Shandin Pete:You were conforming to the man?
Aaron Brien:I was. Yeah, I mean, I'm not saying I enjoyed it. The hot tub was nice. The rooms are nice. I like those kinds of things. But just just this idea of like, how can we do something badass, right? And yeah, and I remember we talked about that conference or what I kept we thought we had a different name for it.
Shandin Pete:I don't know if we did. Okay, quick break here to acknowledge some of our Patreon sponsors. We've got Ray Donnelly, wild gallery in Austin, Texas, head on over to his website, check out some of the items he's got for sale there, maybe a Christmas item or two. With Christmas coming up. Great place to find a gift. We've got Travis Davis as well. Both these Patreon sponsors pitching in $25 a month. Thank you very much. We also have Louella Brynn from four points press pitching in $15 a month. Awesome. Thank you. Also to other Patreon sponsors. We've got Emma Lafave. We've got Jason free asure Mary Bobbitt, Ryan Swanson, Mark, Xena, and Rachel holster. Thank you all for pitching in and keeping the show on the air.
Aaron Brien:But then we did those colloquial
Shandin Pete:Colloquium. Yeah. And that was that was a way to reimagine what that thing is in academics, we tried to reimagine what that would look like and how that would work.
Aaron Brien:Those were cool, man.
Shandin Pete:I was I
Aaron Brien:really, I didn't think I didn't enjoy it in the same way like that. You when you were describing them to me. Yeah, I was like, Man, I don't know. But I liked it. And when John John came in this thing, I was like, this is cool. Like, I really like this and then it for a student because I was thinking of being a student. I was like, this would be badass man. Yeah, I was a student, saw a real Indian dude talking to Indian people about Indian things that are so specific to us, and not feeling like you have to overly explain everything that you can just kind of go in the audience figure things out, which Yeah, it's so it's kind of like a journey. Right? You're kind of like, going through this thing. I liked it.
Shandin Pete:Yeah. And I think that was trying to build on China trying to understand how that would work in this conference idea, so that that little piece of it was was my kind of vision for how this this conference might work. So really getting getting indigenous scholars together and have tackling one tough question or a series of tough questions where they could speak freely. It didn't have, you know, necessarily was constrained by anything in. Yeah, I mean, that was good, I think, to have a John John over for that to set that off. And it was really nice. But what else that was? That was my next question for that thing as okay, this works, it seems to work well, students enjoyed it. People got to engage in some, some deep content. But what else? It couldn't just be days of that? Or maybe it could be I don't know what it was. I do not know. I don't either. No idea. Well,
Aaron Brien:we never even got that far with it. I mean, we did have some idea was good. Yeah, the podcast, probably was the best thing we ever did really, when it was it came to that, because I don't think we had any idea that it was going to be this fun for one, right. And that it would actually reach an audience that we wouldn't, wouldn't have reached otherwise. And they wouldn't have accepted, accepted it the way they are now. Like, what I like about the podcast thing is you just throw it out there. Whoever wants it can have it. It doesn't. So the audience is people who want to listen to what we have to say. Right? Well, that's not the case all the time with a conference. Yeah, sometimes it's trying to spend dollars before the fiscal year and they see something related to it. And they gotta
Shandin Pete:Yeah, that was kind of the thing I tried to do with that submission to, to sadness that time to try to do those videos. In a different way, you know, instead of producing a scientific Did you watch it?
Aaron Brien:I just watched it this year.
Shandin Pete:Yeah. Way to go. Awesome. Do
Aaron Brien:we have
Shandin Pete:we got a YouTube channel?
Aaron Brien:It's on? Is it on the website? Do we put it on the website? I could put it on the website? I don't think it is it should we should put it on the web. I think I've seen the YouTube channel. I mean, I know I have. But it's got like, 12 followers or something?
Shandin Pete:No, yeah. Yes, that takes produce those kinds of things. So this takes time. I don't know when I'm trailing off here on ideas. But, and I don't know if it'll, it'll ever come to be but I think it's a thought there was just one organization I helped out why didn't I was just participated in. I man, I wish I could remember what they do. But they go to different reservations, and they have their meeting. But they set it up like a like sort of like a traditional gathering, you know, and they talk about the issues that are going on at the time. They they they fly in these older folks from different parts of the country to come in and and just share what they know and talk about the issue at the time. I wish I could remember what they did but when it came to our Lee we went that's when we tried to bring back this this the process of welcoming guests into our country or you know when we meet other tribes on the plains traditionally there was a process of making peace or I guess that's what the that's what the trappers and traders call it but so we we revive that for them and we welcome them to into our onto the power grounds I guess it was but then we also a part of that later later on in their in their meeting. We also did that see you'd love for that for the basketball team that placed in
Aaron Brien:the council of elders or something like that. Yeah, I
Shandin Pete:don't know. I don't remember what it was called. And that seemed like something that's kind of aligned with that thought of what we're talking about, but I'm not quite sure. That's exactly it.
Aaron Brien:Yeah, I have my opinions on the Council of our circle of elders, but we won't get into that. It was good. You guys are good. Even came to like Billings and the crow res at one time and or soon art. There are Arlie and yeah, I think they were in New York one time or something. Yes. The New York. Yeah, that's it. I get what you mean like kind of they just they were they did a different thing. It was different. Yeah. Yeah. But also like kind of standing around and talking. I don't know if that's the way to go either like, yeah, that whole Talking Stick idea. And yeah, I don't know. And then also like, how do you get people to buy into like being productive and not just sharing how they feel? Like I'm all for sharing how they feel. And I'm all for like, Yeah, but you know what I mean? Like, where it's like, okay, that's how you feel I get it. But I really needed a tool. I needed a tool to take home and apply it to something. Yeah. Or even just pocket it. Just say this is here. Yeah, I can use. I need it. So
Shandin Pete:yeah, there's a tendency to hear the same message. repeatedly over and over through the years. Yeah, when it's in Native people talking about Native things. That's probably not true everywhere. But you'll get a heavy dose of the of that. Yeah, not a lot of
Aaron Brien:not a lot of novels. No, not a lot. We don't treat Reese tribal research at trade. We treat it like an emotion.
Shandin Pete:You. Yeah, yeah. I think you're right there. Yeah. I think you're right. And I don't know if we're doing a great job.
Aaron Brien:Well, I wouldn't even know we're not doing I don't think we're doing a great job. I think that the part of the business or the role of what we do, though, is the first question the current state of it. Yeah. And not to question white people, because that that was that's been done. And that's gonna continue to be done. Yeah. Well, I think what we're doing is we're questioning ourselves like, people, which yes, I don't know, any other tribal people doing that? Yeah.
Shandin Pete:Yeah, that's the that's the real important one. That's the message I pass along in my work is some of these questions that you're that non native folks are struggling with? We don't have the answers for because we haven't figured it out ourselves. Because we don't allow ourselves room to talk about it. To find solutions. We just talk about it. Like what we're doing here, talking about it.
Aaron Brien:Yeah. I'm not so not in research anymore. I don't, I don't do it. Like as a profession. It's, it's back to read the research part of my life is back to being a hobby, which it was since I was 16. Right. Right. And it was, it was a short window of academic research. I feel like, and you're in the same boat. And now, and you're still in that window, but that it wasn't about putting out a bunch of stuff. It was about the quality of it and doing it like tribal people, as tribal people and not as just tribal people doing research, you know what I mean? Yeah. Because that's boring. And there's no need for it. Like, I don't need to publish, I don't need, I've never needed to publish anything. I've never needed to do any of that it was because something intrigued me. And that publication was willing to ask things a little bit different. or in one case, I just, I felt like I fixed a problem, which was this document was going to be submitted by somebody else. It had very little tribal voice in it. They asked me to like add, and I took that as an opportunity to like just changed like format is which some, some words around. So the purpose was different, right? I wasn't doing it to like, Oh, I'm going to put this out. It was more like, Hey, this is just a cool time to like, maybe throw my it's I don't know if you remember this, but I I wanted to create a format. I remember a chart for tribal research. So I tried to use that as a as like a model, but the timing wasn't great. So I couldn't really
Shandin Pete:go for it. But yeah,
Aaron Brien:to me, I thought that was something useful. Like what do we got APA, aaa, Chicago, MLA, like I wanted to create one for tribal people to do and how we use formatting and research, you know? Yeah.
Shandin Pete:Yeah, I hear you. It's needed. Somebody published something about that. recently. I think. I haven't gotten a chance to look at it. I don't know nothing about it. But I think people are thinking about that.
Aaron Brien:Yeah, and that was kind of the the goal of the research center was to like, question a lot of that stuff and start developing things and put out I guess you could call it content right? Yeah, yeah, that's probably the best word for like, if you think of the IRC as a social media thing, like we were just trying to produce content. Yeah. useful content
Shandin Pete:useful.
Aaron Brien:And we I think we still, I mean, we've done that with the podcast or like, I feel like we. I think so. I don't know. We've done a lot of I get a lot of good feedback, man. I think people just like the way we talk about tribal issues. I don't. And there's questions people have. So this is the one I get a lot. Yes. They're like, they were afraid to say something than they listened to our podcasts. And they're like, I'm glad you said it. And in the end of the episode is, is the land acknowledgement one like people, man, like I was thinking the same thing, man. Like, you're not allowed to say it. And I'm like, well, that's I'm there's no rules. There's no land acknowledgement rule, like saying you can make fun of it. It's.
Unknown:Yeah.
Shandin Pete:Yeah. We talked a lot about our we've talked about a lot of those controversial, like personhood for rivers. We've talked about some of the
Aaron Brien:thing that when it gets brought up to that one's been brought up to me.
Shandin Pete:Yeah, things we don't things that seem funny. They don't seem to fit. We talked about Yeah.
Aaron Brien:Just so I can correct. I mean, I can right or wrong. There was a comment made to me that they, they they're like, but it works. My comments on the on the personhood thing. We're not that it's not a good strategy for regulation. And for for that it was just this weird idea of like, comparing the river to us. Yeah. When at least Synchro believe we're not like that. We're not even we don't live there. We're not from there. Like, it's a separate they're separate beings in there and like to be a personhood, it's like, wow, that's like putting us first in a way. I don't know.
Shandin Pete:If we don't know. No, I think the message that I got from that was, yeah, it fits, fits in the legal structure that we got placed in tech resources, or even if you want to call them resources, protects those things that we feel are important. Whatever. Yeah, that's another
Aaron Brien:thing, too. Yeah. I'll see like cultural resource management, they'll be like, is that what you think of your culture as a resource? And I'm like, Yeah, that's I do.
Shandin Pete:How could you think of your brothers and sisters as a resource?
Aaron Brien:Like it? It's like, if your issue is, is down to that, like, is that an issue? Like, is that a real issue?
Shandin Pete:Yeah, yeah. It is. Some people it is. Yeah.
Aaron Brien:Well, it's, it's I mean, I go down the road here. And there's people don't have heat. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, yeah, that's an issue. Yeah, issue when it's seven below zero. Yeah. The fact that I don't, I don't say cultural heritage or cultural between cultural resource like that, man. I'm sorry. Like, I just don't? Yeah, okay. I'll say it. But I think it's a pretty shallow critique, you know what I mean?
Shandin Pete:Yeah, that's like, that's like this thing that's, that's here in the in academics is engaging with indigenous or native communities for research, right? So the new thing is, you got to engage first before you even think of an idea. So you can co produce an idea, an academic idea for research or an idea that emanates from the community for research. And I'm, and I'm, when I'm sitting here listening to these things, and I think about you know, like my mom and my neighbors and my other people living in the community, they could care less about what the university wants to do. Or, or have the have the, the will to sit around and develop a research question with researchers from the University. Is this thing you're talking about? The more important thing is oh, man, I got a I got a car payment due and I don't know how I'm gonna make it.
Aaron Brien:Man. Do you think Browning when they're snowed in or like thinking like, you know, I feel like they're the we should be using the term indigenous when it comes to like, there's Six feet in front of the door. And in that moment, that's as indigenous as the country is going to be that moment. Yeah. We got people in office on a campus, financially and socially, completely disconnected from what's happening on reservations and communities that have been impacted. And they're like, We really got to figure out what we're going to say in the land acknowledgement. Like, I get it, I get it. I'm trying to be sensitive, but I just find like that, because I know with myself, I've kind of suffered from some of that, like, what do they call that like imposter syndrome? In a way? Yeah, like a form of it, where I'm like, I feel pretty, I feel privileged, like, in my life, I feel nothing was handed to me. But I do feel like, in a way, I don't have those same sufferings anymore. Right, you know, and, and so there's times where I'm like, here, I'm talking about all this stuff. But yet, down the road, they're having a hard time, you know, so then it kind of is a good reality check, you know? Yeah.
Shandin Pete:Yeah. Yeah, it is. It's that I try to inject some realism into this, some of this academic chatter about about it. But you know, again, I try to make sure that the folks know that I'm not representative of everything. That's, that's true of native communities. But, you know, the, the idea of, of research, in our way, is far different. And it doesn't work on the same timescale. And it doesn't speak the same language. And folks that want to connect the lack of fluency and in, in cultural understandings to even bridge that gap yet. So that's what I try to tell them. But in plain words, that's what it is. While some people don't can't pay the heating bill this month, they could care less about anything else besides that.
Aaron Brien:Yeah, yeah. And I think that I think there is a place for like, academic research on reservations. But I think I do think it's not, it's fine. It's not in the same. Like, it's so crazy sometimes like,
Shandin Pete:yeah, like, so.
Aaron Brien:I work for the crow Tribe of Indians. Yeah, that's the name that name like, yeah. Right. That's the name of the tribe. Like, yes, the official name of the tribes. So yeah, there was a turn of the website, you'll see go to the website, crow Tribe of Indians, the language in the documents that we use, whatever. Yeah. So I had a lady like telling me like, are wanted to introduce me for some in there. And I said, Who's, who do you work for in us? Well, our official names crow Tribe of Indians. And she goes, whoa, I'll have you say that. And I'm like, why? In the moment, as a guard, whatever, but afterwards, I was like, why wouldn't she say? And she's like, Well, we, I can't say Indian.
Shandin Pete:We just did.
Aaron Brien:Like, I mean, is it down to that, like, we're we're fighting each other. And I feel like some of that some of that is coming from people, tribal people who are disconnected in themselves. So they find battles to fight, which is good. And you need those people. Yeah. And I acknowledged that there was times where I kind of fought some of them battles, because they needed to be fought in that moment. But right, if, if my employer is the crow Tribe of Indians, then say the word Yeah, yeah, say it. Aaron is literally employed by the crow Tribe of Indians. Anyway, that the name that it's Crow people literally behind the name, so it's not like someone appropriated the name. And yeah, we're gonna get in trouble for this episode, because I'm attacking some. Don't get me wrong.
Shandin Pete:No, because still, though. I Yeah. Well, this is the thing. No, this is then. And I think you're right. So number one, we have to be able to talk critically about things that mattered to us. I have to that, but that doesn't necessarily mean that those who listen are going to be accepting of that criticism because of that we don't live the way we used to anymore. People can't handle. Some people can't handle criticism.
Aaron Brien:In that way, man, I have a hard time with it, too.
Shandin Pete:Yeah, so you're a good example, but I need it. You do? You do man? Yeah, you do? Well, grad school, teach is used that too, so? It does. Yeah, man. knock your head down and the dirt. Yeah. And
Aaron Brien:then like you wrestled growing up.
Shandin Pete:Yeah.
Aaron Brien:That's a pretty good way of learning some humility. Yeah. Like you think you're pretty good. You got you got a good outside single or good ankle pic. Maybe you can you got a pretty good arm drag, then you'll meet some kid who you think you can burn right through and he just blast double right to you so fast. Sophie needles,
Shandin Pete:you wouldn't think how strong they'd be. I mean, this person's my same weight. It's my same height, but age, same age. And then you start grabbing you thrown in like holy cow.
Aaron Brien:There's people grab your wrist and you're like, Yeah, this is different. Yeah,
Shandin Pete:this is gonna be a tough one.
Aaron Brien:Like, getting the the other ribbon. Getting the girl like moments like that, though. teach you a lot, right when you're young. They teach you that. Like there's always someone who's got a better idea. Literally like, yeah, in that sense. It's honest, straight wrestling is a very honest sport. Yeah, it's like, if you make a mistake,
Shandin Pete:you lose. You lose. Yeah, in front of everybody. And
Unknown:we're all men in front every and there's
Shandin Pete:you and it's just us. Not nobody else. Not me. You can't.
Aaron Brien:You can't turn around and put your arms up. I mean, you can. But it's it's a moot point. It doesn't go anywhere. You could. You can complain when I used to coach wrestling. I think I did it for like five seasons. Little kid wrestling. Little guy wrestling. Yeah, there's nothing you can tell those kids to fix the loss? No. You can't say, Well, if that guy would have done his job. You know, it's like, no, dude. Like, you were not committed to your shot. And yes, yeah. So maybe research needs some of that for tribal people. Maybe we don't need white folk telling us that though. You know, we
Shandin Pete:don't buy white folk.
Aaron Brien:I don't mean. Oh, no, I do I mean, white people. But I mean, like, maybe maybe native people need a reminder that we have to question ourselves, man, we have to have to question ourselves.
Shandin Pete:We have to a lot. Yeah, I agree. I agree. I think that's what the, you know, the idea of this conference idea was sort of along those lines was a forum where we could challenge each other's ideas. That colloquium was sort of along those lines. So talk about what we did critique it gently come up with some some just some suggestions for to improve whatever. I don't know, man. I don't know. Let's try it again. We got to try it again.
Aaron Brien:We can I think tribal research specialist can go after some funding, and we'll put on something we'll put on a conference. So we'll do it in during the Indian National Finals, rodeo. Vegas, why don't we do it in BC?
Shandin Pete:Yeah, let's do it. Man. All we need is about 1000 More Patreon subscribers, and then a generous donor and maybe an endowment of a sort. From some organization. Yeah, we'll do it. I'm down. Let's see if anybody's listening out. There's got a rich uncle
Aaron Brien:who needs a tax deduction? benefactor? I think we I mean, I recently just heard that Teton tree cloths was purchased by a tribe,
Shandin Pete:the Delawares of Delaware so they go by their own Yeah, they go by their traditional name. I don't know how to say Lana parson. Something like that.
Aaron Brien:Lemon Lummi, Lani are long Lum, Len na me, but
Shandin Pete:I gotta work on our
Aaron Brien:Yeah, that's cool. So congratulations to them. If Teton trade cloth wants to sponsor a conference for tribal research, yeah. Hosted by the tribal research specialist. Yeah, I feel like it could be pretty good. I think we could do a cool thing. I don't know if we'll call it something else. We'll call it the knowledge gathering.
Shandin Pete:Circle of knowledge.
Aaron Brien:Why Why are you laughing? That was serious. This is called Welcome to the knowledge gathering.
Shandin Pete:By p BT. lanyard
Aaron Brien:if you could reach into your grab bags and grab your blue ticket, that blue we got a nice set of Teton trade cloth scraps a bag ends for various projects. Yes.
Shandin Pete:That that's what we need in our life. We got to do.
Unknown:Housekeeping,
Shandin Pete:they do some housekeeping. Now we're gonna get into that housekeeping. I just think that we need to get the drum up some sponsorship here sponsors. I don't know. That sounds like begging. I don't want sponsors. We're doing good.
Aaron Brien:I mean, you already sponsors.
Shandin Pete:We got some great sponsors right now. Mostly looking for feedback. You know
Aaron Brien:what? Pendleton to sponsor? Oh, man. Shout out to Walter. And Cassie runs above. Yeah. Listen to our podcasts from the beginning to the end on the way to Oklahoma. Yes, last week, and he can you psych loving it, man. Yeah, I think they should have them both on as guests sometimes.
Shandin Pete:Yeah, that was my secret guests. That's talking about.
Aaron Brien:Remember, we had a plan to record like to home in a week and then record three at a time and then lay off and then yeah, that was got that we we got the layoff part. Right.
Shandin Pete:That was helpful when we did the because we didn't we had I had one in the wing. And so I I've been trying to get him on at least once a month. That was really helpful. All right, Walter, you're on man. You're on next week. Cassie Oh, and Cassie. And Cassie. I'm sorry.
Unknown:It's so so sexist.
Aaron Brien:I mean. Well, yeah. Walter runs above and wife. Miss
Shandin Pete:Miss Walter, who runs a bow.
Aaron Brien:Maiden? Come on.
Shandin Pete:There goes our sponsor. Yeah. Yeah.
Aaron Brien:We talk about GIS. I think we should actually have a podcast or somebody learns
Shandin Pete:something from a GIS lesson.
Aaron Brien:Just talking about how they use GIS for the for the for their,
Shandin Pete:okay, open up your browser.
Aaron Brien:If we can make sure we log into our ESRI.
Shandin Pete:You don't get a count. You can get a temporary demo version,
Aaron Brien:demo desktop session. I think it's called Web GIS. And go to GIS, isn't it called QGIS?
Shandin Pete:Yeah, I think so. QGIS? Yeah. So download the following layers. Makes you safe make a workspace folder?
Aaron Brien:We definitely want our hydro layer as part of our landscape mapping ability and the path of least resistance I don't know GIS.
Shandin Pete:On I'm on the amateur end of that. Yeah. So him. Yeah, so him or her. And you've got another person lined up? Yeah, we need a guest mix it up a bit. We haven't done that in a while. Alright, I got some topics too. I just didn't get a chance to develop anything for this. Maybe we should
Aaron Brien:do like read in the news. We should take a topic
Shandin Pete:it'd be a little more topical. Well, this is the one that's blown up around here. And I don't know if we ever talked about it specifically but pretend Ian's that's that's a huge issue of payroll
Aaron Brien:now. That's an issue. Well, I
Shandin Pete:mean, it's it's become problematic for universities right now. Hiring pretend Ian's are hiring folks who they think are indigenous and then turns out that they're not. Yeah, I mean, it's always been an issue for native folks. Since time immemorial.
Aaron Brien:Yeah. Universities. I don't know. I think
Shandin Pete:we'll save it. We'll talk about the shit
Aaron Brien:alright. Yeah, man. Save it. Okay, save it.
Shandin Pete:We're going to talk about that one. And then there's a number of things I've been trying to go back on the each of these episodes, look at the things that we said over talk about that later we never did come up with a list of those things alright partner later