Oli Castañon Villa | 2025 I.S. Symposium

Name: Oli Castañon Villa
Title: Indigenous Language Work and Pacific Northwest Coast Museums & Cultural Centers
Major: Anthropology
Minor: Museum Studies
Pathway: Museum & Archival Studies
Advisors: Beth Derderian; Zareen Thomas

The rise of language advocacy and interest in language as intangible heritage has produced a small body of literature about the intersections between language and museums. Previous research has shown that museums can engage with language advocacy through language exhibitions, archival research and documentation, and other engaging language-based programming. This research has not yet applied multi-sited ethnography, however, to examine its use within decolonizing contexts. My work engages with this methodology and theory, focusing on how Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s Indigenous Projects apply to language work encountered through three museums and/or cultural centers. My findings indicate a broad range of ways that these institutions decide and communicate ideas about language, as well as ways in which they use language to contextualize other educational focuses regarding Indigeneity.

Posted in Symposium 2025 on May 1, 2025.