LEARNING AND TEACHING WITH LOVE: An Indigenous Auntie’s Journey in Archaeology

In recognition of the long-standing relationship between anthropological research and colonial efforts to dispossess Indigenous peoples of their cultures and eventually their lands, this chapter discusses the academic and personal path taken by an Indigenous woman to become an archaeologist, to nurture and Indigenize mentoring of future generations of Indigenous, Indigenizing, and Decolonizing archaeologists. This journey contextualizes the violence that Indigenous students have experienced in academia, and the need for Indigenized mentoring and support to increase the number of underrepresented archaeologists. The “Indigenous Auntie” approach created and utilized by the author allows space in anthropological research to braid ancestral knowledges to enrich our understanding of the past in ways that overcome the legacy of colonialism inherent in archaeological research.