"Fictive Kin" Talk at APS

Each month, the American Philosophical Society hosts a lunch presentation focused on new research and emerging topics given by APS staff or scholars from Philadelphia institutions and beyond. From the U.S. Constitution to 18th-century French mathematicians, the topics are as varied as the research interests and collections at the APS. Lunch and the program are from 12:00 to 1:00 p.m. in Philosophical Hall at 104 South Fifth Street, Philadelphia.

"Fictive Kin: Re-visiting the Relations of Frank Speck, Gladys Tantaquidgeon, and Other Indigenous Interlocutors"
Talk at Philosophical Hall by Margaret M. Bruchac

Abstract: Frank Gouldsmith Speck, arguably the most prolific salvage ethnographer of his generation, conducted ground-breaking research with multiple Native American and First Nations communities over the course of his long career. His academic colleagues romantically imagined Speck's interests to have emerged from his childhood adoption by the Mohegan tribe, but his Native interlocutors--most notably, his Mohegan research assistant Gladys Tantaquidgeon--knew otherwise. In the field, Speck was an ethnographic shape-shifter, willing to negotiate whatever version of fictive kinship would enable him to access desired Native data and objects for preservation in non-Native archives and museums. Tantaquidgeon, in contrast, was an Indigenous visionary who blended anthropological research with traditional training and community activism to preserve Mohegan cultural patrimony closer to home. By critically re-examining the primary sources in multiple locations that document their relations, Bruchac illustrates how restorative methods can be used to recover more nuanced understandings of the Indigenous people and objects represented in Speck's collections.

Bio: Margaret M. Bruchac is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Coordinator of Native American and Indigenous Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research engages with Native American and First Nations colonial histories, cultural material, and oral traditions, with a particular focus on critical examinations of museums and the recovery of Indigenous patrimony. Her field research project—"The Wampum Trail"—is designed to restore object histories by re-examining the materiality of historical wampum objects and museum interpretations that have obscured Indigenous meaning. This talk is based on research conducted for Bruchac's book Savage Kin: Indigenous Informants and American Anthropologists (University of Arizona Press 2018).

All are welcome to attend, although we ask you to RSVP to Adrianna Link at alink@amphilsoc.org.

Next Talk in the Series, on December 12: Erin Holmes
2017-2019 Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Postdoctoral Curatorial Fellow at the American Philosophical Society

For another lecture at APS, see video of Margaret Bruchac's opening remarks at the American Philosophical Society Museum's 2016 exhibition "Gathering Voices: Thomas Jefferson and Native America."