Heather George
PHD STUDENT, HISTORY
Reimagining the museum through Indigenous values and teachings
ARTS
Heather George
PHD STUDENT, HISTORY
Reimagining the museum through Indigenous values and teachings
Growing up, Heather George didn’t see herself reflected in history lessons or textbooks. Even at the postsecondary level, the History PhD student, who is of Euro-Canadian and Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) descent, noticed problems with how Indigenous culture and heritage are taught.
Today, the Faculty of Arts student is on an academic and personal journey to change that. Her research studies Indigenous ways of telling and preserving history — and explores how those methods can shape the future of museums in Canada.
Weaving the personal and academic
Heather grew up with her mom’s family off-reserve in Cornwall. At the time, she didn’t have a close connection to her dad who comes from Akwesasne, a Mohawk reserve intersected by Ontario, Quebec and New York State.
It wasn’t until her undergraduate degree at Trent University, in what was then called Native Studies, that she felt connected to her own culture and the history of her nation in a significant way.
“That was a really important moment for me because it gave me the confidence to reach out to my dad and reconnect,” Heather says. “And, from there, I started to build my understanding of what it means to be Haudenosaunee.”
Creating “self-determining spaces” for preserving heritage
After completing a certificate in Museum Management and Curatorship from Fleming College and a master’s in Public History at Western University, Heather took a pause from her studies to get some hands-on experience. A series of projects with the Six Nations of the Grand River led to a “pretty monumental life shift” that transformed her perspective on museum studies.
“What I was finding was that a lot of the skills and ways of thinking I had been exposed to during my formal education didn’t quite align with the values, ethics and teachings I was learning by doing heritage work in community, in a culturally informed way,” Heather says.
That realization became the spark for her doctoral research, which focuses on the history of Haudenosaunee, or Six Nations, museum practice. Her work investigates the time period from 1960 to the mid-1990s to understand how Haudenosaunee values and teachings have informed cultural preservation and the sharing of heritage.
By studying what’s already happening in spaces that are “self-determining — spaces that speak to the nationhood of Indigenous people,” her research documents the heritage preservation or conservation work Indigenous people have always engaged in.
“We weren't calling it that,” Heather says, “but we’ve always done this knowledge sharing throughout generations.”
She hopes her findings will contribute to culturally-informed best practices that can be applied to museum practice and policy provincially, federally and internationally.
“Generally, museums and public history institutions have some serious, not just intellectual work to do, but embodied heart work to do in terms of decolonizing — knowing that decolonizing is never an end goal. You can't get there. But, certainly, being more self-determining spaces.”
Weaving the personal and academic
Heather grew up with her mom’s family off-reserve in Cornwall. At the time, she didn’t have a close connection to her dad who comes from Akwesasne, a Mohawk reserve intersected by Ontario, Quebec and New York State.
It wasn’t until her undergraduate degree at Trent University, in what was then called Native Studies, that she felt connected to her own culture and the history of her nation in a significant way.
“That was a really important moment for me because it gave me the confidence to reach out to my dad and reconnect,” Heather says. “And, from there, I started to build my understanding of what it means to be Haudenosaunee.”
Creating “self-determining spaces” for preserving heritage
After completing a certificate in Museum Management and Curatorship from Fleming College and a master’s in Public History at Western University, Heather took a pause from her studies to get some hands-on experience. A series of projects with the Six Nations of the Grand River led to a “pretty monumental life shift” that transformed her perspective on museum studies.
“What I was finding was that a lot of the skills and ways of thinking I had been exposed to during my formal education didn’t quite align with the values, ethics and teachings I was learning by doing heritage work in community, in a culturally informed way,” Heather says.
That realization became the spark for her doctoral research, which focuses on the history of Haudenosaunee, or Six Nations, museum practice. Her work investigates the time period from 1960 to the mid-1990s to understand how Haudenosaunee values and teachings have informed cultural preservation and the sharing of heritage.
By studying what’s already happening in spaces that are “self-determining — spaces that speak to the nationhood of Indigenous people,” her research documents the heritage preservation or conservation work Indigenous people have always engaged in.
“We weren't calling it that,” Heather says, “but we’ve always done this knowledge sharing throughout generations.”
She hopes her findings will contribute to culturally-informed best practices that can be applied to museum practice and policy provincially, federally and internationally.
“Generally, museums and public history institutions have some serious, not just intellectual work to do, but embodied heart work to do in terms of decolonizing — knowing that decolonizing is never an end goal. You can't get there. But, certainly, being more self-determining spaces.”
The value of a supportive supervisor
History graduate students at Waterloo are part of the TriUniversity program, which connects Laurier, Guelph and Waterloo. Heather says it’s a huge advantage because it “allows you to have faculty members from any of those schools on your committee.”
Ultimately, Heather’s supervisor, Professor Susan Roy of the Department of History, was the deciding factor that brought her to Waterloo. Roy’s support and guidance have been instrumental in helping Heather formulate her research and build a “really amazing committee — all women and 50% Indigenous,” including a Haudenosaunee scholar, Professor Vanessa Watts-Powless from McMaster University.
Research meets real world
On top of her research, Heather is currently Executive Director at Woodland Cultural Centre and President of the Canadian Museums Association.
With such a full plate, she jokes that she doesn’t have time to write about the work because she’s so busy doing the work — but it’s too important to hold off until she finishes her thesis.
“Somewhere there’s some little Indigenous person — there’s my five-year-old daughter who is Mohawk and Cree — going into a museum. What is she going to see about herself in history? How is she going to see her ancestors in history? And what will that do to her sense of self and identity?”
That drive to change things for the better is what motivates Heather to keep doing the work, juggling research and real-world practice. In addition, because her research is based in and informed by community, there’s value in being immersed in real-world contexts while she works on her dissertation.
Promoting access to shared stories
The community-informed aspect of Heather’s research also affects how she plans to collect, compile and share it. Rather than following the standard approach — a lengthy written dissertation — she’s been given the green light to think about more accessible formats for her work, such as including poetry, photography and other media that wouldn't “normally” be found within a history thesis.
“Part of my research methodology is to be very place-based. Because Haudenosaunee/Six Nations territory goes around the Great Lakes, the geography is very different depending on where you are. The names for our nations in our languages describe the soil or the clay that we’re made from, which is part of our creation story. So, for Mohawk, our name is actually Kanien’kehá:ka, and it means ‘People of the Flint.’ It’s really important for me, within my way of writing and being immersed in the research, to be able to include the land in my dissertation.”
As a recipient of the Ontario Graduate Scholarship (2017-2020) and the Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship (2019-2022), Heather points out that she and other researchers using public dollars have a responsibility to ensure their work is accessible to the people it impacts.
The same is true of museums, where Heather’s work promises to bring equity and a culturally informed lens.
“We build our historical knowledge based on lives that people’s relatives and ancestors have lived,” Heather says. “Someone's grandmother had to have that experience for me to be able to write about it. It’s really important that those stories are accessible to people. Museums can be that space. They can be spaces of healing and reconnection to community and building of pride in identity.”
The value of a supportive supervisor
History graduate students at Waterloo are part of the TriUniversity program, which connects Laurier, Guelph and Waterloo. Heather says it’s a huge advantage because it “allows you to have faculty members from any of those schools on your committee.”
Ultimately, Heather’s supervisor, Professor Susan Roy of the Department of History, was the deciding factor that brought her to Waterloo. Roy’s support and guidance have been instrumental in helping Heather formulate her research and build a “really amazing committee — all women and 50% Indigenous,” including a Haudenosaunee scholar, Professor Vanessa Watts-Powless from McMaster University.
Research meets real world
On top of her research, Heather is currently Executive Director at Woodland Cultural Centre and President of the Canadian Museums Association.
With such a full plate, she jokes that she doesn’t have time to write about the work because she’s so busy doing the work — but it’s too important to hold off until she finishes her thesis.
“Somewhere there’s some little Indigenous person — there’s my five-year-old daughter who is Mohawk and Cree — going into a museum. What is she going to see about herself in history? How is she going to see her ancestors in history? And what will that do to her sense of self and identity?”
That drive to change things for the better is what motivates Heather to keep doing the work, juggling research and real-world practice. In addition, because her research is based in and informed by community, there’s value in being immersed in real-world contexts while she works on her dissertation.
Promoting access to shared stories
The community-informed aspect of Heather’s research also affects how she plans to collect, compile and share it. Rather than following the standard approach — a lengthy written dissertation — she’s been given the green light to think about more accessible formats for her work, such as including poetry, photography and other media that wouldn't “normally” be found within a history thesis.
“Part of my research methodology is to be very place-based. Because Haudenosaunee/Six Nations territory goes around the Great Lakes, the geography is very different depending on where you are. The names for our nations in our languages describe the soil or the clay that we’re made from, which is part of our creation story. So, for Mohawk, our name is actually Kanien’kehá:ka, and it means ‘People of the Flint.’ It’s really important for me, within my way of writing and being immersed in the research, to be able to include the land in my dissertation.”
As a recipient of the Ontario Graduate Scholarship (2017-2020) and the Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship (2019-2022), Heather points out that she and other researchers using public dollars have a responsibility to ensure their work is accessible to the people it impacts.
The same is true of museums, where Heather’s work promises to bring equity and a culturally informed lens.
“We build our historical knowledge based on lives that people’s relatives and ancestors have lived,” Heather says. “Someone's grandmother had to have that experience for me to be able to write about it. It’s really important that those stories are accessible to people. Museums can be that space. They can be spaces of healing and reconnection to community and building of pride in identity.”