Alicia Hawkins and collaborators from Sagamok Anishnawbek, Ojibwe Cultural Foundation receive Connaught Community Partnership Research Program award

Published: March 14, 2024

Alicia Hawkins, an associate professor in the department of anthropology at U of T Mississauga and collaborators at the Sagamok Anishnawbek First Nation and the Ojibwe Cultural Foundation (OCF) have received a Connaught Community Partnership Research Program award for their project exploring the cataloguing and reclamation of archaeological artifacts.

Historically, archaeology in Ontario has been an extractive practice that failed to include Indigenous communities. From the 1960s to 1980s, teams of archaeologists excavated at the La Cloche site on the north shore of Lake Huron – but the work was unpublished for decades.

More than 40 boxes of artifacts are now in the care of the OCF. However, the lack of publication and comprehensive reporting of the excavations pose challenges for the OCF and Sagamok Anishnawbek, on whose lands the site is located.

To address this, Hawkins and her partners will bring together a multigenerational team of Indigenous Peoples to catalogue and interpret the artifacts. The collaboration will guide the planning and decision-making process for the site and its collections.

The Connaught Community Partnership Research Program aims to help create and nurture partnerships between U of T scholars and community partners that support community-driven research.

Hawkins is one of four U of T scholars to receive awards from the program this year. The others are Amaya Perez-Brumer at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, Ishtiaque Ahmed in the Faculty of Arts & Science and Jaris Swidrovich at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy.