Despite more than one hundred and twenty five years of exile, descendants of Chiricahua, Mescalero, and Western Apache tribes still retain significant and powerful ties to their former homelands in what is now southeastern Arizona. However, due to the high mobility of historical-period Apache tribes in the U.S. Southwest and near invisibility of Apache archaeological sites on the ground surface, much is still to be learned about historical-period Apachean life-ways. Moreover, beyond material signatures much is to be learned about the Apache past and present in reference to U.S. colonial policies regarding the lasting sociocultural, political, physical, and cognitive affects resulting from these policies and actions. These lasting impacts as a result of colonial policies and actions are still very much felt and critically affect contemporary Apache communities. This dissertation presents the results from collaborative archaeological fieldwork conducted in various areas of the Chiricahua Mountain range with Apache cultural experts representing communities with ongoing and ancestral associations to lands now managed by the Coronado National Forest. Beyond the material remains representing Apache culture and history it is necessary for non-Apache collaborators to critically self-reflect and examine their own research goals and agendas to better address issues and concerns of extreme importance to Apache tribal communities today. By addressing the various challenges encountered during the collaborative research processes, and modifying paternalistic thought processes and misunderstandings in reference to American Indian communities, researchers can conduct archaeological-anthropological research that creatively and critically responds to the needs of contemporary American Indian communities.

This dissertation explores narratives that emerge from a community-museum collaboration while working with refugees in relation to Trinh T. Minh-ha’s (2011) concept of the boundary event. Within this study the boundary event is explored as moments of overlap where identity, experiences, knowledge, and processes are continuously being negotiated; by embracing or leaning into these moments, community-museum programs can develop multivocal narratives—where no single voice is heard as distinctly clear or separate. These co-created museum narratives stand in contrast to educational and engagement strategies that aim to instill knowledge and elevate community with the museum as the expert. In this dissertation 16 participant voices– of 15 refugees and one museum educator– mingle, coalesce, and complicate museum narratives. These narratives are participant-created (data presentation) as well as researcher-constructed (analysis and interpretation). Using the methodological lens of narrative inquiry and decolonization I investigated data collected from over a two-year period (summer 2013-summer 2015) including: content and wall labels collected from two exhibitions, one marks the beginning of the study in 2013 and the second in 2015 concludes the study; gallery activities collected over the course of the two-year study; and educator field notes from the 28 individual sessions. Ultimately, I argue that multivocal narratives, and embracing moments defined as the boundary event, complicate traditional hierarchy and expected stories of refugees and new migrants illustrating how difference can positively disrupt linear, static, and authoritative institutional narratives.

Depuis la fin des années 1980, les collaborations avec les communautés autochtones semblent s’accroître dans les musées canadiens. Un déplacement apparaît de la prise de parole en contexte de revendication au don de parole en contexte muséal. Après la remise en cause des musées ethnologiques, la prise en charge de la parole autochtone annonce le temps de la reconnaissance. Seulement, le mot reconnaissance est employé dans des contextes variés en muséologie. Ses occurrences indiquent plusieurs sens, dérivés de la volonté de redonner dignité et respect aux peuples autochtones et de produire des expositions qui présentent leur patrimoine d’origine à la lumière de leurs points de vue. Selon une approche communicationnelle, notre travail a porté sur les pratiques des musées qui consistent à donner la parole aux peuples autochtones et à l’exposer. Le travail a été centré sur la combinaison des points de vue autochtones avec ceux des concepteurs-muséographes. L’entreprise de la recherche a visé à cerner les opérations induites et générées par cette situation d’entrecroisements de points de vue, plus ou moins discordants, qui doivent, d’une manière ou d’une autre, s’unir dans un même espace communicationnel. Le système polyphonique de l’exposition est conceptualisé en trois moments de médiation : la prise en compte, la monstration et l’interprétation des points de vue autochtones. Ils correspondent aux intentions des concepteurs-muséographes et des expositions, puis à la manière dont elles sont interprétées par les visiteurs. Nous avons réalisé quatre enquêtes de terrain dans onze musées à travers le Canada : observation participante ; entretiens individuels auprès de professionnels des musées ; analyse de discours ; entretiens de groupes auprès de visiteurs autochtones et allochtones. Nous avons examiné les pratiques collaboratives et croisé ces quatre formes de discours des musées afin de mettre à l’épreuve le potentiel de reconnaissance des expositions qui tiennent compte des points de vue des représentants autochtones. Il résulte que la patrimonialisation est conçue en tant que processus de reconnaissance. De plus, l’intensification de la patrimonialisation des objets autochtones est synchronique de l’expansion coloniale. Néanmoins, l’analyse de la prise de distance du concepteur-muséographe vis-à-vis de son point de vue et de celui des autochtones rend compte des relations complexes entre le don de parole, l’autorité de discours et l’auctorialité. Malgré les divergences entre les intentions explicitées par les professionnels et leurs intentions implicites dans les expositions, les discours des visiteurs autochtones et allochtones traduisent un contrat de reconnaissance entre le musée et les visiteurs. Ainsi, le principe polyphonique et ses formes de reconnaissance sont mis en évidence dans les espaces de production et de réception des expositions produites en collaboration. Notre recherche révèle plusieurs modalités de reconnaissance manifestes dans la combinaison et l’entrecroisement des voix autochtones avec celles des praticiens. Cet essai d’interprétation met au jour des conflits d’ordre patrimonial et socio-historique qui engendrent des mécanismes de régulation par assimilation/accommodation. Il décrit deux logiques fondamentales relatives à l’identité et à la mémoire. De ces adaptations mises en œuvre par les musées ressort un phénomène permanent de reconnaissance amorcé depuis la colonisation des territoires autochtones. La recherche suggère finalement d’envisager le musée comme lieu de reconnaissance non seulement du patrimoine, mais aussi des publics et des peuples donateurs et donataires du patrimoine. / Collaborations with aboriginal communities appear to be increasing in Canadian museums, with the communities shifting from speaking in a context of claiming theirrights to being given a voice in the museum context. In keeping with the questioning about ethnological museums, taking into account the voice of the aboriginal peoplesprefigures since the eighties the time for recognition. But the word recognition is used indiverse museum contexts.Based on a communicational approach, our research considers the links between thepolyphonic and recognition modalities of the exhibition media. We have attempted toidentify and understand the processes induced and generated by exhibitions’ interactionaland intertextual systems. The polyphonic system is conceptualized in three mediation moments in the production and reception spaces of the exhibition: acknowledgment, monstration, and interpretation of aboriginal points of view. They correspond to there cognition intentions of the exhibitions and designers-museographers, then visitors’recognition. We have conducted four field studies in eleven different Canadian museums : participant observation; one-on-one interviews with museum professionals; discourse analysis ; group interviews with native and non-native visitors. We have studied the collaborative practicesand these four types of museum discourses to demonstrate the recognition potential ofexhibitions dedicated to the aboriginals’ perspectives.Our research reveals several recognition modes manifest in the combination andinterlinking of aboriginals’ and practitioners’ voices; it identifies logic in the polysemy ofthe word recognition. This interpretation essay reveals patrimonial and socio-historical conflicts that generate regulation mechanisms through assimilation/accommodation. A permanent recognition phenomenon emerges from the adaptations implemented by themuseums since the beginning of aboriginal patrimonialization during the colonizationperiod. Our research proposes to apprehend the museum as a recognition place of heritage, but also of the general public and the peoples, whether donors or donees of that heritage.