The Rez & The Hood: Institution Building and Place-Keeping

Black and Indigenous geographers such as Katherine McKittrick and Mishuana Goeman (Tonawanda Band of Seneca) have attended to the ways in which settler colonial and anti-Black regimes have sought to render  Black and Indigenous peoples, communities, and nations “ungeographic” and “placeless,” as well as the ways in which geographically marginalized/colonized communities have responded through acts of “respatializing” and “re/mapping.” A key dimension of such resistant geographical practice has historically been institution-building. Join representatives from the North American Indian Center of Boston and the Royall House and Slave Quarters  in a moderated conversation about institution building, place-keeping, and Black and Indigenous futures in Boston. 

Established in 1969 as the Boston Indian Council, The North American Indian Center of Boston (NAICOB) is the oldest urban Indian center in Massachusetts. A hub of social and political activity for Boston’s  American Indian/Alaska Native and First Nations community in the 1970s, the Boston Indian Council’s  headquarters moved from Dorchester to their present Jamaica Plain location in 1974, and was reorganized as the North American Indian Center of Boston in 1991. Since then, NAICOB has provided a wide range of cultural, social, educational, and professional services to Native peoples in the Commonwealth, guided by their mission to “empower the Native American community with the goal of improving the quality of life of [all] Indigenous peoples” in Boston and beyond. 

Located in Medford, Massachusetts, The Royall House and Slave Quarters is one of the last remaining freestanding living quarters for enslaved people in the North. A portion of the former estate of the Royall family, the largest slaveholding family in 18th century Massachusetts, the house museum “explores the meanings of freedom and independence before, during, and since the American Revolution, in the context of a household of wealthy Loyalists and enslaved Africans.” The museum is open to the general public from June to October of every year, and offers programming for public school students and community members from Medford and the Greater Boston area year round.

About The Rez & The Hood series:

This season, we are collaborating with Mary Amanda McNeil (she/her), Assistant Professor in the Department of Studies in Race, Colonialism, and Diaspora at Tufts University, to bring you “The Rez and The Hood,” a DS4SI Design Gym speaker series, that celebrates local practices of Black and Indigenous placekeeping, stewardship, and institution-building. Across four events, panelists from the Commonwealth will reflect upon their lives’ work while attending to broader thematic questions such as: What has happened to us spatially? How have we created life-affirming geographies in the midst of settler colonial and anti-Black dispossession and displacement? What are our visions for the future?

The places we call home have been spatially transformed by settler colonialism, anti-Blackness, and other forms of domination; this shapes the conditions of life and death for Black and Indigenous families, communities, and nations in the lands that are commonly referred to as the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. And yet, BIPOC political organizers, community members, and tribal citizens have fought against colonial, national, and local policies of dispossession and displacement for the past four centuries—insisting upon their responsibility to remain in place and critically shaping their environments in the process.

Register to join us and be a part of this rich dialogue.

About the Moderator:

Mary Amanda McNeil (she/her) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Studies in Race, Colonialism, and Diaspora at Tufts University. Her research, teaching, and public history work sit at the intersections of Black studies; Native American and Indigenous studies; social history; and geography, with especial attention to the Northeast. Born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky, McNeil is a citizen of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe and lives in Dorchester.

About ds4si:

Situated at the intersections of design thinking and practice, social justice and activism, public art and social practice and civic/popular engagement, the Design Studio for Social Intervention (ds4si) designs and tests social interventions with and on behalf of marginalized populations, controversies, and ways of life. ds4si partners with communities, artists, and social justice practitioners to imagine, demonstrate, and collectively rebuild places to be more just and vibrant. The people behind the Design Studio for Social Intervention make up a constellation of activists, artists, academics, designers, dreamers, tricksters, organizations and foundations.

Getting Here

Set your GPS to . That will take you to our front door.

(Do not use the building's official address, which is 600 Columbia Rd. There is no entrance on that road.)

Parking

A free municipal parking lot is across the street from 7 Ramsey St.

COVID-19 Precautions

We'll provide masks for everyone. If you think you've risked recent exposure and/or feel symptoms, we encourage you to stay home.

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