My Research

  • Overview

    My research documents long-term histories of inter-ethnic interaction and settler colonialism in North America. To date, this research has taken two main forms: (1) archival and iconographic studies of Comanche, Apache, Ute, and Hispano entanglements in northern New Mexico; (2) oral historical and collections-based studies of the American Indian Boarding School era in the United States.

  • Fieldwork

    My fieldwork draws on principles within a collaborative and community based research paradigm. I’m currently a Project Director in a tribally-led multi-institutional project with Picuris Pueblo that investigates their evolving social and economic networks between 1250-1850 CE. I am also involved in two emerging research efforts that explore 20th century Black and Indigenous labor at earthworks sites, and a community-based study of the digital divide among Black and Indigenous peoples in Canada.

  • Philosophy

    My research is grounded in critical approaches, including anti-colonialism, Marxism, feminism(s), and countermapping. I draw on these theoretical tools to document hidden histories and to amplify voices that have long been marginalized. The overarching goal of my research program is to transform dominant systems of knowledge productions AND to generate complex narratives of resiliency and persistence.

My Projects

  • Biographic Rock Art

  • American Indian Boarding Schools

  • Picuris Collaborative Archaeological Project

Picuris collaborative archaeological project

Multi-sensor drone survey of ancestral agricultural landscapes at Picuris Pueblo, New Mexico

Journal of Archaeological Science, 2023

This paper presents results of a study that employs a new ultra-compact drone-based lidar system, alongside aerial thermal and visible light imaging, to document ancient agricultural landscapes at Picuris Pueblo, New Mexico. We discuss the advantages of this new instrumentation, various approaches to field data collection, and as well as our novel data processing and filtering methods, which collectively offer key methodological advances for archaeological investigations using drone-based lidar. These findings offer new perspectives on the scale and intensity of past agricultural activities in this highland region of the American Southwest, while demonstrating the power of combining multiple drone-based remote sensing datasets.

An Indigenous History of Resiliency and Revitalization at Picuris Pueblo

University of New Mexico Invited Talk, 2022

The history of Picuris Pueblo has typically been presented as a story of the rise and fall of one of the Southwest’s premier cosmopolitan centers. While such narratives appeal to our desire for synthetic and straight forward explanations, these “big picture” histories reinforce harmful notions of Indigenous collapse and disappearance. In this talk, I present work from the Picuris Collaborative Archaeological Project and use this ongoing research to highlight evidence of adpative pluralism, resistance, and resiliency at Picuris.

Indigenous Data Sovereignty: The Land-Based Politics of Archaeology at Picuris Pueblo

Society for American Archaeology, 2024

In this talk, I situate the Picuris Pueblo Archaeological Research Project within a data sovereignty paradigm, drawing particular attention to the ways that our collaboration has shifted the locus of jurisdictional authority over archaeological data towards the Picuris Governor and Tribal Council. Throughout this discussion, I highlight two major challenges in the application of the ethical principles of data sovereignty:  differences in how sovereignty is enacted on and off reservation lands and tensions around how to define benefits for a diverse group of community members and project participants.

American Indian Boarding Schools

“You have harmed us”: Stories of violence, narratives of hope among the Port Gamble S’Klallam

American Anthropologist, 2023

Eve Tuck (2009) argues that a desire-based approach grounded in notions of complex personhood offers an hope centered framework for grappling with the legacy of settler-colonial violence. In this article, I draw on Tuck's approach to interpret a body of object-based interviews with Port Gamble S'Klallam community members. During these interviews, community members shared stories of interpersonal and structural violence as well as refusal, cultural resiliency, and hope. In revealing the complexity of Indigenous experiences with Western-style education, object-based interviews present archaeologists with a holistic method for documenting Indigenous histories in ways that challenge damage-based narratives.

Radical Sovereignty: Indigenous Autonomy in the Boarding School Era

Oklahoma Public Archaeology, 2024

 

Collectively, Native place-making practices represent what Laura Harjo calls “radical sovereignty”; spatial expressions of Indigenous worldviews that ensured community futurity. Drawing on archival evidence from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Jesse H. Bratley collections at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, and object-based interviews conducted with tribal members, this talk discusses acts of radical sovereignty on the Rosebud reservation in South Dakota and the Cheyenne and Arapaho reserve in Oklahoma. This comparative approach points to the central role of mobility and kinship networks in facilitating Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho autonomy and the collective survival of these communities.  

Examining the Painful Legacy of Native American Boarding Schools in the US

KQED Podcast, 2021

For more than 100 years, the U.S. government forcibly relocated tens of thousands of Native American children to boarding schools under an assimilation program meant to suppress their languages, beliefs and identities. In California, three large Native American boarding schools were in operation: the Fort Bidwell Indian School, the St. Boniface Indian Industrial School in Banning, and the Sherman Institute in Riverside, founded as the Perris Indian School in Perris. Earlier this week, KQED Forum's Mina Kim discussed the troubled history of Native American boarding schools with several experts on the topic, including (University of Nevada) and Lindsay Montgomery (University of Arizona).

Biographic Rock Art

Comanche Imperialism & the Mythology of Conquest

Diggin’ In Episode 4, 2021

This talk will offer a critique of big picture history using the Comanche as a case study. Drawing on archaeological and historical evidence of the Comanche in New Mexico, I present an alternative account of the 18th century Southwest. This account shows that the Comanche not only resisted Spanish colonialism but were in control of a vast economic-political empire of their own. In presenting this alternative history, this talk will argue that Europe’s victory over underdeveloped and unsophisticated Natives was far from inevitable.

Comanches and Genizaros in Taos

UNM-Taos, 2016

Archaeologist Lindsay Montgomery (U Arizona), folklorist Enrique Lamadrid (UNM) on the historical and cultural impact of Comanches in Taos, and anthropologist Gregorio Gonzales (UT Austin) on Genizaro identity.

Nomadic economics: The logic and logistics of Comanche imperialism in New Mexico

Journal of Social Archaeology, 2019

The Comanche offer a compelling case for indigenous empire building, a case which points to the need to develop a revised understanding of imperialism. Drawing on documentary and archaeological evidence, this article traces the logic and logistics of Comanche imperialism in New Mexico. Specifically, I argue that during the 18th and early 19th centuries, Comanche people created a nomadic empire rooted in decentralized political power, kinship, and inter- and intra-ethnic exchange. This case study provides a glimpse into the priorities and practices of Comanche entrepreneurs and points to the important role of internal social dynamics in structuring indigenous forms of imperialism.