Margo Tamez

Oral history in direct service and support to Indigenous Peoples' human rights, constitutional, and civil rights, and specifically limited to Indigenous Peoples independent of the US BIA federal recognition system.
University of British Columbia - Okanagan Campus
https://ccgs.ok.ubc.ca/about/contact/margo-tamez
As a Dene Nde poet, historian, and writer, a key interest is maintaining close ties and critical engagement with Dene Nde peoples who retain independence from the nation-state's federal recognition system. My work foregrounds Dene Nde' protocols, principles, philosophies, theorizing and decolonial recoveries. My work focuses on Indigenous genocide and intergenerational grief, loss, kinship, belonging, and the crucial expressions and assertions of beingness through Dene Nde lenses, concepts, resistances, achievements, and social justice processes. Dene Nde womens perspectives on governance, their roles in and threaded across complex and overlapping communities, and their experiences as targets of colonial resource and territorial wars and their subjectivities in bordered and carceral spaces are core to my understanding of Dene Nde colonization and resurgence. My philosophy and productivity are informed by critical and Indigenous feminist thought, solidarity, and advocacy employed to (re)position Dene Nde ways of knowing and doing as a process of questioning and challenging imperialist and settler colonial thought, norms, bias, erasing epistemologies, systems, structures, and categories which have subverted Dene Nde communities, families, bands, and extended kinship structures harmed by and through normalized settler colonial legal regimes, such as border structures, containment, separation, depopulation, displacement and diaspora.

Experience

After limited formal study (theoretical and applied) of oral history specific to the US-Mexico bordered region, I developed an original oral history practice tailored specifically to Dene Nde' (Lipan Apache) and related Indigenous Peoples of the Lower Rio Grande river valley (Texas) and La Junta ('Big Bend') region, alongside Elders, traditional knowledge keepers, and family leaders in these Indigenous territories. I completed my PhD in American Studies (2010), with a focus on Indigenous history, oral history, community history, and historical methods, and developed a new area of study in Lipan Apache women's local and regional herstory/history in El Calaboz village, LRGV, Texas positioned with and alongside Nde' Elders, women, and community leaders. I have 20 years of practice.

Services

Indigenous research methodologies,Trauma-informed research methods with and alongside Indigenous Peoples,Community-based Oral history methods with and alongside Indigenous Peoples,Indigenous community-based archives,Indigenous oral history and human rights,From Interviews-to-Affidavits,From Affidavits-to-International Courts,Decolonizing colonial archives

Languages

Regions Available for Work

Other Regions: British Columbia|| CanadaTexas New Mexico

Specialty

* Indigenous methodologies* Community-engaged research* Transitional Justice methodologies* Truth and Memory* Trauma-informed methodologies* Indigenous oral history in service to international Indigenous human rights advocacies and international mechanisms (UN PFII, UN EMRIP, UN CERD, UN CCPR, UN CEDAW, IAC/OAS).* 20 years of Indigenous oral history practice and experience with Indigenous women human rights plaintiffs

Methods

    • Other:
    • Auto-narrative, poetry and traditional art creation as trauma-informed Indigenous herstorical and historical methodologies.

    Subject Areas

      • Other:
      • Decolonization; Settler Colonialism; Genocide

      Purpose of Contact

      • I am available to answer questions, or provide mentorship to other oral historians
      • I am available for hire - as an oral historian, consultant, presenter, educator, or related services
      • I am available to collaborate - on research, community projects, artistic endeavors, or other joint undertakings with peers
      Contact Margo Tamez
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