Kevin White

Assistant Professor

Department for the Study of Religion and Centre for Indigenous Studies, Faculty of Arts & Science

Disciplinary Area: Humanities
Considerations for Undegraduate Research: Recruitment Training

Professor Kevin White is an Indigenous scholar (Mohawk from Akwesasne, with family from Tonawanda Band of Seneca) whose work primarily focuses on Haudenosaunee Creation narratives and culture. As a scholarly activist, his work must be of value for the Indigenous communities he works for and with. This collaborative approach enables Professor White to follow the communities’ guidance on what is appropriate to study, and what holds too much spiritual and cultural significance to be studied by those who might be considered outsiders.

Much of Professor White’s research has to do with decoding and recoding. He works to decode archival documents written from the colonialist perspective and for a colonialist audience during the eighteenth- and nineteenth- centuries. He then works to recode these documents, or “reawaken” them, sharing the perspectives of Indigenous ancestors and communities. This allows the archival record to hold more meaning for Indigenous communities, underscoring “the inherent generational knowledge and wisdom in those collections of stories.”

In working on his research, Professor White engages many undergraduate students from his courses. His courses introduce students to his work, and his research allows students to delve deeper. While some of the students Professor White works with on his research are Indigenous, Professor White recognizes that the foundational and epistemological stories of Indigenous communities vary greatly and is, therefore, cautious to frame Indigenous students as the “expert” on their shared communities. There has been a long history of extraction from Indigenous communities. Professor White and his students work towards mending those fences and building brighter futures for truly community centered and responsible work with Indigenous materials.

To support undergraduate students’ research, Professor White identifies a project with a clearly defined scope to help make it manageable for students. Students then have the opportunity to do an in-depth exploration on the specific community and culture knowledge systems they are engaging with as part of the larger research project. As students progress to the stage of reviewing archival information, they have a better understanding of the community being discussed and are better prepared to consider: what would the information being shared be perceived from the community perspective?