Thomas McIlwraith | University of Guelph (original) (raw)

Books by Thomas McIlwraith

Full citation: . Brown, N., McIlwraith, T., & Tubelle de Gonzalez, L. (Ed.). (2019). Perspective... more Full citation: . Brown, N., McIlwraith, T., & Tubelle de Gonzalez, L. (Ed.). (2019). Perspectives: An Open Invitation to Cultural Anthropology (Second Edition) American Anthropological Association.

From blurb by Wade Davis, PhD, National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence: "We Are Still Didene of... more From blurb by Wade Davis, PhD, National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence: "We Are Still Didene offers a vital glimpse into the enduring values of one of the most remarkable First Nation communities that I have ever known. For a decade the men and women of Iskut, British Columbia, have stood up for their land in the face of a tsunami of industrial development. Their courage is a reflection of their devotion to their children and grandchildren, their loyalty to place, their commitment to an indigenous cultural tradition the power and authority of which is revealed between every line of this most timely of ethnographic accounts."

Papers by Thomas McIlwraith

Anthropologica, 2023

We explore playfully the capacity of an artificial intelligence text generation engine called GPT... more We explore playfully the capacity of an artificial intelligence text generation engine called GPT-3 to produce credible academic texts. Departing from a concern raised by colleagues about the possibility of using GPT-3 to cheat in academia, particularly at the undergraduate level, we interact with the GPT-3 interface as nerdy novices to learn what it could produce. The outputs from the GPT-3 text generation engine are incredible, at times surprising, and often terrible. We point to ways in which GPT-3 might be used by students to produce written work and reasons why most instructors, most of the time, could see through what GPT-3 has produced (at least for now). In our experiments, we learn that GPT-3 can be a productive collaborator in paper design but wonder if this is ethical. In short, while fun and somewhat addictive to experiment with, we must pay attention to the potential ways that AI text generation may begin to appear in the anthropology classroom.

Teaching Anthropology, 2023

In this paper, we reflect on the development, integration, and implementation of a course-based, ... more In this paper, we reflect on the development, integration, and implementation of a course-based, primary data collection fieldwork project for undergraduate anthropology students at the University of Guelph. Integrated across three courses taught between January-April 2022, we developed this project to provide students with the opportunity to build research skills and to broaden their understandings of how anthropological methods can be mobilized in timely, immediate ways, while at the same time engaging with diverse lived realities of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns. We point to key factors that allowed for the success of this pedagogical experiment, which include established high levels of trust among involved faculty members; careful attention to timelines and organization; the distribution of project work among the faculty team; and choosing a topic that was timely, relevant, and engaging for students.

Ecology and Society, 2023

The sustainability transitions literature acknowledges the importance of place for building a mor... more The sustainability transitions literature acknowledges the importance of place for building a more sustainable world. Although some researchers have studied place analytically and made contributions toward developing sustainable communities across the globe, and others have directly discussed the structural aspects of places, the sustainable transitions literature has not fully reconciled place specifics with their implications for sustainability. This research explores how members from the small community of Campobello Island, New Brunswick, Canada, link their sense of place to their understanding of sustainability and considers the implications of this for sustainability transitions. Through an interdisciplinary, mixed methods approach, this work develops three propositions regarding sustainability as it relates to sense(s) of place. First, we found that within the Campobello community, sustainability was linked directly to individuals' senses of place, place identities, and place attachments. Second, we found that there were slight variations in islanders' concepts of sustainability related to these place-related constructs. Third, we found that although this community's sustainability conversations were dominated by place-specific rather than global sustainability discourse, this was not always the case. As a result, the importance of more deeply exploring the normative nature of sustainability transitions is intensified. Understanding how place specifics connect with views of sustainability in a small island community allows us to deeply explore the role of place in sustainability transitions.

Pathways: The Ontario Journal of Outdoor Education, 2021

Ezewski, Valerie, Thomas McIlwraith, and Stephen Fine. 2021. The Challenges of Indigenous-Inspire... more Ezewski, Valerie, Thomas McIlwraith, and Stephen Fine. 2021. The Challenges of Indigenous-Inspired Programming in Children’s Summer Camping . Pathways: The Ontario Journal of Outdoor Education. 33(4):6-17.

The Canadian Journal of Native Studies, 2015

ABSTRACT

Unpublished PhD Thesis. University of New …, 2007

... iii © Iskut First Nation (Stories, verbatim speech, and traditional knowledge are the propert... more ... iii © Iskut First Nation (Stories, verbatim speech, and traditional knowledge are the property of the speaker and/or of the Iskut First Nation.) © Thomas McIlwraith (The ideas contained herein and the structure of this dissertation are the property of Thomas McIlwraith.) Page 4. iv ...

Teaching and Learning Anthropology, 2019

This article describes how to play a game in a first year anthropology classroom. The game reinfo... more This article describes how to play a game in a first year anthropology classroom. The game reinforces the concepts of reciprocity and exchange.

Collaborative Anthropologies, 2019

Full Citation: Nuxnuxskaca Cts'e7i7elt, (Julianna Alexander), Sáwllkwa (Water), (Water), Natali E... more Full Citation: Nuxnuxskaca Cts'e7i7elt, (Julianna Alexander), Sáwllkwa (Water), (Water), Natali Euale Montilla, and Thomas McIlwraith, (Tad). ""Doctors and Professors Aren't the Professors of the Land": Reflections on the Interconnected Environment with Splatsin Elder Nuxnuxskaca Cts'e7i7elt." Collaborative Anthropologies 11, no. 2 (2019): 1-25.

Abstract: In this paper, Splatsin Elder Nuxnuxskaca cts'e7i7elt (Julianna Alexander) reflects on the state of our environment. In these reflections, Nuxnuxskaca cts'e7i7elt suggests that all life is connected and that a holistic understanding of those connections is an effective way to understand human wellbeing, explain poor health, and describe environmental change. The paper is presented in the voices of all authors, including those of Tad McIlwraith and Natali Euale Montilla, who are both academically trained in anthropology but are learning about Nuxnuxskaca cts'e7i7elt's perspectives through interviews, informal conversations, and trips on the land. It introduces Sáwllkwa (Water) as an author and motivator for these reflections. All authors contribute their expertise to this work and, in doing so, remind us that academic presentations of Indigenous practices are valuable because they can extend conversations creatively. Yet, wordy academic statements like this can be ineffective at expressing and conveying lived experiences (Marcus 1986, 264–65). In sum, the paper presents Nuxnuxskaca cts'e7i7elt's views of the interconnected environment within a multi-authored and collaborative presentation.

Histories of Anthropology Annual: Volume 11. Historicizing Theories, Identities, and Nations, 2017

Full citation: McIlwraith, Thomas. 2017. Arthur Nole (1940-2015): Tahltan Elder, Raconteur, and F... more Full citation: McIlwraith, Thomas. 2017. Arthur Nole (1940-2015): Tahltan Elder, Raconteur, and Friend. In Histories of Anthropology Annual: Volume 11. Historicizing Theories, Identities, and Nations. Regna Darnell and Frederic W. Gleach, eds. Pp. 267-281. Lincoln, NB: University of Nebraska Press.

This paper uses Jack Mezirow’s concept of the disorienting dilemma to discuss opportunities in an... more This paper uses Jack Mezirow’s concept of the disorienting dilemma to discuss opportunities in anthropological teaching to transform student beliefs. It compares the connections between classroom instruction in cultural relativity, a core concept in cultural anthropology, and field-based anthropology experiences related to the same concept. Drawing on examples from my classroom and from a research-oriented field school, my observations suggest that while students are good at understanding cultural relativity intellectually, and identify or define the concept easily on tests, they are not as capable at applying the concept to observations made of films or in field settings, situations which are disorienting for students despite the fact they have the conceptual tools to work through them. Further, the paper asks if trigger warnings and disorienting dilemmas are actually the same thing, wondering too if trigger warnings are consistent with the transformative potential of higher education promoted by Mezirow.

Co-authored with Raymond Cormier, Title and Rights, Splatsin First Nation. As a method of rec... more Co-authored with Raymond Cormier, Title and Rights, Splatsin First Nation.

As a method of recording Indigenous uses of the land, traditional land use mapping is a fixture in resource development-related consultation. In light of the recent Tsilhqot’in Decision in the Supreme Court of Canada, we argue that traditional land use documentation must move beyond the mapping of individual sites. Such work must consider the contexts in which Indigenous peoples use their traditional lands and as well as local, Indigenous concepts of management and governance. Drawing on an example of from Secwepemc territory in south-central British Columbia, we argue that the Tsilhqot’in Decision gives legal support to a more nuanced conception of the places of cultural significance to Indigenous peoples. We demonstrate further that the “spaces” between the places on traditional land use maps must be brought to the fore in development-related consultation.

The Splatsin people of the British Columbia southern Interior are Interior Salish salmon fishers ... more The Splatsin people of the British Columbia southern Interior are Interior Salish salmon fishers who live along the Shuswap River in the Fraser River watershed. The processes of colonialism, including reserve creation and the pre-emption of private property, have largely cut off the Splatsin from family-controlled fishing sites along the Shuswap River. In 2010, the Splatsin closed Cooke Creek campground, one public access point to the river, for a culture camp. In doing so, a handful of annoyed non-Indigenous users of the river protested vocally on an internet chat board called HuntingBC.ca. My reading of the chat board comments indicates that opposition to the closure was along three main lines: restricted access, racism, and fairness. In this paper I address each of these lines by embedding the tenor of the Cooke Creek camp controversy in the history of access restrictions along the Shuswap River. I conclude that the excitement caused by the Splatsin’s closure of the Cooke Creek Recreation Site is laced with irony. In fact, after almost one hundred and fifty years of limited access for the Splatsin to the Shuswap River by non-Indigenous settlers, the notion that settler rights are violated by a five day closure of the campground is absurd.

The Northern Review, 2012

Tahltan Athapaskans at Iskut Village, British Columbia have been challenged by resource developer... more Tahltan Athapaskans at Iskut Village, British Columbia have been challenged by resource developers to explain why hunting camps cannot be moved away from mining activities in the Klappan River watershed. In response, Iskut people tell that hunting camps are homes where family histories are shared, hunting activities are conducted, and gender roles are taught and reinforced. This article builds on Heidegger’s notions of dwelling and building, and the anthropological literatures on place and home, to elaborate on Iskut peoples’ insistence that their camps are enduring places, used indefinitely by both the living and the spirits of their ancestors. The implications of Iskut perspectives for development activities are explained as well.

Anthropological Linguistics, 2008

At Iskut Village, British Columbia, moose hunting is frequently spoken about in the fonn of conv... more At Iskut Village, British Columbia, moose hunting is frequently spoken about in the fonn of conversational narratives. Upon analysis, these narratives are full of conventions aimed at valorizing the slain moose even while speakers talk about hunting success indirectly. Here, I present four short moose pursuit stories, along with additional evidence from the speech of Iskut hunters, to show that care is always required when talking about food animals. By extension, such care is indicative of ideal social relations between people.

The purpose of this paper is to list and summarize materials on the Tahltan language, including l... more The purpose of this paper is to list and summarize materials on the Tahltan language, including linguistic and anthropological research papers, dictionaries, collections of stories, and teaching materials. We hope that the bibliography will give language teachers, linguists, anthropologists, and all others interested in Tahltan language and culture (and Athabaskan languages in general) an awareness of what materials exist and how they might be useful in a range of scholarship.

American Indian Culture and Research Journal, 1996

Children in the Stó:lo community of southwestern of British Columbia, Canada, face a confusing cu... more Children in the Stó:lo community of southwestern of British Columbia, Canada, face a confusing cultural paradox at school in the 1990s. In both B.C.'s public schools and in native-run classrooms, Stó:lo children learn more native history and heritage than ever before. Ironically, much of the native curriculum presents local native people as Plains Indians, and pan-Indian iconography dominates these classroom lessons. These mixed identity messages reflect a community distress caused by the increasing prevalence of Plains Indian cultural traits and activities in the Stó:lo’s Fraser Valley territory. The influx of nontraditional cultural expression into Stó:lo society is one aspect of a more general debate concerning shifting claims on identity within the Stó:lo community. This paper describes local perspectives on the competing versions of Stó:lo identity. The most widely accepted identity is, however, neither that of a unique Stó:lo past nor fully pan-Indian. It is a blend.