00:00.00 archpodnet Welcome to episode one thirty two of a life ruins podcast reinvestigate the careers of those living life and ruins I'm your host Carlton Gover and today my co-host Connor John and and David Howe are unable to join me. Um, but for this week's episode. We are really pleased to be joined while I am really pleased to be joined by Ashley Thompson Ashley thank you so much for coming on the show. How are you doing I'm doing okay, it's the end of the semester. You know we're getting through it right before the break. 00:20.27 Ashleigh Thompson I am Well how are you. 00:27.97 Ashleigh Thompson Yes, it's always a busy time of year for everyone. It seems like. 00:34.78 archpodnet Yeah, we're recording this the Sunday right before Thanksgiving. So yeah, hectic time for a lot of people's schedules I can imagine so real quick Ashley could you introduce yourself? um to our audience just you know. 00:37.26 Ashleigh Thompson Um, so. 00:48.76 archpodnet Where are you working and how long you've been working there. 00:50.62 Ashleigh Thompson Yeah, so I am Ashley Thompson and I am currently working at archaeology southwest which is a nonprofit archaeological organization based in Tucson Arizona. Aka. Um, Donna Otham and paskay yaki lands I've been working there since January so almost a year now. Um, and before that I was in graduate school at the University Of Arizona um I'm currently on a leave of absence from my ph d program. I reached the candidacy stage but then the pandemic happened and um I decided to take a break which has been really really great for me. 01:35.12 archpodnet Absolutely and so Ashley is also a contributor to Emily Van altsten i's edited volume which listeners may have heard of a couple times so it's like actually really cool to have Ashley finally on the show because we've been wanting to have Ashley for some for some time. Um, and and with that um Ashley you are an indigenous archeologist. So what's what's your nation. 01:59.44 Ashleigh Thompson Yeah I'm an enrolled member of the Red Lake ojibwe tribe and so I'm a nishinabe um Red Lake is located in Northern Minnesota um my mom is from there grew up there. The early part of her childhood. Um, and then my dad's family. Um, they're white from rural minnesota. So um, I'm anishabe living in the desert right now. 02:27.59 archpodnet That awesome. So what got you into anthropology and archaeology in the first place were you exposed to it um early on in your public education or was it more of kind of like a college introduction. 02:40.94 Ashleigh Thompson So it was more of a college introduction though I must say my brother and I were huge fans of the Indiana Jones Series so I would say that was my first exposure to archeology. Um. But when I was growing up I didn't realize that archaeology was a part of anthropology and I didn't even realize what anthropology really was the study of humans. Um, and so when I was an undergraduate student. Um. We had to take a freshman seminar class and I ended up in one about it was called like American Indians and popular culture and it was taught by a mete indigenous woman who was a cultural anthropologist. And um, it was really eyeopening for me because I'd never been taught by an indigenous person. Um I didn't even know what anthropology was like I said and I was really um, even though it was like an 8 a m class I was really excited to go to class. And it. It was just really fascinating for me to like learn about indigenous people and an academic setting in a way that was not problematic like a lot of my kindergarten through Twelfth Grade Education was um because. 04:09.66 Ashleigh Thompson When I was learning about indigenous people. Unfortunately, they were always historicized. Um, we never really talked about current issues in indian country and um I was just really enamored with this class because one the professor was really great and you know that always helps. Um, in classes and then two we were taking a critical lens and like studying how we as native people are portrayed in the media and I just like thought that was so cool and I started realizing all of the problematic like stereotypes. The media holds and perpetuates about indigenous people. Um, and then start thinking about thinking about like what does good representation of our communities look like um and so I actually went in as a student as a environmental science major. Um, but I really loved Dr. Ah, peletteer's class so much that um I ended up just taking more of her classes because I enjoyed her teaching style. Um and the content so much and so um, as I started taking more classes I realized that I was. Much more interested in studying humans specifically indigenous people. Um, and I ended up switching my major to anthropology. Um, and also american indian studies and english and so um, that's kind of how I came to anthropology. 05:45.60 Ashleigh Thompson And Archeology specifically. Um it was a class required for the major and I had already had some experience doing Ecology fieldwork which I really enjoyed working outside. Um I'm a hands on Learner. So It was really nice to be. Um, in a fieldwork setting and learn that Way. So I already knew going into my archeology class like that I might like it because I was like I like to work outside I like to study humans. Um, and so I took my archeology class learn more about the discipline. Um, and I took my field school and I did really enjoy it and so um, that's kind of how I got into archeology. It was kind of it wasn't what I set out to do but it was something that I ended up in and loving. 06:34.97 archpodnet You all right? and where did you do your undergrad in with these what 3 different bachelor's degrees english anthro and. 06:41.99 Ashleigh Thompson yeah it was actually yeah it was actually 4 but um so it was at University Of Minnesota Morris and that's a really neat story kind of how I ended up there. Um, so it's one of. The few public universities that has a native american tuition waiver um unfortunately the school its history is that it started out as a boarding school for native american kids um, in the late eighteen hundreds and um. It was a boarding school for a few decades. It got transferred um to the state of Minnesota as a property once the boarding school closed and when they transferred the property to the state of Minnesota. There was a clause that ensured that native american students would get tuition free on that campus. And the university has honored that. Um and so that was like 1 of the reasons I ended up there but I also had family alum that went to University Of Minnesota morris um actually my dad's side so my non-native side I have great uncles great-aunts and and an uncle that went to Morris um and so I was exposed to it really early on and my grandmother um on my dad's side actually grew up in the town of morris minnesota and it's like a really small town on the prairie. So um, when I was a kid I would go there for family reunions and to. 08:14.96 Ashleigh Thompson Grandma loved to visit her old hometown. Um, and I decided to do a campus visit when I was in high school and really liked it. Um and ended up attending and I'm really glad I did. 08:30.87 archpodnet And excellent. That's awesome like I desperately wish I had known more about universities with tuition waivers when I was time for college. It could have saved me some some debt some debt I have to pay back later. Um, but with that being said, do you think like with your. Multiple bachelors and also your perspective as an indigenous woman like does this give you you think or um, let me rephrase that whole sentence. So with your multiple degrees and your perspective as an indigenous woman um does that give you a. 09:03.73 Ashleigh Thompson Um, for what. 09:06.32 archpodnet Better insight into archeology and working with de descendant communities having all these different ontologies and and paradigms kind of like backing your the way that you look at the world and look at your research. 09:20.60 Ashleigh Thompson Absolutely um I would say that out of my four majors. They're all they all really compliment each other really well. Um, and Morris was a small school. So like there is only a few faculty in American Indian Studies and 1 of them was an english professor so I ended up taking a lot of her classes and I really like writing and literature. So um I ended up um also majoring in english because there was overlap between my american indian studies classes and my english classes. So it. It wasn't like I was taking a bunch of credits that there wasn't any overlap. Um, but I I really think that american indian studies is a great major. Um for people that do archeology particularly in North America because it really um, provides you. With a framework for understanding living indigenous people and I'm a strong believer that um if you're working in North America you should at least have an understanding of the indigenous people who are who created the material culture. The sites. Etc that we study as north american archeologists so Ais was a super helpful major um and then multicultural studies. It was um, attack on major that was pretty easy to get with my the classes I was already taking but again. 10:49.50 Ashleigh Thompson Just helping me understand people that are different than myself and that come from different cultures was really beneficial to um to my to my work right now and then english um I mean writing helps you. And all aspects of life I think a lot of the opportunities that I've garnered over the years have been because I have a strong writing background so I can write grants I can um, write papers. It's it's not um, it's something I enjoy and it's something that. I'm okay at and english definitely helped me in that regard. So I feel like all of these majors have helped me and I also wasn't really sure like as an undergraduate student what I wanted to do with my career and so I was like well maybe I'll be a writer I'll get that english. Background or um I don't know where I'll end up so that was another reason for diversifying my educational background. 11:50.64 archpodnet I understood and then so what made you want to pursue graduate school did you take time off between undergrad and grad school to go like work crm or work in a different field or was it kind of like straight you got out in may and then got back into school in August and. 12:07.73 Ashleigh Thompson You know I really wish I had worked in ah in the field for a gap year. Um, but I did take a gap year it was in a totally unrelated subject matter I was in Americorps for a year working at an elementary school doing. Ah, literacy teaching to to young kids and so um I needed a break from undergrad like I had a lot I was a very busy, undergraduate student like between um like all of my classwork working part time I was also. Um, and cross country and track and like was part of a bunch of student orgs. So I really did want to take a break and consider if archeology was what I wanted to pursue and so during that time. Um I I did feel like it was a career I wanted to go into so I started. Applying to graduate schools which takes a lot of time in and of itself. So um, so yeah I don't know if I would have been able to do that my senior year on top of everything else that was going on. Um, and yeah I applied to several schools that looked like a good fit I was looking for. Um. Programs that had faculty that worked with indigenous communities because I wanted to do indigenous archeology. Um I was looking for programs that were funded like I I definitely if they offered um funding I they were higher on my list I think there was only one grad school that didn't have any funding. 13:40.63 Ashleigh Thompson Um, and I was also like you know you want to end up somewhere where you want to live so that was also a part of my my decision making process and um I got into almost all of the schools I applied to but I narrowed it down to the University Of Arizona Unass Amherst and um Michigan State University and the only I hadn't been to unass Amherst and I hadn't been to msu so during that time I was able to do visits and meet the faculty and. And my advisor is that would have been my advisors had I gone into those programs and meet with graduate students as well who um, that was really helpful hearing the insider scoop on what's happening within those graduate programs and. 14:36.62 Ashleigh Thompson It was a really hard decision to be honest, like Michigan was really appealing because um I wanted to stay an initial aak key or in nishnae land and continue like in my language classes. My ojibwe language classes and you know being around the initialnae community. Um. You masked Amherst was awesome because Sonia Adelaide would have been my advisor who is like yeah so um I was like but then I I just didn't feel like the indigenous student body was really strong out there. Um I did meet some native students. But. 14:58.85 archpodnet So right. 15:13.82 Ashleigh Thompson Compared to the University Of Arizona where I ended up. Um there's a ton of native students on campus. Um, and the University Of Arizona um is where I ended up for for a number of reasons but they had a lot of faculty that had worked with indigenous communities and. Um I I really like the southwest and um, they had a really they have a really strong reputation as ah as an anthropology school. So I ended up here and I'm again I'm glad I ended up where I am um I think it really? Ah. Kind of like I was meant to be here. A lot of opportunities popped up that I wouldn't have gotten otherwise so. 15:54.56 archpodnet And right so when you got off the plane in Tucson did you just immediately dry out from going to the great lakes down to the desert like I imagine that that must have been a shift. Yeah. 15:59.16 Ashleigh Thompson I. 16:06.60 Ashleigh Thompson Oh yes, that was a major shift but um, I honestly like I get cold easily and um the the long winters up north can really get to me and so it was a welcome change. Um, it's. Definitely an opposite climate compared to Minnesota um, but but the desert has really grown on me the sonoran desert with all of the suaro cactus and like amazing wildlife and there's tons of mountains down here actually which I didn't realize um. And so you can escape the summer heat um by like going up the nearby mountains. so um so yeah it was a definitely a change. But um I I really enjoy living here. 16:54.64 archpodnet We excellent and on that note, we're gonna go ahead and add and on that note, we're gonna go ahead and end segment 1 of episode 1 3 to 2 will be right back with Ashley Thompson