Congratulations to Dr. Colin Murray Osmond who received the Canadian Historical Association Indigenous History Best Article Prize for an article published in Acadiensis 53, no. 2.
See: "Maligomish: A History of the Mi'kmaw St. Anne's Mission"
CHA announcement:
"Colin Murray Osmond’s “Maligomish: A History of the Mi’kmaw St. Anne’s Mission” offers an excellent example of why it’s so important for historians to write community-engaged and community-directed Indigenous histories as a movement towards reconciliation and Indigenous-centred methodologies. The article, itself, is the product of a series of research questions and priorities identified by Pictou Landing First Nation elders—specifically their desire to “inspire the youth to re- engage with Maligomish based on the Mi’kmaw history, culture, and spirituality at the ancient site”—as well as with the community’s broader efforts to secure funding to “renovate the exterior of the church that is over a century old.” The result is an article that achieves these local goals in a lively and accessibly written manner. Osmond also makes a number of important historiographical contributions, particularly to a growing scholarly literature reframing Indigenous Christianities within a much older cultural continuity, rather than focusing exclusively on colonial assimilationist agendas. Osmond succeeds in large part because he draws upon a wide range of archival sources as well as community-based oral histories—but always in a way that highlights and prioritizes Mi’kmaw perspectives, teachings and historical traditions. The end result is a sweeping place-based history that is methodologically sophisticated, academically rigorous and that, at the same time, celebrates Mi’kmaw culture and resilience in the face of centuries of settler colonial violence and erasure."