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“They Have Decided What Houses Will Be Built”: Indigenous Peoples, Architecture, and the Settler-Colonial State, 1920–1970s

This event is free but advance registration is required to participate.

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After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the lecture. Please note that we will be held virtually only.

Magdalena Miłosz, PhD Candidate, Peter Guo-hua Fu School of Architecture, McGill University

In this talk, I will present parts of my dissertation research examining architecture as a site of encounter between Indigenous peoples and the Canadian settler-colonial state between 1920 and the 1970s. The Indian Affairs bureaucracy created to manage First Nations, and later Inuit, had employed architects since the late nineteenth century and was one of just a handful of Canadian federal government departments to have its own construction agency.  The department itself and its relations with Indigenous peoples across Canada have long been subjects of scholarly inquiry, but Indian Affairs’ prolific design and construction activities have, generally, been overlooked. Understanding the relationship between Canada and Indigenous peoples as one of ongoing (settler) colonialism, this project interrogates the place of architecture in constructing and reproducing these power relations and as a space in which subjects are shaped through their relations to one another, both in terms of physical settings and as sets of discourses and practices.

About the Speaker

Magdalena Miłosz is an architectural historian with a focus on architectural and environmental histories of settler colonialism. She holds a Bachelor of Architectural Studies (Honours), Master of Architecture, and Graduate Diploma in Cognitive Science from the University of Waterloo and is a doctoral candidate at McGill University. She is an intern with the Canadian Association of Heritage Professionals and serves as the Vice-President (Membership & Communications) of the Society for the Study of Architecture in Canada. Magda is based in Kitchener, Ontario and currently works with Parks Canada in the History and Commemoration Branch of the Indigenous Affairs and Cultural Heritage Directorate.