Bur ge Lecture with Dr. Sarah Nickel
The Burge Lecture is an ann ual endowed lecture organized by the H istory Graduate Students Association and made possible by a generous do nation from UBC alumnus William Burge. The series provides students\, facul ty\, alumni and community members the opportunity to connect with historian s and scholars engaged in exciting research relevant to our times.
UB C Department of History is pleased to announce the 2025 Burge Lecture will be delivered by Dr. Sarah Nickel\, Associate Professor in the Department of History a nd Classics at the University of Alberta.
Light refreshments will be provided by Salishan Catering after the talk.
Location: AMS Nest\, Ro om 2301.
“A Crying Need for a Day Care Centre”: Indigenous-Ru n Day Cares\, 1967-1985.
"This talk examines the creation of Indigenous day care centres across the west to explain how Indigenous wome n shifted child care from a private issue within individual families to one grounded in their political rights as Indigenous women to have culturally suitable care for their children. I understand caregiving as an act of poli tical resistance to preserve cultural integrity. I likewise explore child c are in day care as an important intersection between labour and activism. L ike other racialized women\, Indigenous women often struggled to find perma nent and well-paying employment\, and their child care arrangements caught the attention of social workers who threatened to apprehend children while women worked for wages\, looked for work\, or did culture-based work. Indig enous women\, in turn\, used unpaid political activism in formal women’s or ganizations and ad hoc community groups to combat these dual inequities. Un der the umbrella of child care activism\, it is possible to articulate and understand the complexities of Indigenous women’s wage work\, culture-based work\, and voluntary political work and how these related to racialized an d gendered understandings of labour\, politics\, and care for children."
Sarah Ann Nickel is Tk’emlupsemc (Kamloops Secwepemc)\, French Canadia n\, and Ukrainian and grew up on the unceded lands of the First Nations of the Pacific Northwest. Nickel is an Associate Professor in the Department o f History and Classics at the University of Alberta. Her research focuses o n Indigenous political histories and activism in twentieth century western Canada\, and the gendered nature of politics.
Nickel is the author of the award-winning book\, Assembling Unity: Indigenous Politics\, Gender\, and the Union of BC Indian Chiefs (2019)\, which explores the relationship between pan-Indigenous politics in British Columbia and global political id eologies through the detailed history of the Union of BC Indian Chiefs. She also led the edited volume\, In Good Relation: History\, Gender\, and Kins hip in Indigenous Feminisms (2020)\, which facilitated a dialogue amongst l eading scholarly feminist intellectuals. The book offers space for the ques tioning\, revising and reinventing of Indigenous feminisms through the incl usion of pieces that question gender roles\, identities\, and tradition\, e xplore kinship and sexuality\, and centralize self-reflection.