Coming Home : curation, exhibition and research-creation as reclamation and truth-telling
department or school: Arts, Faculty of
department or school: Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice, Institute for
data provider: DSpace
degree campus: UBCV
creator: James, Margaretta
issued: 2025-10-16T23:23:42Z
issued: 2025
related degree: Master of Arts - MA
degree grantor: University of British Columbia
description: My thesis project centres around reclamation â what it means to reclaim oneâs personal and family history, community treasures and belongings, and right to truth-telling through storytelling in a self- and co-curated exhibit. Following an autoethnographic framework, I connect my cultural heritage identity as a Filipina-Lílwat woman and my 42 years of experience living and working with the Mowachaht-Muchalaht First Nation, within the context of migration studies, Indigeneity, and repatriation and reconciliation efforts. Through my exhibit and exegesis, I explore the notion of Coming Home through a critical-creative exploration of âhomeâ and processes of reclamation informed by my land-based knowledges and pre-existing public history collaborations with the Land of Maquinna Cultural Society and Mowachaht-Muchalaht First Nation. In order to bridge traditional knowledge with public history, and community with academia, Coming Home forefronts the oral history tradition of truth-telling through visual and textual forms, and emphasizes the efficacy of collaboration in public history and heritage work by mirroring community-based processes. The accompanying public history exhibit titled Coming Home, aimed to consider how museum exhibits can present cultural belongings, stories, and experiences in ways that honour their meanings and ongoing connections to family and community, and that allow for a critical-creative exploration of Indigenous-Asian relations and mobilities. This first iteration of the exhibit was on display in the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre with the Chung | Lind Gallery at UBC from May to July 2025. By using photographs and treasures within my family collection in the exhibit to tell my stories, of my mother who was Stlʼatlʼimx of the Lílwat, my father who was Visayan of the Philippines, and my husband whose roots were of the Mowachaht and Muchalaht, Coming Home traced my journey of reclaiming these histories as a means of guiding the futures of my g…
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/92650
note: COMING HOME: CURATION, EXHIBITION AND RESEARCH-CREATION AS RECLAMATION AND TRUTH-TELLING by Margaretta James A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in The Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies (Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Social Justice) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) October 2025 © Margaretta James, 2025 The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies for acceptance, the thesis entitled: Coming Home: curation, exhibition and research-creation as reclamation and truth-telling submitted by Margaretta James in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Social Justice Examining Committee: Dr John Paul Catungal, Assistant Professor, Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Social Justice, UBC Co-Supervisor Dr Henry Yu, Professor, History, UBC Co-Supervisor ii Abstract My thesis project centres around reclamation â what it means to reclaim oneâs personal and family history, community treasures and belongings, and right to truth-telling through storytelling in a self- and co-curated exhibit. Following an autoethnographic framework, I connect my cultural heritage identity as a Filipina-Lílwat woman and my 42 years of experience living and working with the Mowachaht-Muchalaht First Nation, within the context of migration studies, Indigeneity, and repatriation and reconciliation efforts. Through my exhibit and exegesis, I explore the notion of Coming Home through a critical-creative exploration of âhomeâ and processes of reclamation informed by my land-based knowledges and pre-existing public history collaborations with the Land of Maquinna Cultural Society and Mowachaht-Muchalaht First Nation. In order to bridge traditional knowledge with public history, and community with academia, Coming Home forefronts the oral history tradition of truth-telling through visual and textua…
has type: Thesis/Dissertation
date issued: 2025-11
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0450469
language: eng
degree discipline: Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: University of British Columbia
rights: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
rights URI: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
scholar level: Graduate
contributor: Catungal, John Paul
contributor: Yu, Henry, 1967-
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/92650