Against ‘contact’

The use of ‘contact’ is problematic, in part, because it is often applied in ways that privilege non-Indigenous voices. In Cookian terms, the view is ‘from the ship and not the shore’. Hence objects, such as glass, ceramic, and metal tools produced by Indigenous peoples, tend to be interpreted from technical and historical archaeological perspectives, typically without commentary by those Aboriginal owners and custodians on whose land such items are ‘discovered’. That is, ‘contact’ is used, consciously or otherwise, in ways that perpetuate settler colonialism and appropriate cultural rights.