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Dr Blanca Tovías

ARC Discovery Early Career Research Fellow
Managing Editor, Journal of Iberian and Latin American Research (JILAR)
Room 808, Brennan MacCallum Building

P +61 2 93512469

I completed my first class combined honours degree in English and Spanish and Latin American Studies (2001), and my PhD in History and English (2007) at the University of New South Wales. I received The Aisling Society Prize in English (1998), the Doctoral Thesis Prize (2007), and the Ian J. Bickerton Postgraduate History Prize (2007). I was also the recipient of an Australian Postgraduate Award (2003–2007), and a University of Sydney Postdoctoral Fellowship (2009–11). I have taught in several disciplines, including courses on the colonizing of the Americas, the politics of dress in history, English Literature, and Spanish Language and Civilization.

The volume Colonialism on the Prairies: Blackfoot Settlement and Cultural Transformation, 1870–1920, based on my dissertation, was published in 2011, a paperback version will appear in 2012. It is a study of cultural continuity within the four divisions of the Niitsitapiksi (The Real People), the Blackfoot speaking First Nations of the northern Plains of North America. It analyses threads of continuity within the realms of religion, politics, dress, knowledge transmission, and the production of historical and literary genres during an era of radical transformation attendant upon settlement of the West.

Research areas

  • History of First Nations Women (United States and Canada).
  • History and Literature of the First Nations of the Great Plains (United States and Canada).
  • Imperialism and Colonialism throughout the Americas.
  • The History of Exploration and Colonization of the Pacific, 19th Century.
  • The History and Literature of Revitalization Movements in the Americas.

Current projects

  1. Australian Research Council funded project: Entangled Colonialisms: First Nations Women of the American–Canadian Borderlands, 1880–1940. I study how women renegotiated their gendered roles during the first six decades of settlement on reserves and reservations in Montana (United States) and Alberta (Canada). I am especially interested in their income-producing activities, their wealth in material terms, and their prestige derived from ceremonial functions.
  2. Antorcha Peruana: Historia y Poes'a de la Independencia en el Sur Andino, an annotated edition of an 1819 history written in epic verse; Ms. in Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid. Paleographic transcription, author biography, historical background, literary analysis–In preparation (est. 35,000 words). I have presented preliminary findings at several international conferences and expect to complete writing in 2012.

Current Writing

  1. ‘The Right to Possess Memory: Winter Counts of the Blackfoot c.1836–1937’. Journal article. I analyze the winter count genre on the basis of three Siksika (Blackfoot) exemplars spanning the non-sedentary era and the first half-century of settlement on reserves. I focus on innovation and persistence of the genre.
  2. ‘First Nations Women Across the Americas’. Book chapter for a book on the history of empires, edited by Robert Aldrich and Kerstin McKenzie, under contract with Routledge. I analyze the roles of indigenous women and how these transformed as a result of colonization.
  3. ‘The Vicissitudes of First Nations Women’s Work in the Early Reserve Era.’ Journal article. I analyze women’s work in the transition to settlement as part of a larger project concerned with the history of First Nations women in Montana and Alberta 1880–1940.
  4. ‘Gendered Designs: Twentieth Century Patterns of Clothing and Patterns of Living on the Plains.’ Journal article. I explore the role of craft production in First Nations intertribal and intercultural relationships (United States, Canada, and Australia).

Publications

Cover, Colonialsm on the Praries

Books
Colonialism on the Prairies: Blackfoot Settlement and Cultural Transformation, 1870–1920. Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2011. ISBN 978-1-84519-307-2.

De la Etnohistoria hacia la Historia de los Andes, John Fisher and David Cahill (eds.), with the collaboration of Blanca Tov'as, Quito: Abya-Yala, 2008. ISBN 978-9978-22. Paperback 978-1-84519-540-3.

New World, First Nations: Native Peoples of Mesoamerica and the Andes under Colonial Rule, David Cahill and Blanca Tov'as (eds), Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2006. ISBN 1-903900-63-8.

Élites Ind'genas en los Andes: Nobles, Caciques y Cabildantes bajo el Yugo Colonial, David Cahill and Blanca Tov'as (eds), Quito: Abya-Yala, 2003. ISBN 997822-293-6.

Articles and Book Chapters
‘Blackfeet Diplomacy and Contestation before and after the 1870 Massacre of Pikuni’, Ethnohistory, submitted and accepted.

“A Blueprint for Massacre: The United States Army and the 1870 Blackfeet Massacre”, in Philip Dwyer and Lyndall Ryan, (eds), Theatres of Violence: The Massacre, Mass Killing and Atrocity in History, New York: Berghahn Books. Accepted, in Press.

“Blackfeet Diplomacy and Contestation before and after the 1870 Massacre of
Pikuni”, Ethnohistory (accepted, in revision)

“A Hero for all Seasons: A Late Nineteenth-Century Paii in James Welch’s Fools Crow”, Australasian Canadian Studies 27, 1–2 (2009): 129–147.

‘Navigating the Cultural Encounter: Blackfoot Religious Resistance in Canada (c.1870–1930)’, in Dirk Moses (ed.), Empire, Colony, Genocide: Conquest, Occupation and Subaltern Resistance in World History, New York: Berghahn Books, 2008, pp. 271–95. ISBN 978-1-84545-452-4.

‘Power Dressing on the Prairies: The Grammar of Blackfoot Leadership Dress’, in Louise Edwards and Mina Roces (eds), Gender, Nation and the Politics of Dress in Asia and the Americas. Brighton, UK: Sussex Academic Press, 2007, pp. 139–62. ISBN 978-1-84519-163-4.

‘Colonialism and Demographic Catastrophes in the Americas: Blackfoot Tribes of the Northwest’, in Patricia Grimshaw and Russell McGregor (eds), Collision of Cultures and Identities: Settlers and Indigenous Peoples. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2006, pp. 72–8. ISBN 0 975839 27 6. Electronic edition by the University of Melbourne. RMIT Press, pp. 72–78. EISBN: 1921166282.

‘Introduction: First Nations between Conquest and Independence’, in David Cahill and Blanca Tov'as (eds), New World, First Nations: Native Peoples of Mesoamerica and the Andes under Colonial Rule. Brighton, UK: Sussex Academic Press, 2006, pp. 1–9. ISBN 1-903900-63-8.

‘Infected by the Hybrid? Framing Blackfoot Stories across Genres’, New Literatures Review 43 (2006): pp. 83–97. ISSN 0314-7495.

‘Introducción: Las élites nativas andinas durante la época colonial’, in Élites Ind'genas en los Andes: Nobles, Caciques y Cabildantes bajo el Yugo Colonial, David Cahill and Blanca Tov'as (eds). Quito: Abya-Yala, 2003, pp. 9–16. ISBN 997822-293-6.

Editorial Responsibilities

Managing Editor, Journal of Iberian and Latin American Research (JILAR)

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