In her article in this issue, Miranda Johnson casts contemporary Aotearoa (New Zealand) history as the search for “a past future that can serve a proximate now”: a utopian vision of a redeemable past that not only guides the imagination of some Indigenous and non-Indigenous historians but also is central to the objectives of certain government institutions. At first glance, as Johnson notes, this appears to run counter to accepted archival practice. It has, however, been baked into funding priorities in Aotearoa, thus transforming the landscape of academic research.
Johnson is one of four authors of this Ethnohistory dossier, each approaching Indigenous legal history from a different standpoint and from diverse points on the globe, but coinciding in that they advocate for a revitalization of historical research practices while at the same time acknowledging impediments to change how we study Indigenous history. Gloria Lopera-Mesa voices the dilemma of reconciling her...
