Editor’s Corner: Indigenous Presence and Memoryscapes Available to Purchase

This issue features two research articles and two reports from the field. The two articles both consider the meaning of representation and “memoryscapes” (physical spaces that shape understandings of both history and contemporary identity). Thomas Rust’s “Silent Echoes: History, Ecology, and Yellowstone Park’s Colonial Memoryscape Through a Critical Examination of Wayside Signs” examines the underrepresentation of history, and particularly of Indigenous history, in the park’s educational signage. Surveying over 480 wayside signs in Yellowstone Park, Rust found that less than 2 percent examine Native American history (mostly discussing the Ni’imupu/Nez Perce) or the ongoing cultural significance of the area to Indigenous peoples. Rust argues that the “memoryscape” created by the National Park Service’s wayside signage presents a “muted understanding of Indigenous people’s history in the world’s first national park and their role in its ecological systems.” Although former Department of Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, a member of the Pueblo of...