Michael I. Asch (born April 9, 1943) is an
anthropologist
An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms and ...
in
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
.
He is
Professor Emeritus
''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...
at the
University of Alberta
The University of Alberta, also known as U of A or UAlberta, is a public research university located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It was founded in 1908 by Alexander Cameron Rutherford,"A Gentleman of Strathcona – Alexander Cameron Rutherfor ...
and is currently working as a Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the
University of Victoria
The University of Victoria (UVic or Victoria) is a public research university located in the municipalities of Oak Bay and Saanich, British Columbia, Canada. The university traces its roots to Victoria College, the first post-secondary instit ...
.
Much of his work over the years has focused on issues of
Indigenous rights
Indigenous rights are those rights that exist in recognition of the specific condition of the Indigenous peoples. This includes not only the most basic human rights of physical survival and integrity, but also the rights over their land (includ ...
and Indigenous-Settler relations in Canada.
Michael Asch received a B.A. in anthropology from the
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...
and a Ph.D. from
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
.
He has been a Fellow of the
Royal Society of Canada
The Royal Society of Canada (RSC; french: Société royale du Canada, SRC), also known as the Academies of Arts, Humanities and Sciences of Canada (French: ''Académies des arts, des lettres et des sciences du Canada''), is the senior national, bil ...
since 2002 as a part of the Academy of Social Sciences.
He has been a part of several research projects and non-profit initiatives such as
Intellectual Property Issues in Cultural Heritage (iPinCH)
and
Smithsonian Folkways Recordings
Smithsonian Folkways is the nonprofit record label of the Smithsonian Institution. It is a part of the Smithsonian's Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, located at Capital Gallery in downtown Washington, D.C. The label was fou ...
.
Michael Asch is also credited as being one of the founding members the
Canadian Anthropology Society/la société canadienne d'anthropologie (CASCA).
Life and family
Michael Asch was born on April 9, 1943, in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
,
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
.
He is the son of
Moses Asch
Moses Asch (December 2, 1905 – October 19, 1986) was an American recording engineer and record executive. He founded Asch Records, which then changed its name to Folkways Records when the label transitioned from 78 RPM recordings to LP records. ...
, the founder of
Folkway Records, and the grandson of
Sholem Asch
Sholem Asch ( yi, שלום אַש, pl, Szalom Asz; 1 November 1880 – 10 July 1957), also written Shalom Ash, was a Polish-Jewish novelist, dramatist, and essayist in the Yiddish language who settled in the United States.
Life and work
Asch ...
, a Polish-Jewish novelist, dramatist, and Yiddish language essayist.
Asch was an only child and does not have any siblings.
He is married to Margaret Asch.
[COW - Jul 15 - 2013.pdf (oakbay.ca)](_blank)
/ref>
Career
Academics
Michael Asch received his B.A in anthropology from the University of Chicago and later went on to earn his Ph.D from the University of Columbia. He joined the University of Alberta in 1971, where he became the anthropology department chair from 1982-1986. He moved to Victoria
Victoria most commonly refers to:
* Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia
* Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada
* Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory
* Victoria, Seychelle ...
, British Columbia
British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...
, in the late 1990s, where he now works as a Professor at the University of Victoria. He received a B.A. in anthropology from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. from Columbia University.
CASCA
Michael Asch, along with 120 other anthropologists, launched the Canadian Ethnology Society/société canadienne d’ethnologie (CESCE) in 1974. which would later become which would later become the Canadian Anthropology Society/la société canadienne d'anthropologie (CASCA). He was honoured as a Founding Fellow at CASCA 2013 at the University of Victoria.
Indigenous legal issues
Michael Asch's first fieldwork project was with the Dene
The Dene people () are an Aboriginal peoples in Canada, indigenous group of First Nations in Canada, First Nations who inhabit the northern Boreal forest of Canada, boreal and Arctic regions of Canada. The Dene speak Northern Athabaskan languag ...
at Fort Wrigley in 1969. In the years following his initial fieldwork, Asch would be called upon to give testimony in a number of legal proceedings concerning the Dene of the Makenzie River Valley, as well as working with them in numerous negotiations with the Federal Government throughout the 1980s. After its commission by the Canadian Government in 1974, Michael Asch along with another anthropologist, Scott Rushforth
Scott may refer to:
Places Canada
* Scott, Quebec, municipality in the Nouvelle-Beauce regional municipality in Quebec
* Scott, Saskatchewan, a town in the Rural Municipality of Tramping Lake No. 380
* Rural Municipality of Scott No. 98, Sask ...
, were called upon as expert witnesses by the Indian Brotherhood of the Northwest Territories to give testimony during the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry
{{No footnotes, date=April 2009
The Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry, also known as the Berger Inquiry after its head Justice Thomas Berger, was commissioned by the Government of Canada on March 21, 1974, to investigate the social, environmental, ...
. His arguments on the matter included explanations about the importance of country food sources to Indigenous communities as well as disputing claims by Gemini North that the Indigenous food economy was dying. Asch's thought was that it was not appropriate to compare the share of overall food value produced through traditional methods between rural and urban communities, as urban centers would have a larger non-Indigenous population who were unlikely to get their food through methods such as hunting, trapping, or fishing. He further argued that the use of modern technology, such as guns or snowmobiles, by the Indigenous peoples of the region was not a sign of acculturation, as adopting new technology does not mean they are adopting new values.[https://caid.ca/BergerV1ch8.pdf]
In 1985 he gave testimony at Dick ''v.'' La Reine, a case involving a non-treaty member of the Esk'etemc First Nation The Esk'etemc First Nation, also known as the Alkali Lake Indian Band, is a First Nations government of the Secwepemc (Shuswap) people, located at Alkali Lake in the Cariboo region of the Central Interior of the Canadian province of British Col ...
, who was charged with killing a deer out of season without a permit. His testimony included statements about the importance of hunting and fishing as Indigenous cultural practices. He also provided further context to the testimonies of the Esk'etemc First Nation members by describing them in terms of their relationship to their cultural framework.
Asch worked as a senior research associate with the Royal Commission on Aboriginals Peoples (RCAP) from 1993-1994.
Non-profit and research initiatives
Michael Asch convinced his father, Moses Asch, to donate the entirety of his Folkways Records collection shortly before his death in 1986. Part of the collection went to the University of Alberta, where Michael Asch was currently serving as the Anthropology Department chair. He began the FolkwaysAlive initiative at the University of Alberta in partnership with Smithsonian Folkways Recordings during this time. Asch continues to hold a position as an advisory board member for Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, where he has hosted a number of radio shows and podcasts.
Michael Asch worked with iPinCH, a seven-year research initiative spanning from 2008-2016, based at Simon Fraser University
Simon Fraser University (SFU) is a public research university in British Columbia, Canada, with three campuses, all in Greater Vancouver: Burnaby (main campus), Surrey, and Vancouver. The main Burnaby campus on Burnaby Mountain, located from ...
in British Columbia. His work on the project included researching historical documents relating to a number of treaties, Treaty 4
Treaty 4 is a treaty established between Queen Victoria and the Cree and Saulteaux First Nation band governments. The area covered by Treaty 4 represents most of current day southern Saskatchewan, plus small portions of what are today western Ma ...
, Treaty 6
Treaty 6 is the sixth of the numbered treaties that were signed by the Canadian Crown and various First Nations between 1871 and 1877. It is one of a total of 11 numbered treaties signed between the Canadian Crown and First Nations. Specifica ...
, and Treaty 11
''Treaty 11'', the last of the Numbered Treaties, was an agreement established between 1921 and 1922 between King George V and various First Nation band governments in what is today the Northwest Territories.
Henry Anthony Conroy was appointed ...
. He did a presentation on Treaty Relations as a Method of Resolving IP Issues Project at the iPinCH Fall Gathering in 2014.
Awards and recognitions
* The Weaver-Tremblay Award (2001)
* Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in the Academy of Social Sciences (2002)
* CASCA Founding Fellow (2013)
* Canada Prize in Social Sciences for his book ''On Being Here to Stay: Treaties and Aboriginal Rights'' (2015)
Works
Books
*
On Being Here to Stay: Treaties and Aboriginal Rights
' (2015)
*
Home and native Land: Aboriginal Rights and the Canadian Constitution
' (1984)
*
Aboriginal and Treaty Rights in Canada: Essays on Law, Equality, and Respect for Difference
' (1997)
*
Resurgence and Reconciliation: Indigenous-Settler Relations and Earth Teachings
' (as editor) (2018)
Podcasts
*
Sounds to Grow On
' (2009-2010)
*
IPinCH Conversations / Michael Asch on Treaty Relations
' (2014)
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Asch, Michael
Canadian anthropologists
Canadian musicologists
Canadian people of Polish-Jewish descent
University of Victoria faculty
Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada
University of Chicago alumni
Columbia University alumni
Living people
1943 births