Dr. Laura Phillips (she/her) has a Ph.D. in Cultural Studies from Queen’s University. Her doctoral research included community-based research on ways to expand narratives beyond Euro-Enlightenment concepts in a geology museum. She is a settler with ancestry from Ireland, England, and Wales. Laura worked in museums, galleries, libraries, and archives (GLAM) internationally for more than 20 years (England, Qatar, USA, Eeyou Istchee, Canada).
I am grateful to be present on the homelands of the “Hasinais” Caddo Nation and “Kirikirʔi:s” Wichita & Affiliated Tribes. I acknowledge this territory also serves as a hunting ground, trade exchange point, and migration route for the Apache, Comanche, Kiowa and Osage nations. Today, 39 Indigenous Nations dwell in what is now the state of Oklahoma as a result of settler and colonial policies that were designed to assimilate and eradicate Indigenous peoples.
Why are statements of acknowledgments like this important? Read more here.
Click here for an interactive map that shows whose Land you are on.
Note: Dr. Phillips is not available for research supervision of doctoral or masters students.
Earrings credit @Painted Stone Studio
Academia Profile: https://ou.academia.edu/lauraphillips
Courses Commonly Taught:
For a current listing of courses please visit: https://classnav.ou.edu/
Select Publications:
2025 - “Unsettling Curatorial Practices through Museum Studies: A Case Study of our ‘5 Things’ Assignment” (co-authored with my 2022 MSL 2000 class), in Pedagogical Reckoning: Decolonizing, Degendering, and Deconstructing the Western Art Historical Canon, edited by Gillian Greenhill Hannum and Sooran Choi.
2024 – “’The Intangible Comes Alive’ at Oklahoma’s First Americans Museum, in conversation with Dr. Kelli Mosteller and Obinna Ojemni”, MUSE Magazine, Winter 2024, 28-27.
2024 –co-authored with Terri-Lynn Brennan and Danielle Marshall, “Murney Tower: Indigenous Content, Truth Telling and Settler Discomfort in a Colonial Space. Sound Familiar?”, In Engaging Indigenous Communities: Respect, Reciprocity, and Reconciliation: Past, Present, and Future: Proceedings of the 2020 Conference that Never Was, edited by Karl Hele (Winnipeg: Aboriginal Issues Press), pp. 7-52.
2023 - “Dazhiikigaadeg Maanendamowin: Wanichigewin gaye Wiijiiwidiwin gii-ayaag COVID-19 / Transforming Grief: Loss & Togetherness in COVID-19 exhibition at Fort York in Tkaronto/Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 24 March 2023 – 07 January 2024”, Museums and Society Vol. 21, No. 3, 131-153. DOI: https://doi.org/10.29311/mas.v21i3.4421
2023 – “(Mostly) Indigenous Readings that Challenge Imposed Euro-Enlightenment [aka Colonial] Perspectives in Museums”, The Jugaad Project: Material Religion in Context – Museums Focus Issue. https://www.thejugaadproject.pub/home/indigenous-readings
2023 - “Decolonising Publications: Reflecting on the meaning of peer in ‘peer review’”, ICOM Voices. https://icom.museum/en/news/reflecting-on-the-meaning-of-peer/
2023 – “An Incomplete Glossary of Change to Activate Decolonising and Indigenising Practices in Museums”, Museums International Towards Decolonisation volume 74.
2022 – “Teaching Decolonizing Curatorial & Museum Practices”, Museum Worlds 10, pp. 112-131. https://doi.org/10.3167/armw.2022.100109
2022 – Podcast - ‘A settler view from Ongoing Colonized Lands’, The Sounds of Unsettled objects: Post-colonial perceptions of belonging, exile and home, Glasgow Museums & UNESCO-RILA, https://soundcloud.com/unescorila/draft-a-settler-view
2022 - “Closing: Focus Issue, Indigenous Collections – Belongings, Decolonization, Contextualization”, Collections: A Journal for Museum and Archives Professionals vol. 18 (1), 101-106 https://doi.org/10.1177/15501906211066
2022 - Transformative Opportunities through Decolonizing & Indigenizing Museums: People, Collections, Exhibitions. PhD Thesis. Cultural Studies, Queen’s University. https://qspace.library.queensu.ca/items/f83e1bd7-f8b2-46b6-bd9f-a188aee5d7e4
2017 - “Tipsheet: Responsible Exhibition and Interpretation of Indigenous Artifacts”, Museums Association of Saskatchewan.
2017 - “Tipsheet: The Importance of UNDRIP and the TRC to Museums”, Museums Association of Saskatchewan.
