Kevin J. White

Kevin J. White is an Indigenous scholar (Mohawk from Akwesasne, with family from Tonawanda Band of Seneca) whose work focuses primarily on Haudenosaunee Creation and culture. The process and act of storytelling rouses his curiosity in not only decolonizing stories collected and archived but understanding the inherent generational knowledge and wisdom in those collections of stories. His work has championed Tuscarora ethnographer J.N.B. Hewitt’s work on Iroquois Cosmologies in published works such as “Rousing a Curiosity in Hewitt’s Iroquois Cosmologies.” The tension between orality and textuality exists as large questions for White; though he is guided by and consults regularly with community members and scholars alike—as witnessed in his co-authored article “La Salle on Seneca Creation 1678” As a Kanienkehaka (Mohawk) scholar, his work, research, and curiosity are guided by community, cultural values, and a Haudenosaunee lens of analysis—often arguing that much of the epistemological frameworks were dismissed, particularly in the salvage ethnography period—when a majority of culture work was done historically.