2022-23 Harington Fellow

Our 2022-2023 Harington Fellow is Rylee DeJong, an undergraduate student entering her final year of study in the fall of 2022. She is currently working on her Honours Bachelor of Arts degree with a double major in Anthropology and History. From a young age, Rylee has been passionate about various historical topics and that passion only grew throughout her school years. After beginning her degree in history, Rylee decided to take an anthropology course and quickly understood that the two were not only connected, but benefitted from one another’s theories and practices. For this reason, she decided to continue in both fields.

At the end of the winter 2023 term, Rylee is planning to apply for an MSc in Archaeology at Oxford University. Her research interests include Indigenous history, Holocaust and genocide studies, material culture, social anthropology, prehistoric and palaeolithic cultures, colonialism and decolonization of the disciplines of anthropology and history, as well as decolonization of heritage and museum spaces. Rylee views history as living; as an aspect of human life that has significant cultural, spiritual, and social implications in the present day. However, Indigenous peoples specifically have been forcibly removed from and chastised for partaking in and practicing these histories, while simultaneously being robbed of said histories by colonial forces. After reading the article “Talking to the Old Ones” by Laura Peers for a class last term, Rylee was cemented in her career goal as being within the realm of research, historical conservation, and most importantly, expanding access and returning heritage to its rightful heritage holders both physically, and regarding decisions around how heritage is handled, preserved, and taught.

She is the recipient of both the 2021-2022 Herbert J. Mays Scholarship in Canadian History and the 2021-2022 Osborne and Hazel Parkinson Scholarship in Canadian History. Outside of school, Rylee is an ambassador in the 10th cohort of the RISE program through Apathy is Boring, an initiative for young people to co-create community projects. She enjoys reading, crafting, cheering for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, and spending time with her dog Chadley.