2021_Moving beyond Weiss and Springer's Repatriation and Erasing the Past: Indigenous values, relationships, and research (original) (raw)
2021, International Journal of Cultural Property
This commentary debunks the poor scholarship in Repatriation and Erasing the Past by Elizabeth Weiss and James Springer. We show that modern bioarchaeological practice with Indigenous remains places ethics, partnership, and collaboration at the fore and that the authors' misconstructed dichotomous fallacy between "objective science" and Indigenous knowledge and repatriation hinders the very argument they are espousing. We demonstrate that bioarchaeology, when conducted in collaboration with stakeholders, enriches research, with concepts and methodologies brought forward to address common questions, and builds a richer historical and archaeological context. As anthropologists, we need to acknowledge anti-Indigenous (and anti-Black) ideology and the insidious trauma and civil rights violations that have been afflicted and re-afflicted through Indigenous remains being illegally or unethically obtained, curated, transferred, and used for research and teaching in museums and universities. If we could go so far as to say that anything good has come out of this book, it has been the stimulation in countering these beliefs and developing and strengthening ethical approaches and standards in our field.
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International Journal of Cultural Property, 2021
This commentary debunks the poor scholarship in Repatriation and Erasing the Past by Elizabeth Weiss and James Springer. We show that modern bioarchaeological practice with Indigenous remains places ethics, partnership, and collaboration at the fore and that the authors’ misconstructed dichotomous fallacy between “objective science” and Indigenous knowledge and repatriation hinders the very argument they are espousing. We demonstrate that bioarchaeology, when conducted in collaboration with stakeholders, enriches research, with concepts and methodologies brought forward to address common questions, and builds a richer historical and archaeological context. As anthropologists, we need to acknowledge anti-Indigenous (and anti-Black) ideology and the insidious trauma and civil rights violations that have been afflicted and re-afflicted through Indigenous remains being illegally or unethically obtained, curated, transferred, and used for research and teaching in museums and universities...
Coming to terms with the living: some aspects of repatriation for the archaeologist
Antiquity, 1996
The book 'Reckoning with the Dead: the Larsen Bay Repatriation and the Smithsonian Institution' is an account of the Larsen Bay Tribal Council's request for the repatriation of human remains and other cultural materials taken from Kodiak Island in Alaska during the 1930s. The case resulted in the return of the cultural materials and the development of an effective repatriation policy by the Smithsonian Institution. Full Text: This volume reports the outcome of a request (made in 1987 to the National Museum of Natural History, a branch of the Smithsonian Institution) by the Larsen Bay Tribal Council. That request concerned the return to the people of Larsen Bay of all human remains and associated cultural materials which had been removed by Arles Hrdlicka from the cemetery at the Uyak site on Kodiak Island (Alaska) in the 1930s. In common with many repatriation requests during the 1980s, the focus was squarely on human remains which had been stored at the Museum since their excavation. There was also a question-mark over whether the excavator had gained the consent of the Larsen Bay community for the exhumations, particularly for those burials from the 19th and 20th centuries. The outcome of the case, after five years of action, was the repatriation and re-interment of the human remains and associated grave goods. Another outcome was structural change at the Smithsonian Institution and the implementation of a thoughtful repatriation policy. Although Reckoning with the dead should be read as a multi-authored reflection on the role of the Smithsonian Institution in a matter which could best be described as a public-relations disaster, there is much more to it than that. Given the constraints of US Federal repatriation legislation, particularly as they pertain to tests of cultural affiliation, the volume also contains a number of very useful analyses of the human remains and their archaeological and ethnohistorical context. These stand as a real contribution to the prehistory of maritime Alaska. Connected with this is a sense of the theoretical problems which arise from the need to comply with legislation by linking race, language, and culture together. On more than one occasion the authors speak of the irony of attempting to do something which many anthropologists would find positively dangerous, if not impossible. But the end of empowering indigenous people with respect to controlling cultural heritage is thought to be worth enough to justify the means employed. We also have some useful (though highly critical) discussions of the life, personality, and work of Ales Hrdlicka. In these we are told that notwithstanding Hrdlicka's great service to the development of physical anthropology in North America, he was arrogant, a racist, and sloppy in his field methods. Although it might be argued that these seem unnecessarily harsh and one-dimensional judgements, it would appear that both the Larsen Bay people and a number of authors in this volume regard him as the villain of the piece. Others are content to use him as an exemplar of 'behaviour to be avoided when dealing with indigenous peoples'. Notwithstanding his arrogance and his 'driven' character, perhaps Hrdlicka (like the Smithsonian) has also fallen victim of that axiom of modern management mentioned in the volume: 'perception is reality'. Overarching these specific concerns are a number of papers (particularly those by Ortner, Bray & Grant, Sockbeson, Goldstein, McGuire, and Hill) which highlight the very significant ethical and intellectual questions raised by the matter of repatriation (particularly of cultural properties rather than of human remains), and by the mechanics of establishing cultural affiliation between living and past populations. In this short essay I want to focus on some of the issues raised by this group of papers, and reflect on the sharp contrast between the joy expressed by authors who represent the indigenous cause (Pullar, Sockbeson, and Hill) and the real sense of pain and loss which creeps into the very fine paper by Ortner. Although there can be no doubt that there will be more battles fought over the repatriation of the physical remains of human beings, my interest here is in considering the implications of the repatriation of cultural properties, and of increasing indigenous control over the activities of archaeologists working with indigenous peoples. These matters are also raised by Goldstein and McGuire, but most forcefully by Hill when he speaks of the 'rights of native peoples to manifest their own spiritual destiny'. It is significant that both groups express a sense of hope that the basis of a new relationship between the Smithsonian and the
Journal of the Inclusive Museum, 2022
Museums have increasingly been exploring inclusion and diversity work and engaging in “decolonizing” educational programming. Complicating this undertaking are the fraught and violent histories that live within many museum collections. The Indigenous peoples of Canada continue to suffer from systemic cultural genocide, as they have for hundreds of years through treaties signed under false pretenses, the pillaging and theft of sacred objects and human remains, and the ongoing trauma from the devastating “Sixties Scoop” and Residential School system. In 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) released a report with ninety-four calls to action that address the crimes committed against Indigenous populations. This article will argue that the repatriation of Indigenous sacred objects and human remains is essential toward reconciliation efforts in Canada and that it is the obligation of the Canadian museums to work with Indigenous and government partners to further the TRC recommendations through repatriation.
The Routledge Companion to Northeast India (Jelle J.P. Wouters, Tanka B. Subba Eds.), 2023
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