Tribal Consultation: What We Lose When It’s "My way or the highway"

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Braiding Knowledge: Opportunities and Challenges for Collaborative Approaches to Archaeological Heritage and Conservation" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Over my years as Director of the Cultural Rights and Protection Department for the Ute Indian Tribe, I have seen tribal consultation in many different forms. In my presentation, I will be talking about tribal consultation as collaboration and how we can all move forward together. As Tom King (2004) notes, tribal consultation should not become a "dictatorship". Consultation should not mean one party wins and one party loses, but rather where both sides’ perspectives have been represented and considered. Both agencies and tribes need to be ready for an openminded give and take. Furthermore initial meetings should be brainstorming sessions rather than the parties having developed ideas that prohibits meaningful dialogue. Finally actions should not be taken in the tribes name, without the tribes involvement. When tribal consultation is approached as collaboration, we can all win.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)   •
• Braiding Knowledge: Opportunities and Challenges for Collaborative Approaches to Archaeological Heritage and Conservation

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 24786