Politics of Repatriation, Formalizing Indigenous Cultural Property Rights

Summary

This theoretically-oriented project engages discussions of historical arguments for the repatriation of indigenous cultural property that ultimately led to the creation of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) in 1990. I will investigate how institutions and cultural values mediated changes in repatriation policy both nationally and internationally. By examining ownership paradigms and institutional power structures, it is possible to understand the ramifications of formalizing repatriation. The current binary of cultural property nationalism/cultural property internationalism in relation to cultural property ownership claims does not represent the full scope of the conflict for indigenous people. Inclusion of a cultural property indigenism component into the established ownership paradigm will more fully represent indigenous concerns for cultural property held in museums and other collections. Looking at the rules, norms and strategies of national and international laws and curatorial policy within museum institutions, I will also argue that there are consequences to repatriation claims that go beyond possession of property and a formalized process (or semi-formalized approach internationally) like NAGPRA can aid in addressing indigenous rights.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 20133