Ethics of Repatriation > Culture of Academic Freedom

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) is 30 years old, and the generation that opposed its passage is now approaching (or past) retirement age. For professionals that succeed them, repatriation has always been both legal and ethical practice and they must confront legacies of mentors/predecessors who found ways to avoid the regulations and ethics of repatriation. One of us (April) recently realized that her institution never complied with NAGPRA. Initial responses from colleagues asserted that what other professors had (and were doing) was not her business. The culture of academic freedom, and its ethos of mutual protection through ignorance, presented roadblocks to accessing spaces and collections. Jayne-Leigh and Krystiana offer outside responses to that situation and provide examples of how other institutions fail to pursue repatriation after completing required NAGPRA inventories. Together, we offer advice on how to bring collections into compliance by educating those outside of anthropology as to why repatriation is more important than ideas of academic freedom or intellectual property. Deans, provosts, and presidents are the ones who have the power to manifest change and bring institutions into compliance - but anthropologists are the ones who understand what is behind those locked doors.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• SAA 2021: General Sessions

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 32497