NAGPRA Education in Graduate Programs: The Jobs Are There, Where Is the Training?

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Since the passing of NAGPRA in 1990, a potential new sub-field of jobs has emerged for bioarchaeologists and archaeologists who are invested in the repatriation process of Indigenous ancestral remains and sacred belongings. It has been 32 years since the law was passed, and NAGPRA job vacancies at federally funded institutions are still widely prevalent today. However, many graduate programs throughout the United States with applied anthropological foci are not offering relevant courses and training for graduate students who wish to seek careers in NAGPRA work. While the goal of applied anthropology programs is to prepare students for solving real-world problems using rigorous anthropological research and theory, many of these programs neglect to address essential skills needed for conducting NAGPRA work: ethical practices when handling human remains from Indigenous communities and community collaboration and consultation during the repatriation process. This poster explores the rates in which these topics are integrated into the curriculum of graduate, applied anthropology programs in the United States. This research also highlights the importance of training graduate students in consultation, repatriation, and ethics regarding human remains so they are best prepared to serve indigenous communities in future NAGPRA positions.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 35994.0