Interrupting The Pattern Of Privilege: Redressing Access Inequality Through The Repatriation Of Knowledge

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Reimagining Repatriation: Providing Frameworks for Inclusive Cultural Restitution", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

For several decades, global repatriation efforts have focused primarily on the return of human remains and funerary items from archaeological contexts. A shift now has museums looking towards high profile items such as the Elgin Marbles and looted artifacts from Benin. Although immensely important, the focus on archaeological and ethnographic materials has taken precedence over the return of collections such as archives, photographs, and recordings. Containing important indigenous knowledge, these resources are often unintentionally hidden within invisible institutional silos, considered to fall outside of repatriation statutes, or are rarely discussed with the communities from which they derive. This type of institutional gate-keeping further enforces positions of academic privilege and does not address harmful power dynamics or oppressive social hierarchies. Repatriation coordinators have an ethical responsibility to consider all collections as crucial to community revitalization and must take an active role in disrupting patterns of privilege by promoting cultural restitution.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2023   •
• Reimagining Repatriation: Providing Frameworks for Inclusive Cultural Restitution

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow