Making the Dream Work: Overcoming Challenges to Respectful Return through Collaboration

Summary

This is an abstract from the "In Search of Solutions: Exploring Pathways to Repatriation for NAGPRA Practitioners (Part I)" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

A significant challenge to successful repatriation is an inability for federal agencies and museums to identify who has stewardship and compliance responsibility for collections. This occurs for various reasons: universities and CRM agencies may have conducted contract work for federal agencies, maintaining collections at their facilities post-project; records may have been lost, or were not sufficiently documented in the first place; students or researchers may have removed collections and never returned them; or collections may have been moved from their original repository without sufficient transfer paperwork produced. For these reasons and others, institutions may be hampered in their efforts to return ancestors and their belongings in an expeditious and respectful manner. With the changes to the implementing regulation, it is more important than ever to ensure that institutions are able to work cooperatively to find a path forward for repatriation. This paper provides suggestions for museums and federal agencies seeking to establish collaborative relationships and overcome challenges to respectful return.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• In Search of Solutions: Exploring Pathways to Repatriation for NAGPRA Practitioners (Part I)   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39794.0