Reviewing the 2023 Intensive NAGPRA Summer Training & Education Program (INSTEP)

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.

The national need for NAGPRA and repatriation education is widely recognized in the museum and tribal communities. In July 2023, the authors co-facilitated the first Intensive NAGPRA Summer Training & Education Program (INSTEP), funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation. This presentation reviews the design, implementation, evaluations, and applicant information from the 2023 program. Its first iteration welcomed a total of 38 participants from universities, museums, federal and state agencies, and tribal nations. The workshop lasted for five days and was hosted in Bloomington, Indiana, and was led by a variety of tribal speakers. In order to improve the accessibility of this program, accepted applicants were not charged to participate—tribal citizens received scholarship funding, and all other accepted applicants participated for free as long as they could make it to the workshop location. INSTEP training topics included understanding and implementing NAGPRA; best practices for curation and consultation; decolonization in museums; inadvertent discovery under NAGPRA; and best practices for repatriation and reburial, among others. This presentation emphasizes both the project design and the efficacy of the program based on participant evaluations.

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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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39423.0