Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

Examines issues that arise when Aboriginal people must balance economic development and cultural integrity. Topics include self-reflexive internalist research, ethics and best practices in representing Indigenous heritage, public laws and land claim agreements affecting heritage, the exhumation and repatriation of human remains and religious freedom and access to sacred sites and objects. Students who have taken FNST 322 previously under this topic may not take this course for further credit. Writing.

COURSE DETAILS:

FNST 353W First Nations Heritage Stewardship introduces student to the issues that first nations encounter as they assert their right to manage their heritage within a colonial reality. Course content examines the tenets of internalist archaeology as a conceptual framework for imagining the past in the aboriginal world. Topics to be covered include aboriginal thought on archaeological methods and theory, the exhumation, public display and repatriation of human remains and sacred objects, and archaeology in the context of land claims. First nations heritage stewardship stands at the focal point of competing interests that include public media and private landowners, various levels of government, developers and industry. Aboriginal people define their rights through the courts and attempt to exert influence on policy and practice by negotiating agreements with government over customary lands or joint management arrangements. Outside these venues, Indian bands advocate rescuing cultural property and human remains that were taken from them in earlier years. They rely on public opinion and positive media representation to advance their causes. Moreover, there is an evolving bundle of legislation that compels public institutions to co-operate with them and accept claims from museum and public institutions.

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