On November 16, 1990 the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) was signed into law. In 2015, we celebrated the 25th anniversary of its passage.
In recognition of the importance of NAGPRA and its impacts on the field of anthropology, several sessions at the 114th annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association on November 18-22, 2015 in Denver, CO, discussed the law.
Two panels on "NAGPRA +25: Where do we stand, and where are we going?" were invited by the AAA executive committee and sponsored by the Archaeology Division. There was also a roundtable on “Teaching Culturally-Engaged Research: Lessons from NAGPRA”. Two posters were presented relating to NAGPRA and education, “Learning NAGPRA: Nationwide Survey Results from Educators and Students” and “NAGPRA +25 Years: Undergraduate Awareness, Perspectives, and Intercultural Education”. To expand beyond the AAA meeting, a public event was held at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science on “Lessons from Repatriation”.
On the first day of the conference, the “Teaching Culturally-Engaged Research: Lessons from NAGPRA” roundtable discussed the need to improve NAGPRA knowledge and compliance but also to use NAGPRA as a powerful way to start broader conversations about research ethics, cultural protocols, and Indigenous curation and research methods. Speakers at the roundtable included April K Sievert (Indiana University), Desiree Martinez (Cogstone Resource Management), Thomas W Killion (Wayne State University) and Jessie V Ryker-Crawford (Institute of American Indian Arts). A core theme of the roundtable was that teaching about NAGPRA and repatriation should not just be for specialized courses or in the last session of class as part of a short discussion of ethics. NAGPRA mandates collaboration, which is a lost art and requires respect, humility, and learning from mistakes and missteps. The process requires anthropologists and museum studies professionals to consider the specific historical and cultural contexts of communities they are working with. This is an important point for teaching, because you can’t use generalizations or assume uniformity in what constitutes respectful treatment of the dead. On-going repatriations can counter clinical views of objects and ancestral remains, but that experiential learning should only take place if approved and encouraged by the community. Although NAGPRA is not simple to teach, it opens up conversations that weren’t previously possibly because of sustained communication and healing.
In the first panel discussion of NAGPRA +25, Stephen E Nash (Denver Museum of Nature & Science), C Timothy McKeown (U.S. Department of the Interior), David W Dinwoodie (University of New Mexico), Dorothy T Lippert (National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution), and TJ Ferguson (University of Arizona) gathered together to share their experiences and address a wide range of audience questions. Twenty-five years after the passage of NAGPRA, there are still many human remains in repositories, and limited funding and the burdens placed on tribes continue to be substantial challenges. However, there have been many positives seen by the field of anthropology, ranging from new relationships between communities and repositories that lead to new, non-NAGPRA, initiatives to broader conversations about informed consent in museum acquisitions and continued culturally appropriate curation. The rise of Indigenous Archaeology alongside NAGPRA has overall improved the discipline, but there are still some students and young professionals with negative views of NAGPRA and continuing debates over if it helps or hurts archaeology. Many conversations about NAGPRA’s impact have focused on museums, but the issues of federal agency compliance, inadvertent discoveries during fieldwork or construction, and international repatriation also need greater discussion.
The second panel discussion, held in the late afternoon after part 1 in the morning, featured Christopher Green (Colorado State University), Sara L Gonzalez (University of Washington), Alice B Kehoe (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee), Ann M Kakaliouras (Whittier College), Chip Colwell (Denver Museum of Nature & Science) and Joe E Watkins (National Park Service). The second panel discussion focused on the panelists’ experience with where NAGPRA practice is and where it may go in the next 25 years. The first two speakers, Chris Green and Sarah Gonzalez, came of age as professionals in the post-NAGPRA generation, but both pointed out the need for further progress, in terms of international repatriation and greater recognition of the need for active work in building a joint path forward, as opposed to buzzwords and small gestures. Ann Kakaliouras called on the need for physical anthropology to make the teaching and compliance work of NAGPRA integral to the discipline, as it is often sequestered in a section on “ethics” and there is little professional and organizational support for those who engage with the law. Alice Kehoe and Joe Watkins shared their years of experience and pointed out how the initial concerns that NAGPRA would be “the death of prehistory” and end the fields of archaeology and museology have proven unfounded. Instead, NAGPRA creates space for the field to fulfill its obligations to the cultures of the past, present, and future.
Two posters focused on the importance of NAGPRA education. Gabe Patrick Doelger, a senior at Fort Lewis College in Colorado, shared his experiences participating in a semester-long class focused on repatriation. Taught by Professor Kathleen Fine-Dare, the course encouraged students to share their diverse perspectives and find points of common ground. The NSF-funded Learning NAGPRA Project at Indiana University shared preliminary results from their 2015 online surveys of undergraduate and graduate students and educators at U.S. universities in anthropology- and museums-studies related programs. Over 1,000 students and 300 educators answered the survey, providing important insights about current awareness of NAGPRA and research ethics by students and the teaching goals of educators. The poster can be viewed online at the Learning NAGRA Project website.
The final NAGPRA-related event in Denver was a public talk at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science on November 21, 2015 called “Lessons from Repatriation”. Featured speakers included Kathy Fine-Dare (Fort Lewis College), Kelly Jenks (New Mexico State University), Sheila Goff (History Colorado), Lynn Hartman (Ute Mountain Ute Tribe), Timothy McKeown (independent Repatriation Consultant), Jen Shannon (University of Colorado), and April Sievert (Indiana University). Discussion centered about the major impacts of NAGPRA, its contribution to larger cultural shifts over the past 25 years, and what we as professionals should be learning from (and about) the law. One of most significant impacts of NAGPRA has not been about what material falls under the law but how it is enacted. The process of consultation has led to crucial conversations about culturally-appropriate curation, return and reburial, and research ethics and consent. These relationships and dialogues have changed how tribes, museums, universities, and federal agencies interact with one another and impacted their treatment of other issues. In broader society, it seems more individuals are realizing the need to return ancestral remains to tribal communities and are being more sensitive about burials. However, if this sensitivity becomes avoidance of potential discomfort, it can stifle demystifying the NAGPRA process and learning about tribal histories. NAGPRA was written as civil, human, and religious rights legislation, and it is important to continually go back to the text of the law. It was produced through dialogue with constituent groups, and it can and needs to be used as road map in accomplishing repatriations. NAGPRA work is fundamental and necessary to anthropology and should not be considered a burden, though it is a difficult privilege. Though it is a constant learning process, consultation is best conducted with empathy and perseverance.
Decades of hard work have led to many successful repatriations, improved curation practices, and critical discussions of research ethics and study techniques. Consultation has encouraged relationship-building, knowledge, and healing and underscored the need for consistent dialogue and respectful listening.
But throughout all of these varied conversations at the AAA, there was a persistent emphasis on the amount of work still ahead, the need for administrative and professional support, and the importance of greater inclusion of Indigenous perspectives. It is estimated that there over 100,000 culturally unidentifiable ancestral remains still held in U.S. repositories, as well as ancestral remains held in institutions overseas. Repatriation and NAGPRA will continue to be part of the future of anthropology, and we must equip each generation of professionals with the knowledge of why it is necessary and how they can support and engage in its resolutions.
Teresa Nichols is a Postdoctoral Fellow and Project Manager for the “Learning NAGPRA” project at Indiana University.
