This project will be an empirical study into repatriation as a political practice. This theoretically-oriented project investigates how institutions and cultural values mediate changes in the governance of repatriation policy, specifically its formalization and rescaling in the United States. I propose a critical approach to understanding repatriation; specifically, I will draw together issues surrounding museums, repatriation claims, and indigenous communities throughout the development of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) in 1990 and current repatriation policy. The interdisciplinary academic narrative I build will explore practices of repatriation and how it relates to the subject of indigenous cultural rights. Using the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Philadelphia, PA and the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, IL as models for the repatriation process, I will show the historic political tensions and later attempts to repatriate culturally significant objects and human remains in the United States. By examining entrenched discourses prior to NAGPRA and what changed to allow a new dominant discourse in the debates over repatriation claims, I will show that culturally-structured views on repatriation and narratives surrounding indigenous cultural property were transformed. By examining ownership paradigms and analyzing discourses and institutional power structures, it is possible to understand the ramifications of formalizing repatriation. The current binary of cultural property nationalism/cultural property internationalism in relation to cultural property ownership claims does not represent the full scope of the conflict for indigenous people. Inclusion of a cultural property indigenism component into the established ownership paradigm will more fully represent indigenous concerns for cultural property. Looking at the rules, norms and strategies of national and international laws and museum institutions, I will also argue that there are consequences to repatriation claims that go beyond possession of property and a formalized process (or a semi- formalized international approach) can aid in addressing indigenous rights. I will also ask the question, does this change in discourse develop in other countries with similar settler colonial pasts and indigenous communities, i.e. in Canada, New Zealand, Australia? My work will demonstrate that it does. Essentially, the repatriation conversation does not immediately change in one country and then domino to others. Instead, it is a change that is happening concurrently, comparative to other civil rights movements and national dialogues. The cultural and institutional shifts demanding change appear to have some universal momentum. The literatures to which this research will contribute include: museum studies, institutional practices, material cultural and public humanities, and indigenous right. / PHD / By examining how institutions and cultural values mediate changes in the governance of repatriation policy, specifically its formalization and rescaling in the United States, this project looks at repatriation as a political practice. This dissertation explores the subject of indigenous cultural rights and explores issues surrounding museums, repatriation claims, and indigenous communities throughout the development of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) in 1990 and current repatriation policy both domestically and internationally. Case studies of institutional practices are developed utilizing the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Philadelphia, PA and the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, IL as models for the repatriation process. This will demonstrate the historic political tensions and later attempts to repatriate culturally significant objects and human remains in the United States and abroad. This research also investigates the current cultural property nationalism/cultural property internationalism paradigm and calls for an inclusion of a cultural property indigenism component to represent indigenous concerns for cultural property more fully. Looking at the rules, norms and strategies of national and international laws and museum institutions, I will also argue that there are consequences to repatriation claims that go beyond possession of property and a formalized process (or a semi-formalized international approach) can aid in addressing indigenous rights.

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This report summarizes information on the prehistoric, historic, and ethnographic foundations for the cultural affiliation of burials and associated funerary objects from Casa Grande Ruins National Monument in Casa Grande, Arizona. This study was commissioned by the National Park Service’s Applied Ethnography Program in Washington, D.C., to identify American Indian tribes potentially affiliated with the human remains and associated funerary objects from Casa Grande Ruins National Monument. This study is one of the responses by the National Park Service to the requirements stipulated in the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990. The report should provide sufficient criteria for determining potentially affiliated individuals and tribes to be contacted for future consultation. This research determined the following Native American ethnic groups are affiliated to the national monument: Akimel O'odham, Tohono O’Odham, Zuni, Hopi, and Maricopa.

This report summarizes a compliance consultation between the Department of Energy/ Nevada Operations Office (DOE/NV) and the American Indian tribes and Indian organizations that make up the Consolidated Group of Tribes and Organizations (CGTO). The consultation focused on artifacts removed from the Nevada Test Site (NTS). The report describes consultation actions and recommendations that occurred in compliance with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA).

Globalization of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) has posed an unprecedented threat to the existence of an Indigenous Knowledge system. There is an increasing amount of appropriation of indigenous knowledge, whereby corporations from rich countries are claiming proprietary rights over knowledge that has belonged to cultures and people of indigenous communities for hundreds of years. IPRs have been inappropriately utilized hindering development and perpetuating poverty within indigenous knowledge−holding communities. This thesis attempts to frame the current debate at the intersection of IPRs and indigenous knowledge, bringing in the case studies on the appropriation of traditional Yoga of Hindu and the Zia sun of Zia−Pueblo of New Mexico. By bringing two case studies on appropriation, this project employs legal−critical scholarship to analyze how the current IPR regime supports commodifying traditional knowledge and artifacts such as Yoga and the Zia sun, and recommends for customary law as a viable alternative to the IPRs.

abstract: Power relations among cultural, socio-economic, and political groups have been dynamic forces shaping American history. Within that changing world, relations between indigenous and non-indigenous groups have been complicated by a fundamental difference often ascribed to Western philosophy versus Native American spiritual traditions. In 1990, Congress codified that difference when it passed the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) stipulating that Indian tribes and Native Hawaiians are unique among United States cultural groups. At the same time, NAGPRA began breaking down the Western vs. indigenous paradigm. The legislative process of NAGPRA strongly encouraged cooperation among indigenous peoples and the non-indigenous peoples who had collected their bones and belongings under earlier policies. NAGPRA required museums and other agencies accepting federal monies to inventory any collections of Native American items with the intent of giving control to tribes over the disposition of culturally affiliated human remains and certain classes of objects. In the rearranging power relations NAGPRA instigated, people maneuvered for power over the "truth," over whose memory, meaning, and spiritual worldview held authenticity. This dissertation considers cases that pushed or broke the limits of cooperation fostered by NAGPRA. Ignoring the bones and related funerary objects, Tangled Truths analyzes repatriation disputes over cultural artifacts to illuminate changing power relations among cultural groups in the United States. The repatriation negotiations in which people would not compromise were cases in which there existed strong differences in spiritual worldviews, cultural memories, or material interests. Congress could encourage cooperation, but it could not legislate acceptance of others' spiritual worldviews, nor could it persuade people to relinquish engrained cultural memories. And without solid enforcement, the NAGPRA process could be outmaneuvered by those intent on pursuing their own material interests. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. History 2011

This study is one of the responses by the National Park Service to requirements in NAGPRA. The study was commissioned by the NPS Applied Ethnography Program in Washington, D.C., to identify individuals and tribes affiliated with the objects of cultural patrimony, sacred objects, or unassociated funerary objects at five NPS units, review those unit summaries, assist park or center staff in initiating consultation regarding those objects, and conduct a case demonstration consultation for Pipe Spring National Monument. The project was administered under Cooperative Agreement #8100 -1 -0001 between the Western Archeological and Conservation Center, National Park Service and the University of Arizona. While this study was specific to NAGPRA- related issues, the NPS does stipulate in its Management Policies (1988) that consultation with Native Americans will occur with regard to cultural resource issues. NAGPRA is not the only consultation arena the NPS is currently involved in with Native Americans.

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