Video: The Repatriation Debate

What is it?

National Association of Scholars

Over 30 years ago, in 1990, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) was passed. NAGPRA is a federal law that mandates the return of human remains and cultural items to modern American Indian tribes. This push for repatriation occurs even if the remains or items are thousands of years old with little evidence to connect the artifacts with the present-day tribes.

NAGPRA, and other similar state repatriation laws, have ignited a debate—which human remains and artifacts should be repatriated and reburied and which should be preserved and studied? What information, such as DNA, historical accounts, or oral traditions, should be treated as evidence? Which evidence should take precedence? And how closely related do remains and artifacts need to be for repatriation to occur?

Rather than work on these issues and the many other repatriation issues, pro-repatriation anthropologists and archaeologists have painted those who are skeptical of repatriation as insensitive to the heritage of present-day tribes, and at worst racists. Furthermore, repatriation ideology has developed into a post-modernist and decolonization movement working to control anthropological researchers by handing control of scientific inquiry to contemporary American Indian communities and their allies.

This webinar features Elizabeth Weiss, Professor of Anthropology at San Jose State University; Bruce Bourque, Chief Archaeologist and Curator of Ethnography at the Maine State Museum; and Peter Wood, President of the National Association of Scholars.


Photo by Boston Public Library on Unsplash

  • Share

Most Commented

May 18, 2023

1.

Letter: In Defense of Professor Scott Gerber

The Ohio Northern University’s senior administrators have treated Professor Scott Gerber appallingly by removing him from campus without due cause—a clear abuse of......

May 9, 2023

2.

More Title IX Mischief

The Biden Education Department's Office for Civil Rights proposes a new rule on athletic eligibility favoring sexual confusion over female athletes....

May 23, 2023

3.

Academic Freedom Isn’t Free

If higher education cannot hold itself to its founding principles, then we must....

Most Read

April 7, 2023

1.

Congress Asks Dept of Education to Enforce Foreign Gift Disclosure Laws

The National Association of Scholars strongly endorses the Representatives' work to open the books on higher education's concealed dealings with the foreign despots who see......

May 15, 2015

2.

Where Did We Get the Idea That Only White People Can Be Racist?

A look at the double standard that has arisen regarding racism, illustrated recently by the reaction to a black professor's biased comments on Twitter....

April 14, 2023

3.

Faculty Fight for Academic Freedom at Harvard

While many faculty quietly endorse views they privately disagree with, Harvard faculty band together to resist administrative overreach, overzealous students, and protect academic freedom....