Returning Home: Repatriation and Indigenous International Activism Dignifying Ancestors 

Upcoming – Winter 2024, Memorial University of Newfoundland

This is a course on the contemporary, international Indigenous movement for the repatriation of human remains, sacred objects, and associated funerary items. The last few decades have witnessed a strengthening of Indigenous initiatives and demands for repatriation, both within national states and from the historic center of the colonial enterprise toward Indigenous territories. This movement is part of a broader context to readjust colonial consequences, and it is associated with the decolonizing practices of those plundered by Euro-American collecting tradition. In this course, we will discuss how colonial agents formed some collections, seeking to understand their consequences both in terms of a socio-historical critique and ethnographic perspectives centering the Indigenous reflections on the matter. We will discuss some repatriation cases, the forms of action, and the associated decolonization practices. We will see how Indigenous movements for repatriation emerge in the national and international public spheres, pointing out severe ethical issues regarding the institutional procedures and handling of their ancestors. By this, we mean both human remains and objects from all over the world and included in (French, British, US, Canadian, etc.) national heritage lists. We will discuss repatriation as a more-than-human right and its consequent criticism of what counts as an object. In doing so, we will examine notions of property, cultural rights, nationhood, scientific interest, and heritage legislation. Finally, we will see how successful repatriation can dignify ancestors, renew knowledge, resume important vital cycles precluded by collecting, and pose serious questions about anthropological theory, postcolonial relations, and Indigenous creativity and survival in the face of colonialism.

This course will familiarize students with repatriation, its history, and its meanings. It intends to provide practical skills to assist in developing repatriation processes, considering legal, anthropological, museum, and Indigenous perspectives.