1. Decolonizing Museums and Anthropology
Karen Lacy, Museum Anthropologist
Muse Curatorial Consulting Company

2. What is decolonization?
It’s Complicated…
Defined differently across disciplines
Meaning changes

3. Roots of Decolonization
Anthropology
Acknowledgment of colonial roots
Agency
Empowerment of Indigenous Voice
Museums
Post NAGPRA emergence

4. Storytime Danger of a Single Story
“The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.” - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 

5. Storytime
“Stories matter. Many stories matter. Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign, but stories can also be used to empower and to humanize. Stories can break the dignity of a people, but stories can also repair that broken dignity”.
-Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 

6. Amy Lonetree a decolonizing museum practice must involve assisting (tribal) communities in addressing the legacies of unresolved grief 
Past
Present/Future
Museums have represented frozen static cultures
Held as elite temples
Curatorial control Museums
Inclusivity shift in contemporary museums
Cultural Centers
should address the legacies
Museums as sites of decolonization
Privileging indigenous voice
Critical analysis of practices in museums

7. Cinnamon Catlin-Legutko
Past
Present/Future
Museums hold the spoils of colonialism
Hold up European cultures as the ideal
Practices should be:
from the beginning to the end-Collaborative
Prioritizing and privilege: most histories are written by
Truth telling
To share authority

8. Abbe Museum

9. Collaboration Matters
The Minnesota Historical Society, the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, and the Creation of a “Hybrid Tribal Museum”
lacs-indian-museum

10. Collaborations and Missed Opportunities
Exhibiting Native America at the National Museum of the American Indian

11. Decolonization, Truth Telling, and Addressing Historical Unresolved Grief
The Ziibiwing Center of Anishinabe Culture & Lifeways

12. A Common misconception: Nagpra Decolonization
What is NAGPRA?
The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act is a Federal law passed in NAGPRA provides a process for museums and Federal agencies to return certain Native American cultural items -- human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, or objects of cultural patrimony -- to lineal descendants, and culturally affiliated Indian tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations. NAGPRA includes provisions for unclaimed and culturally unidentifiable Native American cultural items, intentional and inadvertent discovery of Native American cultural items on Federal and tribal lands, and penalties for noncompliance and illegal trafficking.

13. Decolonization For Me Exhibits Archaeology Consultations NAGPRA
Basket Grant
Inclusivity and Diversity

14. It started with a box…

15. Yurok Consultation

16. Reading the object

17. Rites of Passage

18. Beerology

19. Parkology

20. Questions to ponder
Is the only way to have true decolonization within museums is to have community controlled only?
Do the hard truths of colonialism need to be unpacked?
How can this be applied to all cultures?
Why do we just focus on Native American groups?

21. Missteps in the Decolonization Process
Marginalizing curatorial staff for political and financial gains
Not utilizing anthropologists, archeologists, and curatorial staff to be a part of the process.
Inherent biases of all involved
Not recognizing others perceptions of you

22. “Decolonization” Perhaps this is the wrong term to use.
Why is inclusivity and diversity not still the norm?

23. References
Lonetree, Amy (2012) Decolonizing Museums : Representing Native America in National and Tribal Museums. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012.
Danger of a Single Story story/transcript
Clifford, J. (1988). “ On Ethnographic Authority ” in Predicaments of culture. Harvard: Harvard University Press.
Erickson, Patrica Pierce and Janine Bowechop (2005)Voices of a Thousand People: The Makah Cultural and Research Center. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Henare, A., M. Holbraad & S. Wastell (2007). “Introduction” In Thinking through things: Theorizing artefacts ethnographically . (eds) A. Henare, M. Holbraad & S. Wastell, London: Routledge.
Moutu, Andrew 2007). “Collection as a Way of Being” In Thinking through things: Theorizing artefacts ethnographically . (eds) A. Henare, M. Holbraad & S. Wastell, London: Routledge.