This institute explores how Indigenous people, communities, and nations have navigated collaborations and contestations over Indigenous cultural objects, art, and performance, both historically and into the present and future. What happens when Native heritage objects, stories, forms of knowledge, and expression move through time and space, often well beyond their communities of origin? How and why have important Native items like baskets, wampum, textiles, and visual arts been “collected,” whether by community-based groups or institutions such as tribal museums, or by outsiders, including Euro-colonial museums--and with what consequences? What are the histories, presents, and futures of repatriation in Indigenous North America and beyond, especially in the wake of NAGPRA and in the midst of evolving digital practices of translation and replication? This institute grapples with how communities and scholars can engage in productive dialogues about meaning and memory, and recognize as well as transform relationships, systems of power, and other forms of interaction. Our goals are to foster a generative, knowledge-sharing space for grappling with collaboration and contestation, which will support institute participants in conceptualizing, beginning, and carrying out original research and interpretive projects. Significant institute time will be devoted to participants' own project development, and to small-group and one-on-one conversations, mentoring, and sharing of works-in-progress.
This event took place over two summers due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The first session, a Digital Reading Seminar was held in July 2020. The second session will be held in July 2021 in a hybrid format.
Institute Participants
Hilary Abe, University of Minnesota
Roxanne Beason, Oklahoma State University
Colton Brandau, University of California-Davis
Camille Callison, University of Manitoba
Aimée Carbaugh, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Paige Figanbaum, University of Nevada-Las Vegas
Thomas Kivi, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Mathilde Magga, University of Washington
Samantha Maza, University of Chicago
Ryuichi Nakayama, University of New Mexico
Wren Palmer, University of Michigan
Gilda Posada, Cornell University
Cordelia Rizzo, Northwestern University
Isabella Shey Robbins, Yale University
Julia Silverman, Harvard University
Christopher Thrasher, Penn State
Alexander Williams, University of Colorado-Boulder
Sawyer Young, University of Oklahoma
Additional Institute Participants from 2020
Glenys Ong Echavarri, University of Washington
Sarah Pillatzki-Warzeha, University of Minnesota