- Lisa Hodgetts, Department of Anthropology, The University of Western Ontario
- Natasha Lyons, Ursus Heritage Consulting
Indigenous Peoples and organizations have long histories of battling Western colonial institutions to re-establish their rights to self-determination. As affirmed by UNDRIP and other human rights instruments, Indigenous self-determination extends to the relations with and care of Ancestors and their belongings, and includes the right to self-government of internal affairs. In this session, we ask contributors what it means for the discipline of archaeology to take Indigenous sovereignty seriously. In Canada, we operate in a piecemeal system of local, regional and national policy and legislation that establishes archaeologists and other heritage practitioners as the de facto stewards of Indigenous Ancestors and belongings. How would fully respecting Indigenous sovereignty confront the status quo in Canada and elsewhere and reshape our understandings of archaeological ethics? How would it change the role of archaeologists and heritage professionals in the ‘management’, care and curation of Ancestors and belongings? What legal and policy avenues are being or could be pursued to effect the self-determination that communities demand? We invite contributors to weigh in on these and related questions from their respective standpoints, and to share case studies that are working to dismantle the colonial instruments of archaeology and restore Indigenous rights to and care of Indigenous cultural heritages.