The Entanglements of Ethics

Repatriation is a process of returning where unresolved issues of the past that are entangled with the present. The repatriation of human remains reaches beyond legal and ethical mandates into western domains of scientific inquiry, notions of property rights, and assertions of cultural values. My touchstone here is Barad’s approach that grounds ethics within an onto-epistemology framework of inquiry. I first discuss how notions of citizenship, sovereignty, and religious freedom are embedded in NAGPRA and the repatriation process. Placing Wenger’s study of the 1920s Pueblo Indian Dance controversy in relationship to Mignolo and Walsh’s discussion of decoloniality illustrates how the historical legacies of governmental policies still abrogate the ability of Native Americans to dwell in the world. I then consider how the notion of attunement highlights the ironies of repatriation as non-innocent acts. Finally, I consider how ethics as a matter of dwelling offers insights about the repatriation process.