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The Entanglements of Ethics

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Bodies, Ontology, and Bioarchaeology

Part of the book series: Bioarchaeology and Social Theory ((BST))

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Abstract

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.

…ethics is not simply about responsible actions in relation to human experiences of the world; rather, it is a question of material entanglements and how each intra-action matters in the reconfiguring of these entanglements, that is, it is a matter of the ethical call that is embodied in the very worlding of the world.

Barad (2007: 160).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In his 1892 speech to the Education of Native Americans delivered at the National Conference of Charities and Correction, Captain Richard H. Pratt of the 19th Army Calvary opened with the following lines, “A great general has said that the only good Indian is a dead one, and that high sanction of his destruction has been an enormous factor in promoting Indian massacres. In a sense, I agree with the sentiment, but only in this: that all the Indian there is in the race should be dead. Kill the Indian in him, and save the man.” (Reprinted in Pratt, 1973).

  2. 2.

    Signed on February 2, 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the Mexican-American War and ceded some Mexican territory to the United States. Article IX of the Treaty assured former Mexican citizens “…the free exercise of their religion without restriction”.

  3. 3.

    Congressional hearings on the Indian Citizenship Act were held on December 3, 1923. This act formally recognized Indians as US. Citizens and was signed into law on June 2, 1924 by President Calvin Coolidge.

  4. 4.

    Statements about such legislation continue to reflect institutions willfully blind to how authority and agency that are historically grounded in the colonial matrix of power. For example, in signing the Act’s 1994 modification, President Carter commented, “In many instances, the Federal officials responsible for the enforcement of these regulations were unaware of the nature of traditional native religious practices and, consequently, of the degree to which their agencies interfered with such practices.” (presidency.ucsb.edu. “President Carter on the AIRFA”. Retrieved January 11, 2023).

  5. 5.

    To date, the American Museum of Natural History has yet to repatriate these human remains from Arroyo Hondo.

  6. 6.

    After serving as SAR president for a decade, Michael Brown retired in 2024.

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    Ann M. Palkovich

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Palkovich, A.M. (2024). The Entanglements of Ethics. In: Bodies, Ontology, and Bioarchaeology. Bioarchaeology and Social Theory. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-56023-1_10

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