[For decades anthropologists exploited Indigenous peoples in the
name of science. Now they are reckoning with that history]
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ANTHROPOLOGY ASSOCIATION APOLOGIZES TO NATIVE AMERICANS FOR THE
FIELD’S LEGACY OF HARM  
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Rachel Parsons
March 28, 2022
Scientific American
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_ For decades anthropologists exploited Indigenous peoples in the
name of science. Now they are reckoning with that history _

Navajo sisters look out over Monument Valley, grandriver/Getty Images


 

In 1901 the soon to be first president of the American Anthropological
Association wrote that “through observation of a typical [Native
American] tribe,” it was clear that “the savage stands strikingly
close to sub-human species in every aspect.” An outgrowth of the
pseudoscientific theory of racial and cultural hierarchy, William
McGee’s words in _American Anthropologist,_ anthropology’s
flagship academic journal, echoed racist 19th-century views
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justified mistreatment of Indigenous communities and propped up
arguments for eugenics. In the decades that followed, anthropologists
continued to support racist agendas, appropriate cultural knowledge,
and steal material objects and human remains belonging to Indigenous
peoples throughout the Americas in the name of scientific research. In
November 2021 the American Anthropological Association
(AAA) apologized
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the field’s legacy of harm.

Anthropology as an academic field evolved out of the burgeoning
subject of sociology in Europe in the 19th century, focusing on
small-scale cultural groups in Africa, Asia and the Americas. In the
U.S., anthropology and its subfields—including archaeology and
linguistic anthropology—were grounded in the study of Native
American communities. In its apology, the AAA pointed to the
discipline’s “record of extractive research,” noting that, taken
as a whole, this record constituted an “abusive relationship” in
which anthropologists declared themselves “experts” and built
their scholarly reputations by privileging their version of Indigenous
knowledge over that of Indigenous communities themselves.

Vernon Finley, director of the Kootenai Culture Committee, grew up
observing his grandfather’s interactions with the “onslaught of
anthropologists” who came to record Kootenai tribal elders’
stories. Researchers nearly always interpreted them incorrectly,
Finley recalls. Furthermore, elders were never told what the visitors
intended to do with this information. “They thought it was purely
for this person’s interest in knowing and interest in improving
their life. They didn’t know it had to do with advancing their
career,” he says.

Through a 21st-century lens, even those anthropologists with good
intentions frequently contributed to the damage. In the early 20th
century Franz Boas
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worked to debunk the racial hierarchy myth and promoted equal civil
rights for Native Americans. But as a curator, he helped populate the
American Museum of Natural History in New York City with the
belongings, human remains and funerary objects of the tribes he
advocated for. The looting was sometimes a condition of keeping his
funding for fieldwork.

The fact that millions of these pieces are in natural history museums,
specifically, where most Americans first learn about Indigenous
cultures, is problematic. In 2010 the University of Michigan Museum of
Natural History removed from public display 14 miniature dioramas
depicting Native American groups from around the country. The dioramas
were made in the mid-20th century by a staff zoologist, according to
museum director Amy Harris. Although the displays were accurate, they
were removed “because they didn’t belong in a natural history
museum,” she explains. Native American visitors, particularly
parents, told the museum that the presence of the dioramas made it
look “like all Native people were dead and gone. That they were just
as extinct as the dinosaurs and the taxidermy that we had in our other
galleries.”

Regarding the AAA’s apology, Jacquetta Swift of the National Museum
of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., says, it is “about damn
time.” Swift, who is a member of the Comanche Nation and descended
from the Fort Sill Apache Tribe, runs the department responsible for
returning items in the museum’s collections that are eligible
for repatriation
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Although objects and ancestral remains came into the collections a
number of ways, including occasionally with the cooperation of the
tribe to which they belonged, the modern notion of consent was not
part of anyone’s paradigm when those collections began. “I do not
consent for anyone to disturb, excavate or study my remains or
otherwise violate me in my final resting place,” Swift says. “And
to any extent that my voice carries weight on the matter, I do not
consent on those same issues for my relations, regardless if they are
blood-related or not.”

When the museum was established as part of the Smithsonian Institution
in 1989, the collections it inherited held around 1,000 Native
American remains, according to Swift. Today the museum holds fewer
than 200. A little farther down the National Mall, the Smithsonian’s
National Museum of Natural History still holds more than two million
archaeological objects from Indigenous cultures within the U.S. and
thousands of ancestral remains. Hundreds of thousands of items
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anthropologists point out that some tribes are satisfied with their
objects being preserved in these places so long as those tribes have
access to them. But others are not. No two Indigenous communities are
the same, and to many groups, these objects are nonhuman persons that
no more belong in a museum than their relatives’ skeletons do. Both
the National Museum of the American Indian and the National Museum of
Natural History have proactive repatriation policies mandated through
federal legislation in 1989 and 1990. They are working to return
bodily remains and cultural items to tribes across the country, from
Alaska to Florida.

By 1969, anthropologists were so ubiquitous on reservations that noted
scholar and Standing Rock Sioux Tribe member Vine Deloria, Jr.,
quipped, “Indians have been cursed above all other people in
history. Indians have anthropologists.” Since then a number of
Native Americans have themselves become anthropologists, slowly
forcing open space for “a meaningful and impactful place in the
discipline,” says Angelo Baca, a Utah-based anthropologist and AAA
member, who is Hopi and Diné. “We always say that the time for
Indian experts is over. Now is the time for expert Indians.” Baca
notes that only time will tell whether the association’s apology
will bring about substantive change.

Not everyone supports the AAA’s mea culpa. Detractors argue that
there have always been anthropologists and archaeologists who work on
behalf of and for tribes to champion their rights and sovereignty.
Former AAA president Akhil Gupta, who issued the apology, says the
criticism leveled at the association’s stance has fallen along lines
of identity and generation. “All the criticisms have come from
non-Native anthropologists who somehow feel that their hard work,
their legacy, has been tarnished by the apology,” he says. But “it
does not say that all the work that has ever been done in Native
American communities is extractive or that it’s harmful. It just
says that we have an ambiguous and ambivalent legacy.”

Both the cheers and outcry the apology has spawned mirror a larger
social justice reckoning inside academic institutions and professional
associations. The AAA is grappling with how anthropology maintains its
relevance and contribution while facing its historical problem with
the field’s research practices, as well as diversity and equity
within its ranks. Correcting course means continuing to move from
extractive methods to truly collaborative, reciprocal work in
participation with Indigenous communities. It also means aiding
university anthropology departments in developing best practices to
diversify hiring, mentoring and curriculum, Gupta says.

“When I think about our many colleagues who are upset with us, I
think they need to go back and reflect” on McGee’s statement
in _American Anthropologist_ in 1901, says the AAA’s current
president Ramona Pérez. “We participated in racist ideologies and
called it science. An apology is the start for recognizing that. But
now it’s up to us to really start moving forward in collaboration
with our tribal leaders and our tribal communities to ask them how we
work together in empowering them today.”

_RACHEL PARSONS is a London-based journalist with a focus on human
ecology. Her work has appeared in DeSmog, Fort Worth Magazine, PBS
NewsHour and Reuters._

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