Insights
Perspectives on NAGPRA,
Repatriation & Ethical Practice
Practical guidance from the field — written by Alice Parman and Rachael Carnes to help museums, tribal nations, and international institutions navigate complex obligations with care and clarity.
How to Talk to Your Board About Repatriation
How to bring a museum board into a repatriation decision ready to lead — the 2023 NAGPRA Final Rule, three real institutions, and what the boardroom conversation needs to cover.
Read essayWhat Trauma-Informed Interpretation Means in Practice
From community relationship and narrator consent to layered exhibit design and visitor agency — what it actually takes to interpret difficult histories without re-traumatizing the people whose stories they are.
Read essayThe Door Faces East: How John White and the Pawnee Nation Innovated the Field Museum and the Museum Field
The story of the Field Museum's Pawnee Earth Lodge — a 1977 collaboration between Native staff member John White and the Pawnee Nation that changed how museums think about Indigenous partnership and exhibit-making.
Read essayWhat the 2024 NAGPRA Final Rule Actually Requires — and What It Doesn't
A plain-language guide to the regulations that reshaped tribal consultation, repatriation timelines, and institutional obligations — separating what the rule mandates from what institutions have assumed.
Read essayMore essays in progress
Additional guidance on repatriation practice, tribal consultation, and international frameworks will appear here as it is published.
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