Elizabeth Weiss, James W. Springer Anthropology in Retreat Academics and government officials privilege “indigeneity” ideology at the expense of genuine research.
https://www.city-journal.org/article/anthropology-in-retreat
Many anthropologists place social-justice ideology over verifiable facts, from denying the sex binary to spinning false narratives of mass child graves in Indian schools to recasting “indigenous knowledge” as a source of scientific evidence. To this list add acceptance of Native American oral myths and creation stories. Arising from an ideology that divides humanity into oppressors and oppressed and rejects the concept of objective truth, such myth acceptance increasingly factors into questions of repatriation and reburial—whether, say, to give ancient skeletal and artifact collections to modern tribes whose connection to the remains may be obscure. The result: woke anthropologists and tribal activists exploit government rules to derail science, all in the name of social justice.
The long, complex history of Indian tribes has been one of change and contradiction. Once at war with American settlers and later subject to assimilation policies, Indian tribes today possess legal powers comparable with those of no other group. Activist elements within tribes wield this power to suppress research on the anthropology of American Indians that contradicts traditional religious beliefs.
Some of the research on Paleoindians, for example, reveals that these earliest Americans were genetically distinct from later arrivals. Yet these findings have come under attack from Indian activists who cite oral myths declaring that they have been in North America since time immemorial. Research that portrays past North American Indians unfavorably, meantime, also faces censorship pressures. Any paper marshaling evidence on intertribal warfare, cannibalism, slavery in pre-contact America, or environmentally devastating land-use practices will face numerous challenges, as tribes push for research on topics “relevant to tribal interests.”
Arguing that they must write their own history, activists aim to restrict anthropological research on North American Indians to subjects, topics, methods, and conclusions of which they approve. They maintain that the tribes must authorize any such research in advance, along with any findings before they are published or otherwise disseminated. Researchers must avoid forbidden topics, such as burial customs and stories of origins and migrations by their tribal ancestors. Anthropologists and historians face the dilemma of either doing no research at all or doing only research that confirms traditions and does not offend dogmas.
Government has been an important partner in this phenomenon. A 1990 federal law, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA)—expanded by sweeping administrative regulations under the Biden administration since its adoption—is a common tool of those seeking to forestall actual anthropological research. As currently interpreted, the law gives deference to “traditional knowledge,” requires the presence of “traditional Indian religious leaders” on NAGPRA committees and accords tradition the status of “expert opinion.” Also relevant has been the Biden administration’s mandate on indigenous knowledge, which, as the Washington Free Beacon has reported, forces agencies to incorporate tribal superstition in their most important research projects.
To understand the character of this “knowledge,” consider the Colville tribe’s claim that its members are related to the nearly 9,000-year-old Kennewick Man. What does their alleged expertise about the formation of the land near the skeleton entail? In their oral myth, the Colville tribe members claim that a geological mound called Steamboat Rock was formed by a trickster coyote with a big steamboat that it turned into stone. Such animistic views now receive deference from the U.S. government.
NAGPRA and the indigenous-knowledge mandate have allowed Indian religious beliefs to influence curation practices. Some tribes forbid women from handling certain remains, warn pregnant women to stay away from certain objects, and require curators in museums and universities to engage in religious rituals—from prayers and “smudgings” to feeding masks and hanging a “devil’s club” over “spiritually dangerous” objects.
Wouldn’t enforcing Indians’ mythological claims to lands, artifacts, and human remains violate the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause? Some courts think so. But others note that Indian litigants believe any disturbance of graves or natural features will disturb the spirits and cause material injury. And Indian activists allege that profanation of their sacred views can inflict extreme emotional distress. Some argue that mere photography of artifacts causes such harms.
You might find these arguments frivolous; academics do not. The Southeastern Archaeological Conference, an academic organization, has adopted a rule that, for funerary or sacred objects, only line drawings and not photos may appear in their journal and at meetings. The Society for American Archaeology (SAA) follows a similar rule, with the style guide for its journals stating: “Line drawings or other renderings of human remains may be an acceptable substitute for photographs.”
Courts of law abet this endeavor. Many judges take claims of profanation seriously enough to let Indian activists file suit. Yet people opposing such tribal restrictions cannot take Indian activists to court because Indian tribes, as well as nontribal Indian corporations, are sovereign. Standing in a government-to-government relationship with federal authorities, Indian tribes are immune from suit unless they agree to be sued.
Legal rules reinforce this immunity. Court construal of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure tends to label Indian tribes that haven’t been named in a given suit as “necessary parties” whose participation in a case is “indispensable” to resolution. If these parties refuse to be joined in a lawsuit, then it is often dismissed, no matter how meritorious it may be (though judges retain discretion to let it move forward). Since tribes gain immunity from suit except when they have explicitly waived that right, this makes it nearly impossible for an individual to seek redress when his rights are infringed upon by a tribe. Further, when applying NAGPRA, some courts have held that if an Indian tribe merely asserts that the remains in question are Native American but refuses to be made a party to the suit, that suit must be dismissed.
When social-justice ideology in anthropology, federal government solicitousness of Indian tribes, and onerous legal rules combine, the result is a force field that halts scientific progress in its tracks.
Take the example of the La Jolla skeletons, a male and female dated at over 9,000 years old whose remains were discovered on the University of California–San Diego campus. Anthropologist Tim White and his colleagues tried to access these skeletons to improve on the rudimentary research that had so far been conducted—an isotope study done shortly after excavation as part of a larger study on diets and a NAGPRA report by San Diego State anthropologist Arion Mayes titled “These Bones Are Read: The Science and Politics of Ancient Native America.” Mayes’s conclusions cannot be assessed, replicated, or used in research, so more inquiry was necessary. But the bones were being repatriated to the Kumeyaay tribe, rendering them inaccessible.
In 2008, White, Margaret Schoeninger of UC–San Diego, and Robert Bettinger of UC–Davis requested access to the skeletons to conduct research. Schoeninger received a rejection notice; the other two never got a response. An outside anthropologist tried to halt repatriation in court, claiming that the university failed to follow proper repatriation regulations. Then White, Schoeninger, and Bettinger sued the University of California to gain access to the remains for study. But in the end, both skeletons were reburied in 2016.
Why inter the skeletons? “We want to be the ones who tell our story,” said tribal spokesman Steven Banegas of the Kumeyaay Cultural Repatriation Committee. But the court’s reasoning was different, turning on an arcane point of civil procedure. As mentioned, a party who cannot be sued cannot be joined in a complaint; but if a necessary and indispensable party—one whose absence would prejudice the existing parties or stand in the way of a just outcome—cannot be joined, then the suit faces dismissal. The result: you must join the tribe in the lawsuit, but the tribe cannot be sued.
Professional and personal sanctions accompany any effort to fight back. When one of us (Weiss) sued San José State University, she was removed from curation duties; locked out of the room that held skeletal remains; prevented from accessing x-rays, data, and nonhuman faunal remains; and forbidden to use previously collected data. Weiss’s suit against San Jose State was handicapped when the judge decided that the Muwekma Ohlone tribe was a necessary and indispensable party to any claims concerning the interpretation of California’s repatriation laws (modeled after NAGPRA). The case proceeded with respect to any issues that did not involve Native American remains, data, curation policies, or materials related to the site, but a full resolution was elusive.
The ideology underpinning these rules and laws has implications for numerous academic fields, not just anthropology. The Biden administration’s indigenous-knowledge requirements for federal dollars are bound to entangle geologists and biologists, among others. Academics who come to conclusions that contradict Native American religious beliefs and other myths may wish to suppress their findings. Those considering suits against their universities will be ensnared by tribal immunity.
Scientists are finding their projects thwarted by activist narratives. NAGPRA’s domain has expanded beyond human remains, funerary objects, objects of cultural patrimony, and sacred objects. The Graton Rancheria tribe requested everything from a sixteenth-century Spanish breastplate to Ming Dynasty ceramics, labeling them sacred or part of its cultural patrimony. Even items specifically made for display or research have been claimed for repatriation. And in universities such as California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, and California State University, Bakersfield, teaching materials such as slides and casts are being kept from professors and will likely be “repatriated.” Professors may decide to sue the university claiming violations of academic freedom, but if a judge decides that the tribe in question is an “indispensable” party, then the case will be dismissed.
The result of all this will be less knowledge. Academics facing retaliation and possessing no legal redress might submit to activist demands—even if the demands are discriminatory (such as prohibiting menstruating women from engaging in fieldwork) or infringe on academic freedom (proponents of “data sovereignty,” under which tribes control who can receive data and publish articles, won a retraction of a recent article about ancient DNA). Professors have circulated a list of respectful terms to use to avoid the apparently insensitive language of science; what was once a “skeletal sample” is now a “group of ancestral remains.” Money will follow myth instead of fact: the National Institutes of Health funded a traditional medicine summit, which revolved around “traditional healers” who are “constantly praying, even in their dreams” to treat such problems as addiction and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Indian activists’ efforts to control scientific output may first have made headway in anthropology, but other fields will soon find themselves prevented from searching for objective truths, too—if they haven’t already.
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