Conference:
Abstract: "Recent legislation in the United States has produced a groundswell of activity from museums (mandated to comply with the terms of the law), and by indigenous communities in the United States seeking to utilize the intent of the law to restore cultural property to aboriginal title. Related concerns emerge in international forums both within and outside of museums as to the broad applicability of notions of 'cultural property' and most recently, the application of legal constructs of 'intellectual property' as a means to protect indigenous knowledge. While issues of appropriation date to the initial phase of native dispossession, the context in which the law has shaped these debates brings new ways of unveiling western philosophical ideas about property, ownership, selective representation, and possessive individualism on the one hand, and the inextricable relationship of land to spirituality, cultural history and the production of cultural artifacts and knowledge on the other. This paper considers the philosophical contradictions embedded in cultural property policies, and practical problems that can arise between communities, museums, and their power brokers. On the one hand, the federal-trust relationship between the United States and American Indian Nations acknowledges the sovereign status of tribal governments to appoint their own representatives, while at the same time retains subordinating structures of representation by 1) framing it with respect to a collectively shared identity (and assumed agenda) and 2) maintaining the balance of power in the hands of policymakers. In order to work within the frame of "collective individualism," indigenous claimants must assent to the underlying principles of possessive individualism and the language of the law that guide proprietary interests."