by Saisha Dhar
I. Institutional Archives
For over a century, Harvard University has housed a vast collection of cultural artifacts in its museums, with many of these sacred objects being of Native American origination. The controversy surrounding Harvard’s possession of these artifacts has resurfaced in recent years, particularly in light of a lawsuit filed by the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and other tribes against Harvard over the repatriation of human remains and funerary objects (Federal Register 2022). In addition, a report that was leaked to Harvard’s student newspaper in 2022 revealed that the university’s collections also include the human remains of 19 enslaved individuals who were likely of African descent, as well as the remains of 7,000 people of Indigenous descent (Brockell 2022). These remains, taken and used in medical research without consent, raise questions about the complex and troubling history of Harvard’s acquisition and curation of these materials. Many other institutions in the United States similarly hold these types of materials, with the University of Pennsylvania’s anthropology museum having held the skulls of 55 enslaved people from Cuba and the United States (Bostock 2021). This is a striking representation of institutional racism, as these institutions, dedicated to promoting knowledge and justice, held these remains without the consent of communities of origin.
Indigenous artifacts are of great value – each has its own cultural significance and meaning within the context of the tribe or community from which it originated. Some artifacts may be considered so sacred and spiritually significant that they should only be handled by certain individuals within the tribe, while others may be used in traditional ceremonies or festivals. However, Harvard has used these for its own purposes. The artifacts have been studied by archaeologists, anthropologists, and historians to gain insights into the cultures and traditions of the Native American tribes from which they originated. Human remains from Indigenous individuals were used for anatomical research and teaching in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and the remains of people from African descent who were likely enslaved were also used for anatomical study and dissection (Isselbacher 2021). The possession and use of these remains without consent is a deeply troubling legacy of colonialism and racism in the United States.
Harvard has engaged in some repatriation efforts in recent years. In 2016, after a lengthy legal battle, Harvard returned 12,000 pages of sacred texts and other cultural materials to the Hopi Tribe in Arizona and the Navajo Nation in New Mexico. The materials had been taken from the tribes by J. Walter Fewkes, a researcher affiliated with Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. However, repatriation efforts have been limited and slow-moving. Additionally, 6,372 of the 6,586 nominally “unidentifiable” individuals that remain in the Peabody’s collection are of known geographical origin; instead, the Peabody has labeled these ancestors as ‘culturally unidentifiable,’ shifting the burden to tribes to prove affiliation, and hindering the process of repatriation.
An institution such as Harvard, that publicly promotes human rights and accountability, still holding these remains and artifacts without appropriate repatriation is a direct violation of those values, and is an example of how institutions in the United States still engage in colonial practice. Through engaging with the postcolonial theorists Anibal Quijano and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak in this paper, I’d like to explore how this issue is a case of the colonial past in the present, and the complex considerations about archival records and silence that come into play when dealing with repatriation.
II. The Colonial Legacy in Institutions
To begin with, universities and institutions do not exist in an abstract academic place. They are established on land, and especially in the North American context, on Native American lands that were often gained through violent means. Therefore, many institutions have had a colonial foundation from the start. The institutions holding, exploiting, and appropriating Native American artifacts is a clear extension of this history of colonialism.
There is a strong perpetuation of cultural hegemony in universities, as they prioritize the dominance of a particular (Western) culture over others. This hegemony is not only developed in the institutions themselves, but it also spreads outside their physical boundaries as institutions hold a large sphere of influence in our society, over values, norms, ideas, expectations, worldviews, and behavior. But what a university has the most influence over, and is often created to foster, is knowledge – society believes that whatever a university promotes and values must be “rational” and rooted in factual knowledge. This is problematic because in many cases, the knowledge universities share, and the methods through which they share it, is inherently colonial.
This idea mirrors Anibal Quijano’s postcolonial discourse, in that he writes colonial “repression fell, above all, over the modes of knowing, of producing knowledge, of producing perspectives, images and systems of images, symbols” (Quijano 2007: 169). Harvard holding Native American remains and artifacts “to create knowledge” instead creates a power structure of knowledge distribution, in which there is a superiority-inferiority relationship of Harvard researchers and professors, often white and not of Indigenous background, “studying” the colonized peoples.
Archives are meant to be a source of knowledge, as they provide an opportunity for researchers to examine original documents and artifacts that may not be available in any other format. However, the way our current institutional archive is structured is active act of colonialism and a demonstration of Quijano’s “coloniality of power”, as there has been a system of hierarchy solidified through this (Quijano 2007: 171). It is very unlikely that there are Indigenous people holding the remains of their colonizers in museums, for example. Access to these archives is problematic as well – they are not easily accessible to the general public, and may only be open to scholars or individuals with specific credentials – why should only a few be able to access history? This creates barriers to entry, and further marginalizes oppressed groups. Even in repatriation efforts, there is limited representation and insight from Indigenous people, meaning that the decisions of management and preservation are still made by the colonial people in power. Thus, this case study, and many other institutional archival practices in general, is a continuing legacy of colonialism.
III. The Conflict of the Archive
Quijano’s analysis helps demonstrate that institutions, and the repositories of “knowledge” within them, are inherently colonial spaces, with institutions in power holding the stories of the people below.
However, archives, as collections of historical documents and materials, may hold much value as well. By preserving records, society can learn about past events and their significance, to make informed decisions about the future. By examining primary source material, researchers can also gain insight into the social, political, and economic conditions of the past, and use that knowledge to inform their work. This can help promote a sense of shared history and identity, an important aspect of building strong communities. Archives can also preserve our collective cultural heritage, by ensuring that materials are not lost for future generations. So, should archives exist to hold cultural materials that might otherwise disappear or not be known about, such as the Native American artifacts that Harvard holds?
I’d like to bring in my own experience as a learner and researcher at a university. I’ve used the Duke University Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library to access the portfolio “The North American Indian” by American photographer Edward Curtis (Curtis 1930). This photographic collection was an expansive project Curtis undertook to document the Native American culture before it completely vanished due to white expansion and a rapidly decreasing population. In this collection, Curtis often manufactured scenes to make the Native Americans appear more “primitive” and traditional, making them display their skin or recreate a private cultural gathering. Although Curtis carried out this project under the pretense of wanting to preserve Native American history, I used this record to understand how a white photographer exerted his power over Native Americans through violent means of photography. Thus, this archive being accessible in the university I attend allowed me to criticize this project using postcolonial theory (although I am inherently doing it from an institutional perspective) and also gain some insight into Native American culture and history. Without an archive like this available to me, I would not be able to conduct this analysis.
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s subaltern scholarship engages with the idea of the archive in many ways. Spivak categorizes the “subaltern” as those socially and politically marginalized groups whose voices are often excluded from mainstream discourse, and she seeks to challenge the dominant narratives that have historically excluded or misrepresented them. Spivak says “the subaltern cannot speak”, so must always be represented by others (Spivak 1988: 104). She would argue that Indigenous groups do not have direct access to their own means of widespread representation, such as media or education, that would allow them to express their own experiences and culture, so they can only be heard or represented by others who do not fully understand or accurately convey their experiences. Spivak views archives, such as Harvard holding Native American artifacts, as an example that the stories of marginalized groups are not told through their own voices, but are rather curated by others, who often have their own interests and agendas – the archive is always a “selectively constituted and constructed representation of the past”. Archival collections are created by those who hold power and privilege, such as political leaders or wealthy individuals who have choices about what materials to collect and preserve. This can lead to the exclusion of some materials, and the inclusion of others that portray marginalized groups in a negative or stereotypical way.
Furthermore, the “archive fever of the bourgeois” not only includes collecting, but also “interpreting.” Researchers and scholars bring their own biases to the process of understanding and representing materials in archives, which can result in a selective portrayal of marginalized voices as their experiences are filtered through the lens of the dominant culture. Although archives can be a means of understanding the past, the resulting representations of subaltern experiences are therefore incomplete and distorted, further continuing the legacy of colonial practice.
Essentialism is the idea that there is a fixed, unchanging essence or identity that defines a particular group or individual. It has been criticized for perpetuating stereotypes and limiting the diversity of subaltern groups, however, Spivak develops the concept of “strategic essentialism,” in which subaltern groups can use essentialist language and ideas to create a sense of solidarity and identity (Mambrol 2016). In the case of Indigenous groups, the use of essentialist claims can be a way to gain recognition, strengthen a collective, and assert rights. Archives and the distribution of knowledge can play a role in this process, by emphasizing the importance of preserving and recognizing Native American culture and providing evidence of their unique histories and cultures. However, this strategy can also lead to further appropriation and marginalization if Indigenous groups are seen inferior groups that “need” recognition from a superior societal group such as an institution. By needing archives to validate their identity, it reinforces the idea that Indigenous knowledge and culture are somehow subordinate to Western culture. Spivak recognizes, too, that essentialist claims about identity can be limiting, as they homogenize and do not account for the diversity of experience within such groups.
By engaging with Spivak, we have entered a conflict of the archive: it can allow for some recognition and preservation of culture, but misrepresent the subaltern voice and thus is an extension of colonial legacy.
IV. Entering the Postcolonial “Archive”
Current repatriation practices include procedures for negotiating and consulting with communities of origin, some collaborative agreements in which there could be joint ownership or management of artifacts, as well as shared decision-making about their use and display. However, these processes are slow and bureaucratic, with delays and barriers that perpetuate power balances between institutions and communities of origin. Additionally, there is often a lack of funding or infrastructure for communities to manage and interpret their own cultural heritage once it is repatriated, which may lead to the loss of history.
The analysis through this paper brings up the question: will the repatriation of artifacts and remains lead to archival silence and loss of history for already oppressed groups?
Since in our current societal structure, institutions are the main producers and distributors of knowledge, it may be so. In order to preserve history through the voice of the subaltern itself, Spivak believes that “the representation of the subaltern must be undertaken in terms of a radical deconstruction of the metonymies by which the West has tried to name, describe, and contain them.”
‘Repatriation’ is limited to the return of physical artifacts. If Harvard were to return all artifacts and remains, that alone would not address the broader systemic issues that had led to their removal from communities in the first place. In many cases, it will be a tokenistic and superficial gesture of recognition, to promote the image of the institution itself. So, we must radically change who history is recorded by, and who it is held by, in order to achieve an “archive” that is free from deep-rooted colonial legacy, and restore dignity and agency of the subaltern.
By engaging with Quijano, we’ve learned that the colonizer (or institution) is the producer of knowledge and hegemony. With Spivak, we’ve seen that the subaltern voice is misrepresented and oppressed in this knowledge. Thus, institutional archives are not neutral spaces. They are shaped by the interests and values of those who create them and the contexts in which they are produced, often racist and colonial. Harvard and other institutions in the United States still holding onto a collection of Indigenous and enslaved peoples remains and cultural artifacts is a direct extension of colonial legacy. The archival record is not an objective reflection of history, but rather a constructed narrative that reflects the power dynamics and perspectives of those who are privileged, perpetuating the subjugation, exploitation, and colonization of the subaltern.
Works Cited
Aníbal Quijano (2007) COLONIALITY AND MODERNITY/RATIONALITY , Cultural Studies, 21:2-3, 168-178
Bostock, Bill. “A Pennsylvania Museum Apologized for Collecting the Skulls of Black Americans, Saying It Will Return the Remains to Their Communities.” Insider. Insider, April 13, 2021. https://www.insider.com/penn-museum-sorry-collecting-black-skulls-promises-return-burial-2021-4.
Brockell, Gillian. “Harvard Has Remains of 7,000 Native Americans and Enslaved People, Leaked Report Says.” The Washington Post. WP Company, June 2, 2022. https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/06/02/harvard-human-remains-indigenous-enslaved/.
“The Federal Register.” Federal Register :: Request Access. Accessed April 27, 2023. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2022/12/15/2022-27181/notice-of-inventory-completion-peabody-museum-of-archaeology-and-ethnology-harvard-university.
Isselbacher, Juliet. “Repatriating Native American Remains.” Harvard Magazine, August 13, 2021. https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2021/09/jhj-peobody-museum-native-american-remains.
Mambrol, Nasrullah. “Strategic Essentialism.” Literary Theory and Criticism, December 15, 2018. https://literariness.org/2016/04/09/strategic-essentialism/.
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. Can the Subaltern Speak? Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1988.