The Routledge Companion to Indigenous Repatriation

About the Author

Cressida Fforde is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Heritage and Museum Studies, The Australian National University. From 2011–2019 she was Deputy Director of the National Centre for Indigenous Studies, ANU. Since 1991, she has undertaken research within the repatriation field for Indigenous communities and institutions internationally, particularly in the location and identification of Ancestral Remains through archival research. Dr Fforde’s work and publications have contributed significantly to scholarship in this area. She is recognised internationally for the knowledge she brings to repatriation practice and the analysis of the history of the removal and return of Indigenous Ancestral Remains. She was the lead Chief Investigator for the Return, Reconcile, Renew (2013–2016) and Restoring Dignity (2018–2020) projects, both funded by the Australian Research Council.

C. Timothy McKeown is a legal anthropologist whose career has focused exclusively on the development and use of explicit ethnographic methodologies to document the cultural knowledge of communities and use that knowledge to enhance policy development and implementation. He has been intimately involved in the documentation and application of Indigenous knowledge to the development of U.S. repatriation policy since 1991. For 18 years, he served as a Federal official responsible for drafting regulations implementing the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), developing databases to document compliance, establishing a grants program, investigating allegations of failure to comply for possible civil penalties, coordinating the activities of a Secretarial advisory committee, and providing training and technical assistance to nearly 1,000 museums and Federal agencies and 700 indigenous communities across the U.S. He has served as Partner Investigator on multiple grants from the Australian Research Council. He is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the National Centre for Indigenous Studies, Australian National University, and a visiting instructor in cultural heritage studies, Central European University. He was a partner investigator on the Return, Reconcile, Renew (2013–2016) and Restoring Dignity (2018–2020) projects, both funded by the Australian Research Council.

Honor Keeler (Cherokee) is Assistant Director of Utah Diné Bikéyah and holds an honorary position at the National Centre for Indigenous Studies at The Australian National University. She is currently a member of the NAGPRA Review Committee and was previously Director of the International Repatriation Project at the Association on American Indian Affairs. She is well regarded for her expertise in repatriation matters and has worked extensively to support Indigenous repatriation efforts, including bringing the legal, policy and legislative concerns of Native Americans in international repatriation to national and international forums. Honor was in charge of coordinating repatriation of Wesleyan University collections to Native nations, and the development related protocols, as well as teaching university courses on repatriation within a cultural resources and cultural property context. She is author of A Guide to International Repatriation: Starting an Initiative in Your Community, She graduated in 2010 with a JD and Indian Law Certificate (clinical honours) from the University of New Mexico School of Law. She was a partner investigator on the Return, Reconcile, Renew (2013–2016) and Restoring Dignity (2018–2020) projects, both funded by the Australian Research Council.