Cultural Return, Restitution, and the Limits of Possibility

In the United States, the Kennewick decision has underscored the serious need to depart from a narrowly construed and attenuated language of “affiliation” to the more ethically inflected language of cultural “restitution.” In the first instance, one preferable shift would entail moving from the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act's (NAGPRA) heavy reliance on “cultural affiliation” to one of “cultural patrimony,” the latter focusing more intently on the imbued notions of inheritance, legacy, and heritage.