^{Megan Friedel}

Many archives across the country contain Indigenous knowledge from Native American communities. Sometimes these materials were collected ethically, in consultation with these communities—and oftentimes not. As archives grapple with the legal and ethical complexities of handling Native American materials in their collections, Megan K. Friedel, assistant professor and lead archivist at University Libraries, explores integrating culturally responsive practices and long-term relationship building with Indigenous communities into our archival protocols.

Friedel is a member of the Society of American Archivists (SAA) Archival Repatriation Committee, a committee whose mission is to develop national standards for working with Indigenous communities and repatriating archival materials.

The Libraries Communications team spoke with Friedel about how the SAA Archival Repatriation Committee and other national protocols impacts archival practices in relation to Indigenous knowledge in our collections.

What is the Society of American Archivists Archival Repatriation Committee, and what are its goals?

The Society of American Archivists (SAA) Archival Repatriation Committee is a national committee, consisting of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous archivists, working on developing principles and protocols for repatriating archival materials to Indigenous communities (returning records documenting Indigenous knowledge to the communities from which they derive). The committee's primary goal for the last few years has been to develop the forthcoming Principles in Indigenous Archival Repatriation (PINAR), a national set of standards that defines repatriation as a core, non-optional, and ethical responsibility for archivists. We developed PINAR in close consultation with tribal leaders and Indigenous archivists around the country. In August, SAA’s Council approved the principlesas a new profession-wide standard, a significant move that signals the importance of archivists’ adherence to PINAR.

At the same time, the committee also works to ensure that archivists are aware of existing, related best practices, such as the Protocols for Native American Archival Materials (PNAAM), and understand how federal laws such as the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) may or may not work in tandem with PINAR and PNAAM. Now that PINAR is a national standard for archivists, the committee intends to start collecting case studies and developing best practices for practical pathways that support repatriation of archival materials to Indigenous communities.

^{Jamie Wagner}

It’s important that I also acknowledge that I joined the committee in 2024 as a non-Indigenous member. I am proud to support this important work, but most of the credit of developing PINAR as a national standard goes to my other colleagues on the committee. 
 

Why is PINAR important?

PINAR is vitally important because it centers the inalienable right of Indigenous communities to self-determination. As we write in PINAR, archival practice must therefore “preserve and honor Indigenous ways of knowing, thereby supporting cultural reclamation and resilience.” The principles define archivists’ duties to understand what primary source materials we hold that document Indigenous communities and communicate information about these holdings back to those communities. PINAR emphasizes that archivists then must engage with those communities, on their terms and beyond colonial boundaries, to ensure the practice of ethical return. These standards will give more weight to existing protocols like PNAAM, which was developed in 2006 by the First Archivist Circle to provide initial guidelines for how libraries, archives and museums can engage culturally responsive care for Native American archival materials. Like PINAR, PNAAM emphasizes the recognition of sovereignty of Indigenous communities, the importance of building relationships, and the need to integrate Indigenous perspectives and knowledge into archival practices—and PINAR now codifies that archivists must do this work.

What challenges do archivists face when integrating standards like PINAR and PNAAM into their daily responsibilities?

The biggest hurdle for non-Indigenous archivists—and I speak from personal experience, as a white archivist who is continually learning from my Indigenous colleagues—is rethinking Western approaches to preserving and providing access to historical documents, when information about Indigenous knowledge and lifeways is present in these materials. This means using a “slow archives” approach, taking whatever time is necessary to build long-lasting, trusting relationships with Indigenous communities, centered in their needs for that information and not necessarily ours.

It also means being open to restricting archival information solely for use by those communities, or respectfully and ethically returning ownership, control, and/or possession of records to the communities who created them or are reflected in them. PNAAM additionally guides archivists to give Indigenous communities the right of first refusal for acquiring new collections that are strongly culturally affiliated with them. These have not typically been aspects of Western archival practice, so it can be challenging for non-Indigenous archivists to undo past learning and engage with this work.

^{Ashlyn Velte}

Can you talk more about "slow archives" and how is it applied in the context of Native American archival materials?

Of course! The term "slow archives" was coined by Kimberly Christen and Jane Anderson in 2019. This approach recognizes that it can take years or even decades to develop the trust necessary for Indigenous communities to feel comfortable working with predominantly white institutions. It means abandoning Western archival approaches that are focused on institutional deadlines and benchmarks and focusing instead on processes outlined by Indigenous communities. Slow archives reflects PINAR and PNAAM by emphasizing that archivists should engage with empathetic listening to the needs of Indigenous communities. I love the “slow archives” idea because it is so antithetical to traditional archival practice, which focuses on providing quick access to collections—a very Western concept that can often result in providing access to Indigenous knowledge that should be restricted to the community.

You mentioned that we need to rethink Western archival practices in regards to access to materials. How does the concept of community-owned knowledge play a role in this?

In Western archival practices, the transfer of rights for archival collections typically involves an individual acting on behalf of themselves, their family or an organization. They give their rights for use, or ownership, of the materials to the archives or its parent institution.

But, in Indigenous communities, knowledge is often considered to be collectively owned by the community rather than by individuals or organizations. Moreover, so much cultural knowledge in tribal communities was unethically extracted by non-Indigenous people during colonization and ended up in archival collections at predominantly white libraries, archives and museums, where it likely was not intended to be shared with non-Indigenous people. Archivists need to recognize that we do not necessarily have the right to continue to share this knowledge, even though our gift agreements might say we “own” the notes or the photographs or the sound recordings that it appears in. We also need to recognize that there is no one-size-fits-all solution for remedying this. Every Indigenous community will have its own considerations for its own knowledge in our collections, which challenges a typically Western approach to find one solution that can be used in every case. Therefore, archivists need to understand that we have an obligation to proactively reach out to tribal representatives for each of the communities reflected in our collections, listen to their distinct community needs, and build individual access or return policies that support those needs.

How have the Libraries started to implement PINAR and PNAAM?

We are moving forward slowly, in the spirit of “slow archives,” with the following steps:
 

• We’ve begun to build relationships with tribes regarding Indigenous knowledge from their communities that is found in the Libraries’ archival collections.
• We are prioritizing attendance at the annual Associated Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums conference to stay informed and engaged with Indigenous-centered practices.
• We are working on formal policies and procedures for researcher access to archival collections that contain Indigenous knowledge.
• We are developing collection development policies and procedures to guide the assessment of potential donations containing Indigenous knowledge.
• We have consulted with the CU Museum of Natural History on NAGPRA and other considerations for archival material.

You recently published a book with other Libraries archivists about navigating providing access to privacy protected records in public institutions. Can you tell me more about that?

I worked with teaching assistant professor Jamie Marie Wagner and assistant professor Ashlyn Velte to write Providing Access to Privacy-Protected Records at Public Institutions in the Age of Radical Empathy. This book offers practical guidance and decision-making models that help archivists weigh community input, institutional priorities and legal obligations alongside a commitment to social justice. Through case studies, it explores access strategies for sensitive records such as grand jury proceedings, law enforcement files and human subject research data.

I’m really proud of how this book reflects the commitment that the Libraries archivists are making to include community input in archival decision-making. In particular, [Wagner] wrote the case study in the book that documents how we provide mediated access to data in the Libraries archives that was collected by a former CU anthropologist, Omer Stewart, which includes personal information about tribal members and Indigenous knowledge documenting cultural practices. I’m excited to build off of her work and more fully enact PINAR and PNAAM for this collection, as well as others in our archives, to involve more tribal input. Work like this is just the beginning of a long-term commitment we’ve made to honoring Indigenous communities through ethical and collaborative archival practices.