Public Lecture.

Reconciliation and Indigenous Archaeology: On Care for and the Futurity of Káamalam (First Peoples)

In 2019, the state of California issued an unprecedented formal apology to California's Indigenous peoples, followed by executive order N-15-19 establishing the California Truth and Healing Council (CTCH) to document historical and ongoing settler abuses against Native Californians. Unlike other reconciliation efforts abroad, archaeology has not played a significant role in said testimonial efforts. In addition to outlining the need for testimonies on acts of genocide, land dispossession, and assimilation, CTCH Tribal consultation explicitly calls for a reassessment of archaeology by examining stagnant repatriation programs and the broad lack of deference to Indigenous knowledge. Archaeologists have much accounting to do, and yet, as noted by archaeologist Peter Nelson (Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria), “Where have all the Anthros gone once the regulations and ethical codes mandate that we be partners rather than data?” (2021, 471). This paper examines how Indigenous Archaeology is positioned to address violent histories of settler colonialism while animating Indigenous futurity in alternative processes of recognition and repair. I discuss how the Enduring Indigenous Homelands Project (EIHP, in partnership with the Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians) practices deference to Indigenous values of care for the ancestors and First Peoples through repatriation and Indigenous cartography as historical testimony. By mapping areas of Indigenous refugia after colonization, EIHP offers a model for providing historical testimony and mitigation plans for future development in ancestral homelands. This practice allows us to examine the limits of reconciliation outlined by Coulthard (2014) in the emergent harm of settler institutions and structures of recognition manifest in traditional heritage management while providing a potential method for reclaiming archaeology as a tool for Indigenous futurity.

Dr. Nate Acebo is an Assistant Professor in the departments of Anthropology and Social and Critical Inquiry-Native American and Indigenous Studies (NAIS) at the University of Connecticut. He currently serves as the Associate Director of Native American and Indigenous Studies at UConn, where he is responsible for building Indigenous curriculum and Native community inclusion programs with/for the five tribal nations of Connecticut. Dr. Acebo practices CBPR-based Indigenous Archaeology and serves as Research Project Collaborator for the Pechanga Band of Indians, Tongva and Kanaka Maoli communities, and his research focuses on anticolonial resistance networks, place-name mapping, and land tenure systems in Southern California and Hawaii. Dr. Acebo was the University of California Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow and Critical Mission Studies Fellow at the UC Merced and UC San Diego from 2020-2021, and a Mellon Foundation Faculty of Color Working Group Fellow at Tufts University in 2022-2023.