Contributed by Marla Taylor
Nearly three years ago, I co-founded the Indigenous Collections Care (ICC) Working Group along with Laura Bryant, Anthropology Collections Steward and NAGPRA Coordinator for the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, OK. Along with Laura Elliff Cruz, Head of Collections at the Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) in Santa Fe, NM and other group members, the ICC has been working to create an accessible reference tool for professionals who interact regularly with Native American collections.
The ICC grew out of our desire to incorporate the collections care requests of Indigenous communities into our institutional practice and policy. The working group was formed in late 2020 and is composed of approximately 20 people (both Indigenous and non-Indigenous museum professionals and academics, Tribal Historic Preservation Officers, and NAGPRA coordinators) who actively participate in monthly meetings on the creation of an Indigenous Collections Care Guide.
The ICC Guide will not instruct museums on how to specifically care for each item, since protocols vary among communities, but will offer scalable considerations of culturally appropriate collections stewardship, with questions and talking points to address during consultation, and with templates and case studies for use in implementation, advocacy, and the creation of policies and procedures.
In order to facilitate robust review of the ICC Guide by tribal communities, the ICC partnered with an incredible institution, the School for Advanced Research (SAR) in Santa Fe, NM.
I am excited to share that SAR received an IMLS National Leadership Grants for Museums of $175,587 for the IARC’s creation of the Indigenous Collections Care Guide. to support the museum field with an accessible reference tool for museum professionals who interact regularly with Native American collections. The guide will provide museums with a framework to recenter collections stewardship practices around the needs and knowledge of Indigenous community members. At the conclusion of the project, 175 tribal community representatives and museum professionals will have had a voice in the development of the guide, which will be made freely available for tribal community representatives and museums of all sizes. The IMLS reported receiving forty-eight applications for this opportunity, and SAR was one of nineteen projects to receive funding.
You can see the announcement and learn more about the project here.
What does this mean for the Peabody Institute? Well, first it means that I will be super busy for the next few years! It also means that the Peabody Institute is continuing our leadership role in the broader museum and archaeological conversations around ethical collections stewardship and relationships with tribal communities.
I will keep you posted as work continues over the next few years!
School for Advanced Research
The School for Advanced Research (SAR), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit educational institution, was established in 1907 to advance innovative social science and Native American art. Its sixteen-acre residential campus sits on the ancestral lands of the Tewa people in O’gah’poh geh Owingeh, or Santa Fe, New Mexico. Visit sarweb.org
Institute of Museum and Library Services
The mission of IMLS is to advance, support, and empower America’s museums, libraries, and related organizations through grantmaking, research, and policy development.
The agency carries out its charge as it adapts to meet the changing needs of our nation’s museums and libraries and their communities. IMLS’s mission is essential to helping these institutions navigate change and continue to improve their services. Visit imls.gov
The Peabody 
One Reply to “”