Weeknotes: 11/10/24-11/16/24

weeknotes museum politics indigenous

This Week:

This was a rough week, for reasons both massive and small. I’ve mostly been trying to put one foot in front of the other, get the kids off to school, plod away on work stuff, and be as kind as I can to the people around me. I tried to sleep, but found that I kept waking suddenly, almost every hour of the night.
Palliatively, I also found myself reading a lot of poetry, particularly by Berthold Brecht whose life was marked by danger, survival, and a thoughtfulness about both.
In FLP102, we talked about Collecting and Colonialism, going back to the earliest examples of skull mania in the 19th century and concluding with the long fight to get NAGPRA passed and implemented.
The main thing I worked on was hammering out the last few details of an upcoming visit by a Native American delegation to collect materials we have repatriated under NAGPRA. It’s been a wild ride, and I’m looking forward to welcoming them to the Museum next week, and completing this work.
I also organized a meeting of our college’s Indigenous DEI committee. We’re at a crossroads in terms of our mission and many of the committees members are leaving so we need to make some decisions about how to proceed.