Year of Graduation

2025

Document Type

Thesis

Major

International Studies

Directing Professor

Ashleigh Breske

Abstract

Preserving cultural heritage through repatriation has admittedly worked against Indigenous communities because museums have maintained a system of control over their belongings and have fractured their trust in partnerships. Repatriation is the process by which Indigenous belongings, land, and people are returned, and must be decolonized into a system of support within museums’ institutional structures. The aim of this thesis is to analyze how the institutional mechanisms for repatriation are ineffective and offer a new framework to be globalized and accessible. While decolonial theories and methods act as a lens, Māori educationalist Graham Hingangaroa Smith’s Kaupapa Māori is a theoretical praxis that contributes to the decolonization of Māori cultural heritage. Museums’ implementation of this framework has transformed the foundations of their partnerships with Māori communities, and has the potential to be globalized as a decolonial repatriation framework. By using this alongside Aníbal Quijano’s theory about coloniality and modernity/rationality, and Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s Decolonial Methodologies, the structure of this thesis advocates for restructuring the institutional mechanisms of repatriation, and to instead use this as a tool for cultivating possibilities for a decolonial indigeneity. Thus, by examining Aotearoa New Zealand and the US’ repatriation programmes, museums can re-center their purpose to support the needs of Indigenous communities, working closely together to foster trust and deepen understanding within the decolonial context.

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