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Welcome to
NAGPRA Comics |
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"What those who engage in the work of reclaiming and repatriation are witnessing is an unfolding of the future in new and exciting ways. It’s a future in which Indigenous people engage in the work of reclaiming together with museum professionals and archaeologists, working in partnership to transform institutions—how they work, their goals, and their methods, while at the same time contributing to healing their communities."
- Sonya Atalay, 2019 The Public Historian (41)1:88 |
What is NAGPRA Comics?
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NAGPRA Comics is a community-based, collaboratively produced comic series that tells true stories about repatriation from tribal perspectives. We work with Native American communities to share their experiences with the law, from their point of view. This is an applied/educational comic series, so it also explains what the law is and how it works. Want to go straight to the comics? Click here!
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/ Indigenous Centered
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What is NAGPRA? |
Why Comics? |
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NAGPRA stands for the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (1990). NAGPRA provides a process for museums and Federal agencies to return certain Native American cultural items -- human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, or objects of cultural patrimony -- to lineal descendants, and culturally affiliated Indian tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations.
If you are asking this question or want to know more, then NAGPRA Comics are for you! Learning about NAGPRA is part of what the comics are about. For more information about the law, you can also check out the National NAGPRA website or contact National NAGPRA staff. Also, did you know - National NAGPRA provides grants for museums and communities to implement the law? These grants can help with travel, supplies, and even hiring a temporary registrar to conduct inventories and photograph collections in preparation for consultation. |
Our first issue was about the return of Native ancestors, or human remains. At the heart of this issue is the fraught history and relations between museums and Native peoples, the disinterment of Native ancestors who were treated as specimens, and the importance of laying the dead to rest.
Talking about what communities with whom you work see as the most egregious trespass by anthropologists and museums, as something that has caused spiritual harm, and that has stopped their ancestors from being at rest is difficult in itself... telling that story in a genre that includes Superman and Calvin and Hobbs? That was made possible through ongoing dialogue founded in trust-based relationships-- not just between us and Native community members, but also among ourselves as we work to weave together research and storytelling and art through applied comics. As John puts it, applied comics "can do three important things when it comes to conveying information: (1) they can show as well as tell, making it easy to (2) de-complicate unfamiliar subject matter without resorting to “dumbing-down,” and (3) help ground and humanize a subject by using narrative and storytelling. The NAGPRA comic is also an example of how a storytelling-route, using actual examples, helps show how individual actions and decisions make repatriations happen (or not)." |
What are "Community Engaged Comics"?
This is a term that John and Jen have been using to describe projects they work on like NAGPRA Comics. Native and Indigenous communities are calling for more accurate and Indigenous-centered accounts of Indigenous peoples’ experience--in the past and today, in mainstream schools and within Indigenous communities. We believe comics can be one method and medium to contribute to this aim. Community Engaged Comics are rigorously researched, and community authored and vetted, graphic narratives. The co-producers of NAGPRA Comics developed this method; it's similar to "community curating" museum exhibits.
Community Engaged Comics are a form of collaboration where the result is a comic, and so much more. The comics are a means for community engagement, for community members to discuss and build together what they want to communicate and how. Community partners direct the project from conception to implementation to evaluation, and they are in control of content and distribution. We conduct community-based workshops and presentations and public events as part of our work together. Comics are distributed via PDF for free and in print through the tribally owned business Tribal Print Source in California.
Community Engaged Comics are a form of collaboration where the result is a comic, and so much more. The comics are a means for community engagement, for community members to discuss and build together what they want to communicate and how. Community partners direct the project from conception to implementation to evaluation, and they are in control of content and distribution. We conduct community-based workshops and presentations and public events as part of our work together. Comics are distributed via PDF for free and in print through the tribally owned business Tribal Print Source in California.
Interested in Working with Us?
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If you have a NAGPRA story you want to tell, please feel free to contact us. We understand that not all details about these stories are appropriate to share with us, or with the public. There are many models for how to work together, and how to fund a project. We would be happy to brainstorm with you!
To see examples of the projects we have worked on, see Project Updates. To learn more about the producers of the series - Sonya Atalay, Jen Shannon, John Swogger, and (starting in 2023) Alina Pete - see About Us. Do you have questions about funding? So do we! So far, we have funded the meetings, artwork, and printing of the issues through small grants from the University of Colorado Boulder and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. We are willing to work on writing grants for and with you to make a comic. Any suggestions for funding ideas are always welcome as we transition this series from a one off to a longer term project! |
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NAGPRA Comics Issues 1, 2, and 3 were made possible by grants from
the University of Colorado Boulder
and the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
This website was created by Jen Shannon, April 2019.
