Sovereignty, Repatriation, and the Archival Imagination

Abstract

Sovereignty is an often invoked, yet notoriously misunderstood and misused term in relation to the political, territorial, cultural and economic needs, aspirations, and goals of Indigenous peoples living in post-colonial settler states. Archives were established as places where official records became anchors for nations in the making as they documented the accepted demise of their first peoples. As a result, the archival imagination is both a process of political work and ideological maneuvering. In the post-colonial imagination, archives have become hotbeds for revising the historical fictions and fantasies that allowed for the erasure and presumed demise of Indigenous peoples. As archives shift to include Indigenous voices, and as Indigenous archives assert their own prominence in the landscape, the archival imagination expands. This article analyzes the emergent archival imagination through the lens of sovereignty, repatriation movements, and digital technologies to expose the place of Indigenous rights, histories, and imaginations in the practical work of archives in post-colonial settler states. Using examples from my own collaborations in the United States and Canada with Indigenous communities and my work as the director of Mukurtu CMS, I examine how multiple stakeholders grapple with and infuse archival practices, tools, and work with the many nuances of sovereignty.