Spirited Encounters American Indians Protest Museum Policies and Practices

During the twentieth century, dozens of protests, large and small, occurred across North America as American Indians asserted their anger and displayed their disappointment regarding traditional museum behaviors. In response, due to public embarrassment and an awakening of sensitivities, museums began to change their methods and, additionally, laws were enacted in support of American Indian requests for change. The result is that American museums have revised their long-held practices due to American Indian protests. Spirited Encounters provides a foundation for understanding museums and looks at their development to present time, examines how museums collect Native materials, and explores protest as a fully American process of addressing grievances. Now that museums and American Indians are working together in the processes of repatriation, this book can help each side understand the other more fully.

Karen Coody Cooper was recently the museum training program coordinator at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American Indian