This project worked with First Nations partner organisations, universities, government and museums to build a major digital archive of information about the theft and return of Indigenous Ancestral Remains (www.returnreconcilerenew.info). Focussed on Ancestral Remains held (or once held) in overseas institutions, the archive has public, restricted, and private tiers of access depending on the cultural sensitivity of the information it contains. The archive has a governance framework, with a range of associated policies that guide its management and use. The Archive has an Indigenous majority Governance Board. It seeks to increase understanding about repatriation and help the return of Ancestral Remains to their communities of origin.
The authors of the paper have contributed to this decades-long work and this discussion draws on these experiences. Their case study focusses on the legal, political, diplomatic and policy work required to successfully form a long-term working relationship between an Australian First Nation and one of the settler state’s most powerful colonising technologies - natural resource management (NRM).