The Rematriation Project

“Rematriation” is a term that Alaska Native (Unangax) scholar Dr. Eve Tuck uses to describe Indigenous-led methods of restoring (and sharing) cultural knowledges back with Indigenous peoples. Rematriation’s goal is to respectfully and equitably help Indigenous communities access and engage cultural knowledge to fulfill their self-determined goals. Our team of partners (VT faculty partners, community partners, foundation partners) are working together to create methods that digitally rematriate cultural knowledges back from academic and publisher databases to Indigenous peoples. We (the team) will digitize a small collection of papers and other artifacts of the deceased Inuit leader from Alaska, Caleb Pungowiyi (Cana & Corina’s father). This collection provides us with an initial model for our work that can be scaled to meet future and broader rematriation needs.