The journal article “Curating Secrets” contains a case study that evaluates the institutional processes in museums and its power structures when handling cases of repatriation.  The author focuses on cases of sacred objects that are returned to Native Americans tribes.  He argues that repatriation serves to shift power back to Native Americans by the return of their sacred objects, but the actual result is the reinforcement of colonial power through museums.  Chip focuses on a specific repatriation case of Zuni War Gods from the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.  The War Gods are statues that are transformed into gods through ceremonies and are placed in shrines around the Zuni Reservation to protect the land and help hold the universe in balance.  The DMNS returned the statues to the Zunis promptly after the passing of NAGPRA.  He suggests that the museum was anticipating a claim from the tribe and acted proactively in order to control the returning process.  He also suggests that the museum retuned the statues without a claim to hide information about how they were acquired in the museum’s collection.  Chip applauds the thousands of repatriated objects since the passing of NAGPRA, but suggests that the process is still flawed by the significant amount of control museums have in the process of determining cultural affiliation.  He argues that there is a lack of transparency in the ways in which a museum collects and manages its collection and he urges for a better system of accountability.  The author relied on cultural knowledge, expert knowledge, and reports of acts, behaviors, and events to cultivate this case.  He accessed this information through research of public records about repatriated cultural objects.  He used a descriptive analysis of this data.

Colwell, Chip. “Curating Secrets: Repatriation, Knowledge Flows, and Museum Power      Structures.” Current Anthropology 56, no. S12 (2015).