The Intellectual Property Issues in Cultural Heritage (IPinCH) project is pleased to announce that Jenny Lewis is the most recent recipient of an IPinCH Graduate Student Fellowship. Jenny is a PhD student (2015 expected graduation) in the Department of Archaeology at 911吃瓜. Her research examines various stakeholders鈥� use, commodification, and rehabilitation of archaeological heritage associated with Fort Apache-Theodore Roosevelt School (FA-TRS) in Arizona. This site has recently been designated a National Historic Landmark (NHL) and still operates as an Indian boarding school.
Begun as an archaeological inventory requested by the Fort Apache Heritage Foundation, a non-profit organization chartered by the White Mountain Apache Tribe鈥攁n IPinCH partnering organization鈥攖his project has grown into a comparison of customary and US heritage management policy and practice, as well as issues of intellectual property (IP). During conversations with Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples associated with FA-TRS (as school students and staff or as historic park personnel), it became clear that this site is not strictly Indigenous or non-Indigenous; more than 鈥渆ntanglement鈥� exists at FA-TRS. Specifically, if the site of FA-TRS is associated with memory and cultural identity for people from diverse backgrounds (including European settlers, Chinese Americans, Latin Americans, African Americans, Western Apaches, Hopi, Zuni, Navajo, US military, tribal and educational officials), who 鈥渙wns鈥� these memories? Can a cultural identity associated with a particular site be claimed by any one cultural group? Does accepting multiple groups鈥� and individuals鈥� claim on FA-TRS as representative of 鈥渢heir鈥� past diminish others鈥� similar claims? This examination presents the opportunity to examine larger IP issues emerging at previously-colonial sites, as Indigenous groups assert their active role in colonial processes, and non-Indigenous group claim these sites as representative of their own history.
Jenny鈥檚 senior supervisor is Dr. John Welch.