University Massachusetts Amherst Associate and Honors Professor of Anthropology, Dr Sonya Atalay, has a passion for community-based research with Indigenous communities. As a native woman herself, one of Atalay’s main objectives is to perform research in partnership with communities rather than on them. Atalay’s work examines the methods, theories, ethics and on-the-ground practices of decolonising archaeology and heritage work. She explores ways of incorporating Indigenous knowledge frameworks into fieldwork and research, and has a long-standing commitment to incorporate Indigenous pedagogies into higher education learning environments. In 2012 Dr Atalay published Community-Based Archaeology: Research With, By and for Indigenous and Local Communities in which she drew on five collaborative archaeology research partnerships with Native Nations, highlighting the benefits, challenges and perils of carrying out community-based scholarship. In 2014-2016, with funds from a Mellon New Directions Grant, Dr Atalay began working on Indigenous language reclamation (working toward fluency in Anishinabemowin-Ojibwe) while exploring the connections of land-based knowledge of sacred places, rock art, earthworks and star knowledge. These new projects bring archaeology and cultural heritage into conversation with public health and community well-being, using engaging visual and performative methods to produce graphic novels, animations, community theater, Indigenous storymaps and digital stories. She has also carried out extensive repatriation work and recently completed a 6-year term on the National Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Review Committee.
