International Repatriations of Indigenous Human Remains and Its Complexities: the Australian Experience¹

Over the past forty or so years, many Indigenous peoples in former settler colonies have fought for, and in many instances won, recognition of their rights to have the bodily remains of their ancestors returned from Western museums and other scientific institutions for burial. It has been a remarkable achievement. However, as this article highlights, in the Australian context, the efforts of Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islanders to secure and bury the remains of their ancestors as their cultures require have, in many cases, been complicated by challenges arising from the need to revitalize or re-establish continuities with the ancestral past eroded by settler colonialism, while seeking restoration of their ownership rights in respect of land and cultural heritage in the contemporary Australian context.