Red Hoop Talk EP 8: Dr. Sonya Atalay, Anishinaabe-Ojibwe, Professor and NAGPRA Expert
Dr. Sonya Atalay is Anishinaabe-Ojibwe, and is of the Wabizheshi or Pine Martin Clan). She is an Associate Professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Sonya is an archaeologist who does work in partnership with Native Nations, to explore community-designed research projects. She has co-authored a series of research-based comics about the repatriation of Native American Ancestral remains, return of sacred objects and objects of cultural patrimony under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) which you can download for free online (https://nagpracomics.weebly.com/). Sonya served for 7 years on the National NAGPRA Review Committee that oversees compliance with NAGPRA, and she has written about the healing from historical trauma that can come from repatriation. Working with Native youth and elders, Sonya has been holding land-based “camps” in which youth and elders work together to learn and share stories of their homelands through comics, animation, and virtual reality applications. She is currently writing a book called “Braiding Knowledge” which looks at Indigenous science and the ways Indigenous knowledge is challenging and changing universities and other institutions. Sonya is a mom of two incredible young boys who are 11 and 13 and is enjoying her time homeschooling them through the Covid19 pandemic.
