IPinCH Fellow: Jan 2013-Dec 2014
PhD Candidate, Department of Archaeology, Memorial University of Newfoundland
Community Engagement Adviser, Royal Alberta Museum
Email:
ccpeartree@hotmail.com
Research key words:
heritage sites, buffalo, Plains Cree, law, Alberta Claire is a social anthropologist interested in processes whereby indigenous laws interact with state forms of governance, particularly as these interactions play out around museum artifacts and archaeological sites. Her ongoing research focuses on the ways Plains Cree ceremonial laws work to maintain networks of relations among many different kinds of persons - humans, plant and animal spirits, ancestral beings, and land-based entities. Her main inquiry is the question of how heritage-related policies and laws in Alberta work to strengthen, enable, restrict, or even destroy these networks of relations. In particular, the province's repatriation legislation (First Nations Sacred Ceremonial Objects Repatriation Act), as well as its legislation for the protection of archaeological sites (Historical Resources Act), have garnered her attention.
Claire has been working with First Nations, sacred sites and sacred artifacts since 2005. She completed her BA (2002) and MA (2009) degrees in the Social Anthropology department at Dalhousie University. She began her PhD in the Archaeology department at Memorial University of Newfoundland in 2010, and has been working on repatriation with the Royal Alberta Museum as Community Engagement Adviser since 2015.
