n. (abbr. PNAAM)a set of professional practices for the culturally responsive care and use of Native American archival material held by nontribal organizationsUnderhill 2006, 136Unlike Australian Indigenous communities, the sovereign government status and associated human and cultural rights of Native American communities are recognized by federal and state law in the United States and through federal or provincial acknowledgment in Canada. Sovereignty and these rights—including the right to maintain territories, create laws, elect leaders, and engage in “government-to-government” relationships—serve as the foundation for the principles articulated in the Protocols for Native American Archival Materials.PNAAM 2007While we share a common commitment to the preservation and dissemination of knowledge, archivists and librarians should understand and respect Native American rights and laws, which are recognized in the United States Constitution. These statuses and associated rights form the basis of the principles behind the Protocols for Native American Archival Materials.PNAAM 2007The proposed standards and goals articulated in Protocols for Native American Archival Materials are meant to inspire and to foster mutual respect and reciprocity. Institutions and communities are encouraged to adopt and adapt the culturally responsive recommendations to suit local needs.Jimerson 2009, 300Using the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Protocols as a model, a document entitled Protocols for Native American Archival Materials serves as a statement of principles for responding to concerns of Native Americans seeking control over their documentary heritage.Christen 2011, 188Archivists are especially attuned to the nuances of archival materials as they seek to make resources available to multiple publics whose interests often diverge. Issues of access are paramount to archivists as they seek to make collections available in both physical and digital forms. While access has generally been a central concern to the field, over the last five years, American archivists have explicitly grappled with the “Protocols for Native American Archival Materials,” a multi-authored document expressly asking collecting institutions and their institutional representative organizations to engage with the particular concerns of Native American peoples as they relate to the collection, reproduction, and curation of and access to their cultural materials held by private and public institutions.Mathiesen 2012, 456In 2006, a group including librarians, archivists, museum curators, and representatives from fifteen Native American, First Nation, and Aboriginal communities came together to craft a document that would “identify best professional practices for culturally responsive care and use of American Indian archival material held by non-tribal organizations.” The result, Protocols for Native American Archival Materials (PNAAM), recommends best practices for dealing with Native American traditional cultural expressions and traditional knowledge held in libraries and archives.Joffrion and Fernández 2015, 194In 2006, a group of Native and non-Native representatives drafted the Protocols for Native American Archival Materials, a set of best professional practices developed for the culturally responsive care and use of American Indian archival materials that addresses the needs and perspectives of both tribal and nontribal organizations.Jones 2015, 16The Protocols of Native American Archival Materials emerged in April 2002 as a group of nineteen Native American and non-Native archivists, librarians, museum curators, historians, and anthropologists gathered at Northern Arizona University’s Cline Library in Flagstaff, Arizona.O’Neal 2015, 13A grassroots movement emerged in the late 1990s and early 2000s to establish solutions to these issues. To provide guidance and inform archivists on best practices regarding Native American archives, the Protocols for Native American Archival Materials was drafted in 2006 by a group of information professionals, both Native American and non-Native American, including archivists, librarians, museum curators, historians, and anthropologists.Winn 2015, 11For a variety of reasons, indigenous communities and other marginalized groups may wish to restrict access to cultural patrimony held by outside institutions. This practice is supported by the Protocols for Native American Archival Materials (2009) and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (A/RES/61/295), but SAA chose not to endorse the Protocols out of concerns that it would establish unprecedented third-party privacy rights.SAA 2018aOn August 13, 2018, the SAA Council endorsed Protocols for Native American Archival Materials as an external standard of the organization. These Protocols establish a foundation for archival practice in caring for culturally sensitive records, and center Native American communities in the discussions of preservation and access to these materials. They call on the profession to “recognize that the conditions under which knowledge can be ethically and legally acquired, archived, preserved, accessed, published, or otherwise used, change through time.”Punzalan and Marsh 2022, 31In August 2018, twelve years after its publication, the Council of the Society of American Archivists formally endorsed the Protocols for Native American Archival Materials (PNAAM) as a professional standard. All archivists and archival institutions can be guided by the protocols to improve relationships with, and service to, descendant communities. The endorsement of PNAAM is part of a wider movement in archives that recognizes the equal, sovereign role communities ought to play in archival stewardship. The recognition of the standard, while necessary, is but a first step to a long process of doing the critical work of building reciprocal relationships.Reijerkerk and Reed 2023, 577Institutions and repositories claim to improve approachability as a permanent institutional responsibility through endorsement and adoption of culturally-responsive guidance, such as the Protocols for Native American Archival Materials (PNAAM). Created in 2006, PNAAM articulates best practices for cooperating between tribal and non-tribal archives and libraries and aspirational goals that acknowledge Indigenous sovereignty in caring for Indigenous archival materials.
