Emily Hayflick

Emily Hayflick’s research focuses on the entanglements of American legal frameworks with Indigenous communities’ relations with land and animals. This research engages with Alaska Native makers’ production of sewn-skin objects utilizing marine mammal species and the U.S. laws that regulate their conservation and craft practices. Her work also touches on the tensions between the experiences of a cultural identity and the creation of a legal identity under Federal Indian law. Her research frameworks include environmental and historical anthropology, material cultural studies, and the intersections of anthropology, art history, and craft studies.

Emily comes to Cornell with a BA in anthropology from Barnard College and a MA in Decorative Arts, Design History, Material Culture from the Bard Graduate Center. She previously worked as a Repatriation Specialist at the Field Museum, and completed internships with the American Museum of Natural History’s North American Archaeology Lab and the National Museum of the American Indian’s Repatriation Department. She currently serves as a student representative on the Society for American Archaeology’s Committee on Repatriation.