To engage in future work that is pointedly Indigenized and decolonial, archaeological allyship requires using our collective access to colonial museums, connections within major research institutions, and public/private partnerships to create ethical frameworks that center culturally affiliated communities. Increasing indigenous representation, repatriating Indigenous ancestors and cultural belongings, and developing sustainable ethical frameworks for cultural stewardship institutions are all necessary outputs. This paper proposes a combination of questions to consider and methods to implement for cultural heritage practitioners interested in motivating their respective partner institutions to develop better practices regarding artifact collections and the communities those collections represent. This model may also serve as a pathway for museums and institutional collections to appease anticolonial public sentiment in the interest of self-preservation and intends to engage the wider discipline in critical thought while considering the responsibility of cultural stewardship moving forward.

One can find and engage with Ainu Indigenous heritage across Hokkaido: in homes, cultural centres, and museums, or at institutions across the world holding remnants of colonial era collection practices. Yet it also finds another, somewhat unconventional, vehicle for engagement in the form of manga—a style of comics specific to Japan—through the popular publication titled Golden Kamuy.
This presentation introduces manga—and the communities surrounding it—as a site of heritage research. Specifically, it explores the complexities born from the large-scale distribution of and communication regarding cultural and historical knowledge through popular media. It asks the questions: How might manga function as a form of heritage education? How does heritage in the form of popular media serve to foster community? And, most importantly, how might it contribute to the growing movement for decolonization within Japan?