All-Party Parliamentary Group: Afrikan Reparations, African Restitution

On July 12th Johanna Zetterstrom-Sharp was delighted to represent MEGs work on repatriation at an APPG on restitution, Chaired by Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP, at the House of Commons, in partnership with AFFORD. This was the first of three sessions, focusing on mapping and provenance research, with following sessions focusing on changing the law and funding initiatives. It was a very pro-active conversation, focusing on what kind of support the APPG could provide. Further details about the APPG can be found here: https://www.parallelparliament.co.uk/APPG/afrikan-reparations

 

MEG Conference 2022 - Post-conference Reflection by Rhea Blem

A word from our Chair

Thank you to everyone to made it to the MEG conference this year, including the incredible speakers who generously shared their thinking and practice, challenging us all to approach our work in news ways. A particular thanks to National Museums Scotland for hosting us, and putting on such a well-planned couple of days. After two years of online conversation, it was wonderful to catch up with friends and colleagues, and a real reminder of what makes MEG so unique as a community. 

 

This year’s Bursary holders, Amie Kirby and Rhea Blem were tasked with writing a blog about their experiences of the conference. They capture some of the conversations that were had, and offer critical insight that I think we can all learn from. I was particularly struck by Aime's reflection on the radical - a term which as she articulates so well has a moral capital, drawn on through change-oriented language used by museums with increasing confidence. 

 

Rhea Blem is completing her master’s in Art history of the African continent at Freie Universität Berlin. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Art history and English Literature from the University of Zurich, she has worked as a research, curatorial and teaching assistant at the Kunsthaus Zurich, the University of Zurich, and the Max Plank Institute for Art History in Rome. Her master thesis investigates “collecting” practices in late 19^th to early 20^th century KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa in the context of extractive colonialism. Her research interests include the arts and material cultures of the African continent, colonial practices of “collection”, accumulation, and display, postcolonial provenance research, and exploring possibilities for restorative, anti-colonial, and anti-racist approaches to (art-)history and museology.

Post-conference Reflection

Rhea Blem

 

Arriving in Edinburgh from Berlin on the 27^th of April, I was not sure what to expect. The 2022 MEG Conference was the first larger event I would be attending in person since before the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. Looking forward to and simultaneously feeling slightly nervous of human-to-human conversations, I consoled myself with the thought that we were all a little bit “out of practice” when it came to social interactions. I felt excited to spend the following days among people who shared an interest in thinking about museum pasts and presents in order to shape better futures within and beyond museums. Having only recently applied for MEG membership, I knew no one else and was initially quite overwhelmed with the number of people who turned up at the National Museum of Scotland on Thursday morning. Quite soon though, I realised I was not the only one feeling this way and adjusted to the new space, which was already buzzing with lively discussions, and people greeting old friends. The collective excitement at finally meeting up again in person was palpable and contagious. I quickly found myself involved in numerous conversations in what I experienced as a warm, welcoming, and open-minded environment.

What followed were two intense, very interesting days of talks, discussions, exchanges, reflections, which I have decided not to summarise in detail. Instead, I want to revisit the beginning and end of the conference, touch upon recurring themes, and share some thoughts on what struck me as particularly important, what moved me and continues to accompany me now, almost two months later.
In the introduction to the conference, Dr Samuel Alberti (NMS) asked how we can make world culture museums relevant for contemporary and diverse audiences. This served as a point of departure for the subsequent “provocations” panel, which explored the question: How can we make museums relevant for social and environmental justice today?

The respondents spoke about the enduring legacies of colonialism, empire, enslavement, and racism. They stressed the need for museums to be held accountable in addressing and actively disproving these legacies. Sheila Asante (Museum Galleries Scotland) observed that museums, which had been part of a conscious effort to subjugate people historically discriminated against, frequently continue to perpetuate exclusionary and racist narratives. These ways of telling “history through the lens of white [middle class] people” continue to feed the assumption that museums are for certain people and not for “Others”. Museums, Sheila Asante argues, need to develop “racial literacy” and anti-racism needs to be embedded in work structures and museum practices. Miles Greenwood (Glasgow Life) recentred the educational value and responsibility of museums to confront the challenges faced by our societies today (racism, poverty, structural inequality, climate change…). Miles Greenwood also questioned what value is created through increasing the perceived relevance of museums and whom this value serves, asking: What are museums doing to provide social justice for marginalised communities?

 This question was echoed by Nelson Cummins (Coalition for Racial Equality and Rights), who criticised the lack of engagement with questions of empire, colonialism, and racism in some museums, as well as a frequent failure to mention anticolonial resistance and agency of (formerly) colonised peoples. Insisting that museums can be sites of learning and critical engagement, Nelson Cummins argued that museums need to acknowledge not only the history of racism and colonialism, but how these continue to shape our present. Dr Peter Loovers’ (University of St Andrews) contribution reminded of the need to bring social and environmental justice together in tackling issues such as global heating, and of the central role of indigenous peoples in this process. This point resurfaced in subsequent papers that addressed ethnographic collections as “environmental archives” with capabilities to facilitate intercultural and interspecies knowledge dialogues (Rosa Dyer, Birkbeck, University of London and Pitt Rivers Museum), collaborative approaches to research on and conservation of “biocultural” collections (Dr Mark Nesbitt et al., Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Birkbeck, University of London), and indigenous (creative) responses to addressing the colonial dimensions of climate change (Dr Karen Jacobs, Sainsbury Research Unit).

The provocations discussed the challenges and structural problems of the museum sector, but also highlighted the possibilities for museums to potentially function as spaces for learning about and furthering the cause of social justice, for (re)building trust, for community engagement, for healing, for reflection, for restitution[1], for reparations, for forging new narratives, for imagining and shaping better futures, locally, as well as on a planetary level.

Many of the papers presented over the following days would pick up on these aspects, notably the participation  of historically marginalised and/or descendant communities. Several speakers reiterated the necessity for sustainable, long-term partnerships and relationships based on trust, and long-term funding in efforts to put these principles into practice. The equal (re)valuation of and exchange between different forms of knowledge was another returning theme. This should entail equivalent and adequate value (including financially) for participants contributing “indigenous knowledges”. Yet how can this be ensured within ongoing structures of (global) inequality and asymmetries of power? I have also been wondering about the value afforded to the emotional labour invested by descendant and creator communities in these processes. We heard about collaborations, co-curations, and co-production of knowledge(s), about interdisciplinary approaches to provenance research, about repatriation as a historically situated practice, about how social and environmental (and perhaps epistemic) justice need to be thought in conjunction, about reactivations and reanimations of “objects”, emotional and spiritual aspects of working with “colonial collections” and ancestral remains, about museums as process and the potential of impermanence.
It was interesting and also personally relevant to me to hear Dr Giovanna Vitelli (The Hunterian), Dr Briony Widdis (Queens University Belfast), Dr Jeremiah Garsha (University College Dublin) and Mark Hall (Perth Museum and Art Gallery) speak about the specificities of addressing legacies of empire and colonialism in (Northern) Ireland and Scotland. Although I grew up for the most part in Switzerland, my family on my father’s side are white South Africans of mostly British, and, (perhaps not) incidentally, predominantly Scottish descent. Understanding how I am implicated in (ongoing) histories of colonialism and racism, and how this informs and motivates my research, is an ongoing process. I therefore appreciated Briony Widdis’ frank self-positioning regarding her own colonial ancestry as an introduction to her talk. Thinking further about particularities of Scottish or Irish participation in projects of empire and colonialism seems crucial, if issues related to social justice, racism and structural inequality are to be addressed.
As someone who has spent many years observing museums from the “outside” as a student and university researcher, but who aims, eventually, to work in the museum sector, gaining insight into some of the practical challenges, which museum professionals encounter on an everyday basis, was an especially helpful aspect of the conference. Even though I am aware that implementing theoretical approaches to the “ethics” of curation, display, and “care” of “colonial collections” is rarely straight forward, hearing directly from museum professionals about the complexities, challenges, and affective dimensions of their work, is fascinating and humbling. Contributors  reflected on the practicalities of restitution, storage, conservation, and questions of classification with critical self-awareness and humility. Dr Lucie Carreau and Sam Daisely’s honest account of their attempts to respectfully interact with human remains, acknowledged not practical as well as emotional aspects of the “Stores move” project at MAA, Cambridge. Hearing these testimonies touched and impressed me.
I was especially heartened by and would like to highlight the “work-in-progress” papers of the “early-career” PhD researchers (Melissa Shiress, Amy Shakespeare, Nathalie Cooper, Alba Ferrándiz Gaudens, but also Rosa Dyer), who presented convincing approaches to dealing with cultural heritage collected in contexts of colonial injustice.
In a talk on the South African collections at the Horniman Museum, Nathalie Cooper (University of Warwick) referred to Dr Wandile Kasibe’s description of the museum as a colonial “crime scene”, and ethnography as tool of empire and racist violence. These violent legacies are still very much alive in our institutions, in our methods, and in ways of seeing and representing formerly colonised people and places. As we heard at the outset of the conference, these legacies  need to be addressed and repaired by museums, who continue to profit from the absence of cultural heritage in places “of origin”.
For institutions built on dispossession and violence (symbolic, structural, and physical), whose self-image as places that accumulate, store and ostensibly “care for” the cultural heritage of people who continue to be constructed as “Other”, what does “decolonisation” actually mean?
Possible ways forward were proposed in Dr Johanna Zetterstrom-Sharp’s (Horniman Museum and Gardens) talk on the “anti-collection”, which questioned the very nature of museums as spaces with and for collections. The paper offered suggestions for museums to move beyond the logic of accumulation and retention that has shaped their identities and actions. Similar questions were addressed by PhD researcher Amy Shakespeare (University of Exeter), who proposed a “return and explain” approach and explored the potential of engaging with “empty spaces” left behind by objects when they return to places or communities of belonging. These presentations raised questions about the role of restitution in a wider anticolonial framework.
It is absolutely crucial to celebrate every small step in the direction of more equitable relations between museums and descendant communities as well as the growing awareness about colonialism and racism. Nonetheless, I was left with the overwhelming realisation of how much still remains be done. Notwithstanding the comforting examples of “successful” projects, such as the first restitution of “Benin Bronze” from a UK institution by the University of Aberdeen (Neil Curtis) or the possibilities offered by digital technologies to facilitate and enhance encounters and connections between people, places, and things (Louisa Minkin et al; Alice Watterson et al; Dr Ali Clark et al), it seems vital, at this point, not to become complacent. As Neil Curtis admitted, “if you’re more than a hundred years late there’s no sense in saying you’re ‘first’”. The work that lies before us is essential and long overdue. It is unsettling, uncomfortable, and leads into the unknown. Keeping in mind that “decolonization is not a metaphor”[2], as Jeremiah Garsha and Amy Shakespeare cautioned, we need to ask ourselves what museums and what, in particular, white museum and university professionals, including myself, are willing to give up, to further the cause and urgent need for decolonisation? “True” decolonisation  must lead to social-economic justice, i.e., restitution and reparations, and is, ultimately, “not about museums” (Neil Curtis). It has thus become clear, that for museums to be(come) relevant, they need to become instruments of social and environmental change. And this change must serve the needs and wishes of those who have been negatively impacted by the often violent extraction of natural and cultural resources under colonialism, empire, and racism.
I was moved and motivated by the varied and sometimes vulnerable accounts of people’s experiences of working with or on “ethnographic collections”, increasingly together with descendant communities, and of how they are addressing colonial continuities in their institutions. In concluding, I want to recentre questions of positionality and representation by revisiting a prescient statement made in the closing discussion: Mario Tuki (Museo de Rapa Nui, Isla de Pascua, Chile) observed that although repatriation had been mentioned in many of the talks, there had been a lot of talking about and talking for indigenous and marginalised communities. The assertion that there were “communities who could speak for themselves” and the consequent call for a “more balanced testimony of people doing the work on repatriation” was met with an uneasy silence. This silence lingered on and stayed with me after the conference. It reinforced, for me, the urgent need for fundamental and structural change as well as the importance of listening to and actually hearing the voices of people who have been marginalised through European colonial narratives and actions. The recognition that this was still a very white space, also made me question my own position as a white, middle class educated,  “early career” researcher who wishes to contribute to processing colonial history with and perhaps at some point without “world culture collections”.
Prioritising antiracist work on a personal, institutional and societal level and striving for structural change, seems even more urgent in the light of these remarks. Returning to the questions posed in the introduction – “how can we make world culture museums relevant for contemporary and diverse audiences?” and “how can we make museums relevant for social and environmental justice today?” – the participation of people from communities who have been negatively impacted by colonialism, empire, and racism, is key. “Contemporary and diverse audience” need to be part of shaping the futures of museums, not only as audiences or external advisors but on all levels.
Nonetheless, as was made apparent through the provocations, and by the remarks outlined above, museums continue to function as spaces of exclusion and, in some cases, re-traumatisation. As Sheila Asante rightly asked, “Why would you want to participate in a racist museum?” Considering the history of museums, ethnography, and other colonial disciplines as tools of empire and racial violence, and the fact that museums still often re-enact or fail to deconstruct this violence, maybe we should be asking ourselves a different question. For museums to be(come) relevant and accessible to “contemporary and diverse audiences”, and for them to contribute to social and environmental justice today, they need, first and foremost, to become safer, less violent, and more inclusive. So, how can we make world culture museums safer places, not only for “contemporary and diverse audiences”, but for fellow researchers, collaborators, and co-creators, including for members of descendant communities? This question could and should, I think, be extended to events such as this conference where we discuss possible futures of museums.
Realising that the same ideologies and structures that enabled the removal of “objects” from people to whom they belonged, continue to shape our border regimes that violently restrict people’s freedom of movement today, and the added injustice that formerly colonized people and places are disproportionately endangered by the effects of global heating, re-affirms the responsibility of museums and other institutions with colonial histories, but also the need for political action and change. This is a vast and intimidating task, but one which I believe is already underway, and one which people all over the world understand to be essential and are committed to being a part of. The wide range of institutional affiliations of people attending the 2022 MEG Conference attests to the will of many individuals to confront the colonial legacies and racism in their institutions, to focus resources and skills on building trust, to learn and unlearn, to repair. Attending the conference impressed upon me the significance of community for this work, of forming mutually supportive relationships through knowledge exchange and social interactions.
It was incredibly special and a privilege to be able to take part in the 2022 MEG Conference. I am very thankful for the opportunity. I am happy for the many friendly and engaging conversations, grateful to those who charmingly coaxed me out of my shyness, who made me feel part of this community. I look forward to joining again in subsequent years, to seeing new and known faces, and to contributing to creating an open, inclusive environment for discussing and drafting visions of how to build better futures, both within, and beyond museums.

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[1] During the conference, the term “repatriation” was mostly frequently used. I choose to use the term “restitution”, which alludes to the actual act of “taking” as well as the act of “giving back” to a place or people of “origin”.
[2] Tuck, E., Yang, K. W., “Decolonization is not a metaphor”, in: Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, Vol. 1, No. 1 (2012), pp. 1-40.
 

Keeping Connected – Repatriation

By Johann Zetterstrom-Sharp (Chair)   

 On March 16^th we hosted the first of MEG’s Keeping Connected events, focusing on repatriation.

These events emerged through conversations about what MEG is and what we have to offer, and the recognition that MEG is a community. It has been a place where colleagues have felt supported, able to ask questions they struggle asking within their organisations, talk things through and get advice in a friendly, supportive environment. We have been thinking this past year about what we can do to support our members to do important work, particularly around opening up access (including through repatriation) and decentring knowledge about collections.

At the moment this support feels important. The urgency of acknowledging and working through the colonial nature of our institutions and collections is crucial, but many are working in isolation with little, or unstable, institutional support. Colleagues are often expected to provide quick and complete answers to requests for action within organisations whom publicly promised change in the summer of 2020 without necessarily being ready for it. In other contexts there is the institutional will, coupled with anxiety over risks to funding. We feel sharing best practice and making changes collectively can help.

Repatriation, restitution and return have been flagged repeatedly as something our members feel passionately about, want to support, and see as important to their roles. In many cases, however, our institutions, processes and policies are not ready: there is no clear road map. This is a barrier for all concerned. Institutional inexperience and unreadiness (at CEO, Director or Trustee level) can get redirected towards people whose job it is to care for collections, but have very limited direct power about what happens to collections beyond their status as museum objects. Likewise for individuals and organisations who would like to make a request for the return of their belongings or material heritage, the lack of a clear road map means they do not know how their request will be received, what supporting evidence will be required, or what emotional labour will be expected of them. This is harmful and disrespectful.

The Keeping Connected workshop included short introductions by JC Niala and Juma Ondeng, Emma Martin, and Stephen Welsh, about building trust, writing repatriation policies, and processing requests. Members were then able to indicate who they wanted to speak to and seek advice from in break-out rooms. Some of the conversations had are explored below.

Building Trust

JC Niala and Juma Ondeng reflected on their experience as part of the Rethinking Relationships and Building Trust around African Collections project based at the Horniman Museum in South London, MAA in Cambridge, Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford and World Museum, Liverpool. This project was focused on developing new ways of working in order to build the trust needed to have equitable conversations about the futures of collections, including repatriation. As a result of Covid-19, the project became increasingly focused on understanding and working through barriers to digital access, in recognition that for the majority of community members who would like to access their material heritage in European collections, this access will happen digitally.

Both Juma and JC highlighted how trust is not a given, it takes time and is based primarily not on models of working or templates, but on individuals and their relationships with each other. Relationships are not between museums and communities, they are between people.

A question was raised about how to work through conflicting needs and opinions within communities where the future of collections are concerned. We were reminded that community dynamics are not ours; that includes making decisions about whose opinion is most valid, but also playing the role of arbitrator. By focusing on access and transparency (about collections and provenance, but also crucially museum processes and terminologies) we can provide a community with the information they need to reach decisions that work for them.

For me this is a reminder that we are often impatient to see clear and neat conclusions that fit within the structures of ownership and entitlement that our professions already work within. What is needed is patience and openness. It also highlights that trust goes both ways: we also need to trust that communities know themselves how to manage and work through differences in opinion.

As part of demonstrating that trust, Juma noted the importance of taking the time to identify cultural gatekeepers, leaders and elders within a community, and showing them due respect. This includes ensuring they are kept informed from the beginning so that everyone is on the same page and has all the relevant information.

Repatriation Policy Development

Emma Martin spoke about the process of developing a new repatriation policy at World Museum, Liverpool. The last few years have seen the development of individual repatriation policies for museums across the UK, rather than relying on Arts Council templates. This is significant because it has in many cases forced a reflection on what these policies need to do in anticipation of a rise in formal requests made directly to the museum. For Liverpool, the formal policy will be accompanied by a document written for individuals and organisations who want to approach the museum to make a request or claim. This aims at clarity around process, with step-by-step guidance to build a clear road map. This is as much about supporting the claims process as it is being honest and open in order to manage expectations. That includes the time that it takes to process claims, the potential costs involved, and how claims will be assessed.

This honesty is crucial. Whilst it is understandable that museum leaders want their institutions to be perceived as ethical and committed to social justice, raising expectations that requests for restitution will be always granted, or that the process will be straightforward - when this is not the case - is both disrespectful and harmful. It serves no useful purpose.

Emma reflected on the importance of taking time over the writing of policy, thinking carefully about who will read and use it. At Liverpool this meant speaking with colleagues in the organisation as a first step, ensuring that the whole organisation was on board. This included senior management who would need to defend and understand the policy to advocate for it, and get it signed off. It also included an external public conversation focusing on how this policy might affect visitors to the museum. It is important to recognise that people feel strongly about the museums they love, and may be afraid of change. There is rarely space to discuss what repatriation or restitution actually means in practice, why it is important, and what changes visitors might see, through examples and case studies. The result was that the museum was able to bring people on board who were initially resistant to a transparent and clear policy that might encourage claims.

Processing Claims

Something that comes up repeatedly is the lack of experience colleagues have in working on requests for restitution. This also means that there is a lack of transparency about process for individuals or organisations making a claim. This can be a source of mistrust and misunderstanding for all those involved. It is difficult to provide reassurance that claims will be dealt with respectfully when there are no other examples to point to, likewise inexperience can mean that the integrity of a request is not taken seriously.

Stephen Welsh was invited to talk about his experience working with AIATSIS (Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies) during the unconditional repatriation of secret, sacred and ceremonial objects to Aboriginal communities in Australia. AIATSIS is a collecting, publishing and research institute dedicated to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and peoples, and led the Return of Cultural Heritage project. Stephen highlighted how once the formal claim was made by AIATSIS, the processing of the claim by the museum took 10 months. This accelerated timeframe was enabled by existing research and experience of repatriation at Manchester Museum, and the experience of AIATSIS working with external repatriation processes and policies, as well as the fact that they had been able to resource their own research process into the collections.

This is of course vital when museums are themselves under resourced to do this work themselves. Agreements had further already been made on the costs and logistics of the return, including clarity about where the belongings would be returned to. There are a total of 3039 Aboriginal and Torres Strait objects in the collection at Manchester, and 43 of these were subject to the request. It is worth adding that although AIATSIS has been incredibly successful acting as an intermediary between communities and museums in supporting the return of objects, some Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities approach relationships with museums, cultural rejuvenation and repatriation in other ways.

This case study highlights the importance of building strong relationships prior to the claim, but also how the processing of the AIATSIS claim was relatively uncomplicated because the senior management at the Manchester Museum trusted the organisation and its research methodology. It is important to consider the power of governmental legitimacy, and how this is difficult to translate in contexts where communities do not have that platform nor its resource to make their case, or where the case for return sits in tension with a national position. It is also worth considering the fact that there are strong claims for the return of objects that were clearly taken under duress and have significant spiritual value in other contexts, that have not been answered. This highlights how although policies often state that claims will be answered on a case by case basis, it is not only the details of the case that determine the outcome, but also the way in which a case is articulated and by whom, and how it is resourced. This brings us back to the importance of trust, and access. Without trust and the conversations it enables, we are scrambling around trying to pull pieces together into a mold that was not built to accommodate them.

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At MEG we feel as a collective that enabling the possibility of restitution to become a normal part of museum work is the way to building a better and more humane future for museums with colonial era collections. Crucially, it will help build the trust that is so vital to enabling good work, to understanding our collections better, being more representative, creative and useful to community members and visitors alike. If you have ideas or suggestions as to how we can support you, please get in touch.

New Book: Returning Southeast Asia's Past: Objects, Museums, and Restitution

 Edited by Louise Tythacott and Panggah Ardiyansyah

With contributions from Gabrielle Abbe, Jos van Beurden, Socheat Chea, John Clarke, Charlotte Galloway, Chanraksmey Muong, Duyen Nguyen, Phacharaphorn Phanomvan, Melody Rod-ari, Wieske Octaviani Sapardan

The last 150 years has seen extensive looting and illicit trafficking of Southeast Asia's cultural heritage. Art objects from the region were distributed to museums and private collections around the world. But in the 21st century, power relations are shifting, a new awareness is growing, and new questions are emerging about the representation and ownership of Southeast Asian cultural material located in the West.

This book is a timely consideration of object restitution and related issues across Southeast Asia, bringing together different viewpoints including from museum professionals and scholars in Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia – as well as Europe, North America and Australia. The objects themselves are at the centre of most narratives - from Khmer art to the Mandalay regalia (repatriated in 1964), Ban Chiang archaeological material and the paintings of Raden Saleh. Legal, cultural, political and diplomatic issues involved in the restitution process are considered in many of the chapters; others look at the ways object restitution is integral to evolving narratives of national identity. The book's editors conclude that restitution processes can transform narratives of loss into opportunities for gain in building knowledge and reconstructing relationships across national borders.

"Every Southeast Asian country has a different experience of the loss of antiquities, but we all share in the deeply-felt benefits of contemporary restitution initiatives. This book makes an important contribution to bringing these questions out into the open."
- Dr. Phoeurng Sackona, Minister of Culture and Fine Arts, Cambodia

Louise Tythacott is the Woon Tai Jee Professor of Asian Art at Northumbria University, United Kingdom.

Panggah Ardiyansyah is an MPhil/PhD student of History of Art and Archaeology at SOAS University of London.

NUS Press

Job Opportunity: Postdoctoral Researcher: The Restitution of Knowledge - artefacts as archives in the (post)colonial museum, 1850- 1939 Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford

Applications are invited for the position of Postdoctoral Researcher on the project The Restitution of Knowledge: artefacts as archives in the (post)colonial museum, 1850- 1939, based at the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, and led by Professor Dan Hicks (Oxford) and Professor Bénédicte Savoy (Technische University, Berlin). The position is funded by Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), and is a fixed-term position for 30 months, running from 1 August 2020 to 31 January 2023. 'The Restitution of Knowledge' is a major new transnational UK-German collaboration combining historical and curatorial approaches to understand the status of collections from the continent of Africa in European museums as colonial legacies. The project seeks to intervene in current dialogues about restitution by generating and sharing of knowledge about the ongoing histories of colonial loot. The project combines digital scholarship, provenance studies, and military history to expand public understanding and debate around incidents of colonial plunder, joining the dots between museum collections and these violent histories. The Restitution of Knowledge thus revaluates the status of anthropological museums as places filled not just with objects but also with historical knowledge of conflict, violence and loss. It explores how Europe's “world culture” museums might be reframed as places of cultural memory, at which research can start to support restitution processes, from remembrance and the sharing of knowledge to the physical return of property. The successful candidate will hold a PhD in anthropology, history, archaeology or another relevant discipline, completed before 1 July 2020. The post will start on 1 August 2020, or as soon as possible thereafter.  The closing date for applications is 12.00 midday on Thursday 11 June 2020. Interviews are likely to take place week beginning 15 June 2020. Applications are particularly welcome from black and minority ethnic candidates, who are under-represented in academic posts at the University of Oxford. Please visit the University of Oxford website for more details.

Freelance opportunity: Buxton Museum and Art Gallery

Buxton Museum and Art Gallery is looking for help to identify ethnographic material and for advice on potential restitutions.  These objects were purchased between 1940 and 1988,  and were subsequently part of the Derbyshire Schools Library Service collections.

They are looking for people who can help identify objects from:

·       South Pacific (around 85 objects)

·       Africa (around 119 objects)

·       North America (around 33 objects)

·       Australia (around 26 objects)

The objects are located in Buxton, Derbyshire. You will need to travel to view the objects in person.

With the support of the Esmee Fairburn Collections Trust funding, they are able to offer a fee of £250 a day plus reasonable travel expenses.

The work needs to be carried out between October and December.

If you are able to help, please send a description of no more than 500 words detailing your relevant experience to Anna Rhodes anna.rhodes@derbyshire.gov.uk by 5pm on Friday 20^th September. 

Event at Derby Museum & Art Gallery, 11am – 3.30pm, Thursday 18th July 2019.

World Cultures Gallery visit and 'Restitution: a view from the Regions' workshop.

Come and join us in Derby to take part in a discussion and hear case studies reflecting on restitution and repatriation in regional museums, co-chaired by Tony Butler, Executive Director, Derby Museums and Helen Mears, Keeper of World Art at Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove and then after lunch explore and critique the new World Cultures Gallery with Laura Philips, Head of Interpretation and Display.

This event will be in two parts with a short break for lunch in-between.

Tea and coffee will be provided, but attendees are invited to bring lunch with them or buy lunch from the museum café or café nearby.

To book a place please email Events Officer, Rachel Heminway Hurst events@museumethnographersgroup.org.uk

Restitution: A view from the regions

National and university museums have tended to dominate public and sectoral debate regarding museums and their role in the restitution and repatriation of cultural property and yet, as all MEG members know, regional museums hold important and significant 'world cultures' collections (and may, in many cases, have more freedoms in regards to facilitating the return of material from these).

As Arts Council England looks to develop new guidance for the UK museum sector on restitution and repatriation, this meeting provides an initial opportunity for MEG members to firstly explore what the terms restitution and repatriation mean, reflect on their experiences in responding to claims, to consider the particular needs of regional museums in progressing work regarding restitution and repatriation, and to consider what role MEG might take in supporting the sector. 

Image© Derby Museum & Art Gallery.  Display of figures in the World Cultures Gallery.