By Johann Zetterstrom-Sharp (Chair)
On March 16th 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.
