Pressing Matter: Ownership, Value and the Question of Colonial Heritage in Museums

Pressing Matter, an international research programme that responds to NWA's Living History route, investigates how museological practices can help society come to terms with the legacies of the colonial past and reconcile claims of different stakeholders to its material objects. The project responds to growing concerns within Western Europe about how to address ethno-historic, archaeological objects as well as biological specimens (including human remains). Heated debates reveal polarized positions: some argue that colonial objects should be returned to their originating communities to correct historical wrongs; others that they should be retained by museums for their (universal) cultural and scientific value. Yet others champion dialogue and sharing in how objects are distributed. Underlying these debates are often incomplete or contested provenance histories, and conflicting definitions of value and ownership. Bringing scholars from anthropology, history, heritage studies and biological sciences in conversation with critical legal studies and science and technology studies, this project develops and tests new theoretical models of value, ownership and forms of return. It thereby introduces nuance into heated debates about restitution, and develops hands-on guidelines that respect the potentialities of colonial collections. These models and guidelines will enable more inclusive, equitable museological practices, from provenance research and exhibition practices to decision-making on the (re)distribution of collections. A transdisciplinary consortium of academics, museum practitioners and activists/community members with close connections to international partners in countries from where collection originated, will co-develop these models and guidelines, and through focused research on preselected collections of material culture, human remains, animal and natural artefacts, through experimental labs and other forms of citizen science show how they are translatable into museum practice. Artist based research, workshops in communities of origin, a summerschool for young indigenous people, crowdsourcing for data enrichment are among the practices that will ensure the projects' intended outcomes.