In recent years, many museums and universities have begun to address past colonial injustices by critically examining their collections of human remains, often leading to their restitution to their assumed countries of origins. Such efforts are usually framed as acts of recognition, reconciliation, and repair. However, the diverse difficulties and frictions that accompany restitutions often escape public attention. This post introduces some of such difficulties that need to be taken into account to understand the complexity of restitution processes.
Author: Paul Wolff Mitchell
Paul Wolff Mitchell is a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam, part of a consortium project across Dutch universities and museums called “Pressing Matter: Ownership, Value and the Question of Colonial Heritage in Museums.” His research concerns the practices and politics of collecting, curating, and crafting knowledge from human bodies and human remains, with a focus on race science and anatomical collection from the mid-18th through the early 20th centuries.
