The majority of the articles in this volume of UMAC J discuss the repatriation of human remains and associated issues from places geographically as far apart as modern-day South Africa (TILEY-NEL), Canada (ANDERSON), Democratic Republic of the Congo (LICATA et al.) and Argentina (SARDI & RECA).
The common thread is how Western colonial and (pseudo-)scientific practices led to the oftenviolent acquisition of ancestral remains, leaving universities and museums in the 21st Century to navigate complex processes of return, due to high sensitivity, poor documentation, limited resources and global politics.
NANKELA et al. look at practices of rehumanising of human remains in museum context from practitioner experience in Southern Africa and emerging practice in The Hunterian (University of Glasgow), showing how reconnecting narratives and stories back to individuals turn human remains into becoming people again.
CURTIS’ article gives insight into the mechanisms of the first return by a museum of a so-called Benin Bronze, 125 years after it had been looted by a British military force. Following this example, many more Benin Bronzes have now been returned, highlighting that even in fairly straightforward cases, complexity is always present.
The article by DÍAZ-PLAZA VARÓN shows that demands for returns are also made within national borders, reflecting that it is not just from the colonial empires that collections were built in national and other museums, but also from the geographical and social periphery within nation states.
