The REPATRIATES project has developed six field sites and collaborations between core team researchers, communities and artists in Namibia, Australia, Benin Republic, Nigeria, Mexico and our European partners in Germany, Austria, France, and the United Kingdom. On the project website www.repatriates.org the main results and activities are published immediately with open access while our academic publications (an edited journal issue, monograph, 5 book chapters etc.) are in the pipeline. One of the high risk and high gain innovations of this project is the ways it emerges from within the communities in the third countries. These have pressing social issues beyond repatriation of cultural property and demand a significant investment of site-specific engagement by the PI in collaboration with local researchers for all case studies.
The first major book The Contested Crown: Repatriation Politics between Europe and Mexico has been published by the PI Prof Carroll with the distinguished Chicago University Press. It has also been translated into German as Mit Fremden Federn and appeared in Mandelbaum Verlag in Vienna. The research has furthermore been realized as film and exhibition outputs and many international public engagements. Surprising developments include, for example, a collaboration between Australia and Namibia through the project. The assumption that repatriation processes would mean a communication between former centers of empire and their dominions is overturned through a method of knowledge transfer between Namibia and Australia that does not go via Germany and the UK but rather focusses directly from Windhoek to Groote Eylandt, two very remote and in many ways different parts of the global south. The common interest in these places was found by the PI who noticed that similar kinds of dolls were being requested for repatriation from both places and the contemporary artists in each were particularly excited by the potential of having workshops and knowledge exchange with each other. This has led to the first workshop in April 2023 and two planned exhibitions of a collaborative project.
During fieldwork on the second case study we established a network with important collaborators and contributors, advisors and ethics boards including the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander Studies (AIATSIS). In September 2023 the PI was invited to a major repatriation from Manchester Museum to Australia and spent a week in Manchester talking and recording the stakeholders involved including a meeting with UN head of movable heritage and museums Krista Pikkat. This introduction was made by Repatriates ethics advisor Charlotte Joy with whom the PI is working closely on the constantly emerging repatriation debate in the UK and Africa especially.
Case study three is about the repatriations made from Germany to Namibia in 2022, which the PI, Postdoc and several advisors to the project attended in Berlin and Windhoek. Travelling to Namibia was key to meeting stakeholders. In the year after the expedition to Namibia the PI was invited to present her work on the case in the UK, US, Switzerland, and made a short film about one of the 23 objects that were returned. After participating with the Post Doc Memory Biwa in the Humboldt Forum opening in Berlin and related workshops it became clear that a certain doll that was returned held particularly strong stories for the Namibian involved. In a film, Repatriates tells the story of that one doll from many perspectives.
The fourth case looks at the repatriation from France to Benin from the perspective of the many stakeholders involved from museums and communities to see how they engage in a site that is highly controversial and censorious. The PhD Candidate Adewole Falade moved from Benin to Vienna and successfully completed the first year of coursework as part of her degree in Comparative History. She then began her fieldwork in Paris and Benin, working between the disciplines of history, anthropology, cultural heritage, and art history. She has led a collaborative research trip to Benin and week-long workshops in 2023, managing important relations with the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris for further research in their archives.
