This special issue brings together new research on ‘decolonizing’ initiatives relating to African collections in regional museums and small archives in Britain. It reflects on collaborative, practice-oriented research conducted jointly between UK-based and Africa-based institutions, scholars, curators, African diaspora organizations and Black heritage groups. Collectively the articles testify to the importance of transnational initiatives and collaborations, and to the need for African scholars, institutions and interest groups to occupy a more central position alongside diaspora organizations in historical research, interpretations and debates in Britain over decolonizing African collections. The volume brings new light to the transnational histories and heritage politics of a great variety of hitherto poorly understood African collections owned by a variety of regional and smaller institutions and it debates the possibilities and obstacles to their reactivation and return in a manner that works toward reparative justice. The central question the issue asks is, how do initiatives cast as ‘decolonizing’ speak to specific historical, institutional and political contexts in Africa, and the priorities of different African interest groups?
Funding
Making African Connections: Decolonial Futures for Colonial Collections : AHRC-ARTS & HUMANITIES RESEARCH COUNCIL | AH/S001271/1
UKRI C19 Extension Fund (Title: Making African Connections from Sussex and Kent Museums: Decolonial Futures for Colonial Collections) : UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX | This award is p