This article discusses the challenges and possibilities of transnational collaborations to ‘restore’
African historic collections to their places of origin. It uses the case of a C19th Botswana collection
donated to Brighton Museum by the missionary Rev Willam Charles Willoughby. Taking forward
debates over ‘decolonization’ in practice, it asks what critical insights emerge through such initiatives,
particularly from the perspectives of African museums in places where collections originated. We
discuss collaborative provenance research and a display in Khama III Memorial Museum based on the
new historical understanding, curated by Lekhutile and Kediseng. ‘Restoration’ is defined here
(following AFFORD 2020) as re-historicizing, re-contextualising and revaluing African historic
collections as part of the material archive of places of origin to enable claims for return. Calls for
repatriation of such collections can assume that in places of origin, people will automatically identify
with historic objects. But in Botswana, the initial reaction to the ‘restored’ collection was surprise – is
this really Batswana heritage? The objects were often seen, not as pertaining to Batswana, but to
marginalized minorities labelled Basarwa/San. To explain this reaction – and the value of restoration
to disrupt it - we discuss how essentialized notions of ethnic and temporal difference persist as an
enduring transnational colonial legacy, perpetuated in museum discourses on ‘source communities’,
in some strands of decolonial writing, as well as in Southern African public spheres and teaching on
culture. Nineteenth century collections, in contrast, can materialize mobile, changing, hierarchical
and differentiated, cosmopolitan, transnationally linked nineteenth century African politico-social
orders such as that of Khama the Great’s capital, Old Palapye. The new understandings of ordinary
life and cultural cross-fusion at Old Palapye materialized in the re-historicized collection showed the
political value of ‘restoring’ digitized object images, as they could evidence inclusive place-based
public histories to challenge racialized marginalization. At the same time, the collaboration revealed
the restrictive institutional realities of African community museums, frustrated from taking forward
their own dreams for decolonizing.
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