Alexandra E Kralick

Ethical treatment of human research subjects, nonhuman subjects, human remains, and cultural artifacts are vital foci in current Biological Anthropology, to our collective benefit. However, there has yet to be a substantive initiative for ethical practices surrounding great ape remains. Our team has hosted symposia, presented at major anthropological conferences, and published in academic journals discussing these ideas broadly. We hope to expand this work into actionable next steps in order to demonstrate a proof-of-concept application. We aim to establish the Orangutan Osteobiography Working Group (OOWG) to reinforce a research community which has expertise in orangutans and their remains. Collectively we will develop and populate an open-access collaborative website and database, the Global Whole Ape Curation Project (GWACP), acting as a crowdsourced catalog of orangutan remains in museum collections. We will work collaboratively with Indonesian researchers, curators, artists, and students to ensure this resource is relevant and inclusive. Together we will organize contextual information about these anatomical collections and the individuals they represent, thus taking steps toward decolonizing ape remains in museums while being attentive to current curatorial limitations, the irreplaceability of these collections, and the vital nature of their use for research.