Laura Nina Maria Van Broekhoven

Museums across the UK/EU and globally hold substantial material legacies of colonial and imperial processes, and are struggling to translate theoretically-informed practice developed in countries of origin for collections into the geographically distanced spaces of transnational museums with large global audiences. What theory exists to guide anthropologists engaged in transforming such institutions into cross-cultural spaces of critical reflection and beneficial engagement with historic legacies of collecting? What emerging practice and theory articulates and helps us to understand the shapes reconciliation and hope for historic ethnographic collections might take? This invited workshop will bring together heritage practitioners from around the world to consider forms of hope, vulnerability, care and reconciliation in museums with ethnographic collections, and to consider how new theory might be developed from diverse practitioners inside and outside museums to better understand and support emerging forms of heritage interpretation and stewardship linking local and global contexts across cultures and nations.