Access and Transparency: A Reflection on Digital Colonial Collections

TY - CHAP

T1 - Access and Transparency

T2 - AHM Annual Conference 2024

AU - Reints, Wiebe

N1 - Conference code: 10

PY - 2024

Y1 - 2024

N2 - As the field of so-called ‘world museums’ is subjected to the “reparative turn” various projects emerge with the goal to increase the transparency and accessibility of colonial collections. In the wake of the Sarr-Savoy report, making these collections available through digital infrastructures has become a way to comply with this desire. Various examples of such platforms are realized across Europe, including Digital Benin, initiated in Germany, and the Colonial Collections Data Hub, created by a consortium of cultural institutions in the Netherlands. Although these projects have different approaches – Digital Benin focuses on the Benin Bronzes while the Dutch data hub aims to comprise all the colonial collections within the Netherlands – they have the mutual aim to provide more transparency and accessibility. This development raises various practical, theoretical, and conceptual questions about the digital availability of colonial museum collections. The current fragmentary and nation-oriented approach of the available databases, and their ambiguous interpretation of what a colonial collection comprises, can complicate the search of communities of origin for their lost heritage. This contribution offers a reflection on this current development within the field of world museums and examines how the Dutch Colonial Collections Data Hub tries to capitalize on the caveats of making colonial collections digitally available.

AB - As the field of so-called ‘world museums’ is subjected to the “reparative turn” various projects emerge with the goal to increase the transparency and accessibility of colonial collections. In the wake of the Sarr-Savoy report, making these collections available through digital infrastructures has become a way to comply with this desire. Various examples of such platforms are realized across Europe, including Digital Benin, initiated in Germany, and the Colonial Collections Data Hub, created by a consortium of cultural institutions in the Netherlands. Although these projects have different approaches – Digital Benin focuses on the Benin Bronzes while the Dutch data hub aims to comprise all the colonial collections within the Netherlands – they have the mutual aim to provide more transparency and accessibility. This development raises various practical, theoretical, and conceptual questions about the digital availability of colonial museum collections. The current fragmentary and nation-oriented approach of the available databases, and their ambiguous interpretation of what a colonial collection comprises, can complicate the search of communities of origin for their lost heritage. This contribution offers a reflection on this current development within the field of world museums and examines how the Dutch Colonial Collections Data Hub tries to capitalize on the caveats of making colonial collections digitally available.

KW - Colonialism

KW - Museums

KW - Digital heritage

KW - Restitution

U2 - 10.5117/9789048567638/AHM.2024.005

DO - 10.5117/9789048567638/AHM.2024.005

M3 - Contribution to conference proceedings

T3 - History, Culture, and Heritage: Conference Proceedings

SP - 29

EP - 33

BT - AHM Conference 2024

PB - Amsterdam University Press

CY - Amsterdam

Y2 - 20 June 2024 through 21 June 2024

ER -