DCH Session 3 Decolonization

Sunoikisis Digital Cultural Heritage, Fall 2019

Session 3. Decolonization of Cultural Heritage

Thursday Oct 17, 16:00 UK = 17:00 CET

Convenors: Usama Gad (Aim Shams University, Egypt & Institute of Classical Studies), Zena Kamash (Royal Holloway University of London), Patricia Murrieta Flores (Lancaster University)

YouTube link: https://youtu.be/MiKpHZCO9T0

Slides: 1. Zena's slides; 2. Usama's slides; 3. Paty's slides

Session outline

• Introduction to Decolonisation of Cultural Heritage
• Digital methods to give Egyptian/Middle Eastern scholars access to classical resources
• The colonial impact of digital standards and methodologies

Seminar readings

• Mark, D. M., & Turk, A. G. (2003, September). Landscape categories in Yindjibarndi: Ontology, environment, and language. In International Conference on Spatial Information Theory (pp. 28-45). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. Available: https://static.aminer.org/pdf/PDF/000/116/801/landscape_categories_in_yindjibarndi_ontology_environment_and_language.pdf
• Exell, K., & Rico, T. (2013). "There is no heritage in Qatar’: Orientalism, colonialism and other problematic histories." World Archaeology, 45(4), 670-685. Available: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00438243.2013.852069

Further reading

• J.A. Baird & Zena Kamash, 2019. "Remembering Roman Syria: valuing Tadmor-Palmyra, from 'discovery' to destruction." BICS 62.1, pp. 1–29.
• Jeremy Huggett (ed.), 2015. Open Archaeology: Topical Issue on Challenging Digital Archaeology 1,1 (2015). Pp. 79–235. Available: https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/opar.2014.1.issue-1/issue-files/opar.2014.1.issue-1.xml
• Usama Gad (2019). "Decolonizing the Troubled Archive of Egyptian Papyri" in Everyday in Orientalism. Available: https://everydayorientalism.wordpress.com/2019/08/05/decolonizing-papyrology/

Other resources

• Tristram Hunt (2019). "Should museums return their colonial artefacts?" The Guardian. Available: https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2019/jun/29/should-museums-return-their-colonial-artefacts
  • with response: Sumaya Kassim (2019), "The Museum is the Master’s House: An Open Letter to Tristram Hunt." Available: https://medium.com/@sumayakassim/the-museum-is-the-masters-house-an-open-letter-to-tristram-hunt-e72d75a891c8
• Zita Cristina Nunes (2018). "Remembering the Howard University Librarian Who Decolonized the Way Books Were Catalogued." Smithsonian Magazine, Nov 26, 2018. Available: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/remembering-howard-university-librarian-who-decolonized-way-books-were-catalogued-180970890/
• Michael Press (2018). "The Colonialist Myth of the Frenchman Who "Saved" the Pyramids" in Hyperallergic. Available: https://hyperallergic.com/434377/colonialist-myth-frenchman-saved-pyramids/
• Michael Press (2019). "How to See Palestine Whole." Hyperallergic. Available: https://hyperallergic.com/514154/how-to-see-palestine-whole/
• Christina Riggs (2019). "How 20th-century colonial politics shaped the story of Tutankhamun's tomb". The British Academy Blog. Available: https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/blog/how-20th-century-colonial-politics-shaped-story-tutankhamuns-tomb
• Seph Rodney (2019). "In Centering West Africa, an Exhibition Tells Another Story of the Medieval Period" Hyperallergic. Available: https://hyperallergic.com/488133/caravans-of-gold-fragments-in-time-art-culture-and-exchange-across-medieval-saharan-africa/
• David Shariatmadari (2019). "‘They’re not property’: the people who want their ancestors back from British museums." The Guardian. Available: https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2019/apr/23/theyre-not-property-the-people-who-want-their-ancestors-back-from-british-museums
• Elisa Shoenberger (2019). "What does it mean to decolonize a museum?" MuseumNext. Available: https://www.museumnext.com/article/what-does-it-mean-to-decolonize-a-museum/

Exercise

• Search online for news coverage about repatriation (material and digital), decolonisation of museums and exhibitions, controversial displays of artefacts related specifically to colonial issues. Use the articles and blogposts in "Other resources" as a guide and inspiration. Choose a case study and be prepared to present it briefly to the rest of the class.
• Think in particular about:
  • the effectiveness of the repatriation (or lack of) presented
  • the specifically digital features of the resource or project
  • do the digital tools/methods allow repatriation of a kind not previously possible?
  • are the digital methods being used as an excuse not to repatriate physically?
  • do the digital methods inhibit the repatriation or postcolonial representation in any way?
  • how might you do things differently?