Dethroning historical reputations: Universities, museums and the commemoration of benefactors

The campaigns in universities across the world to reject, rename and remove historic benefactions have brought the present into collision with the past. In Britain the attempt to remove a statue of one of Oxford’s most famous benefactors, the imperialist Cecil Rhodes, has spread to other universities and their benefactors, and now also affects civic monuments and statues in towns and cities across the country. In the United States, memorials to leaders of the Confederacy in the American Civil War and to other slaveholders have been the subject of intense dispute. Should we continue to honour benefactors and historic figures whose actions are now deemed ethically unacceptable? How can we reconcile the views held by our ancestors with those we now hold today? Should we even try, acknowledging, in the words of the novelist L. P. Hartley, that ‘the past is another country; they do things differently there’? The essays in this interdisciplinary collection are drawn from a conference at the Institute of Historical Research in the University of London. Historians, fundraisers, a sociologist and a museum director examine these current issues from different perspectives, with an introductory essay by Sir David Cannadine, president of the British Academy. Together they explore an emerging conflict between the past and present, history and ideology, and benefactors and their critics

Conversações desassossegadas: diálogos sobre coleções etnográficas com o povo indígena Ka’apor

Este artigo trata do processo de diálogo sobre coleções etnográficas de objetos Ka’apor e da curadoria compartilhada da exposição “A Festa do Cauim”, atividades promovidas pelo Museu Nacional de Etnologia de Leiden (NME), Holanda, junto ao Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi (MPEG), Brasil, e o povo indígena Ka’apor da Terra Indígena Alto Turiaçu, localizada no estado de Maranhão, na Amazônia brasileira. É reflexo de uma mudança de filosofia no NME em direção a uma atividade mais inclusiva e colaborativa, como também dos processos de atuação com povos indígenas promovidos no Museu Goeldi e da necessidade política dos Ka’apor de chamar atenção, em nível nacional e internacional, para a defesa de seus direitos territoriais, continuamente ameaçados por atores envolvidos com a exploração ilegal de madeira no seu território. Considerando diferentes enfoques disciplinares, principalmente da antropologia e da museologia, em consonância com o pensamento indígena, assim como com as negociações de interesses e encontro de diversas perspectivas cognitivas e posicionamentos políticos, este artigo, além de documentar e refletir sobre a produção cocriativa de uma exposição etnográfica, procura repensar as dimensões cognitiva, política e ética deste tipo de trabalho com povos indígenas. This article discusses the collaborative research and exhibition project Sharing Collections and Connecting Histories, carried out by the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden (NME), the Netherlands, the Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi, Brazil and the Ka’apor indigenous people of the indigenous reserve Alto Turiaçu, Maranhão, Brazil. The collaborative approach that characterized this project reflects a transformation that has been taking place at the NME in Leiden towards a more inclusive and collaborative museological work, and at the Museu Goeldi, which has been promoting collaborative work with indigenous peoples for at least two decades. The project seeks to meet the political needs of the Ka’apor to draw national and international attention to the importance of defending their territorial rights, which are continuously threatened by the illegal exploitation of lumber on their land. This article focuses on the dialogical processes of studying the Ka’apor collections and developing an exhibition. It considers different disciplinary foci — anthropology and museology — in dialogue with indigenous thought, as well as the process of negotiating the interests and the encounters between different cognitive perspectives and political positions. In addition to documenting and reflecting on the co-creative production of an ethnographic exhibition, this article reconsiders the cognitive, political and ethical dimensions of this type of work involving indigenous peoples