Zitationsvorschlag

Turnbull, Paul: Restoring Dignity: The Ethical and Technical Challenges of Creating Digital Resources for the Repatriation of Indigenous Australian Ancestral Remains, in Wergin, Carsten und Affeldt, Stefanie (Hrsg.): Digitising Heritage: Transoceanic Connections between Australia and Europe, Heidelberg: Heidelberg University Publishing, 2024 (Kulturelles Erbe: Materialität – Text – Edition (KEMTE), Band 4), S. 29–45. https://doi.org/10.17885/heiup.1305.c18417

Identifier (Buch)

ISBN 978-3-96822-223-3 (PDF)
ISBN 978-3-96822-224-0 (Hardcover)

Veröffentlicht

26.09.2024

Autor/innen

Paul Turnbull

Restoring Dignity

The Ethical and Technical Challenges of Creating Digital Resources for the Repatriation of Indigenous Australian Ancestral Remains

Abstract Securing the repatriation from Western scientific collections of the bodily remains of their ancestors is of vital importance to Australian First Nations and many other indigenous peoples worldwide. An extraordinary achievement by in­digenous peoples, repatriation has been the single most important agent of change in their relationships with museums, universities, and other scientific institutions over the past 40 years. Since 2016, the Research, Reconcile, Renew Network (RRR) has been engaged in creating a digital resource assisting indigenous repatriations efforts with funding from the Australian Research Council and partnering univer­sities. Besides assisting repatriation by providing access to a wealth of historical sources and the findings of research by RRR members, this digital resource is also designed to support research and scholarship exploring the history of scientific col­lecting and uses of the bodily remains of the ancestors of indigenous peoples. This essay focuses on RRR’s efforts to date to develop solutions to the ethical and techni­cal challenges of creating this resource.

Keywords Australia, Human Remains, Indigeneity, Museums, Reconciliation