Welcome to the Rivers Museums. Matters of Policy podcast, this is a podcast in which we explore the museum's collections development policy,
speaking with guests from across the globe to delve into the language used and consider what really matters in this policy.
Hi and welcome to the final episode of the Match, the policy podcast with the Pitt Rivers Museum.
I'm Becky and I'm joined today by Yep, and Meghan.
And we're just going to conclude with a little bit the discussion about what we've learnt and talk about some of the topics that
we each think have been really interesting that come up throughout the podcast and the discussions we've had with each book.
So, yeah, we've had 11 gaffes in total over the course of the 12 episodes.
We've also done a workshop and looked in-depth about the collections policy.
Yeah, I think personally, it's just been a really big learning curve to look at policy in such depth,
especially in terms of the language used throughout the policy, which I wouldn't have felt going into.
It would have reflected the of this museum. And obviously doesn't really reflect it so much, but the kind of updated strategic plan.
But having a policy like that was open to public access that has such outdated language was quite shocking.
And so it's been really good to have the opportunity to look at this further and also discuss it with you guys.
Yeah, as we learnt, particularly in our workshop, it is really difficult to get changes to policy through.
So a lot of museums will simply change their practise, which is fantastic.
And of course, practise is one of the most important things that needs to change because that's where the work actually happens.
But if a policy changes, then everyone in the institution can get behind the practise that they want to commit to.
And we think, particularly for the reviewers, as it is such a leader in museum decolonisation,
it's really important to have a policy that accurately reflects their new values and the direction that they want to take.
So it was really interesting to learn not just about the barriers to changing policies,
but from our guests the ways that this policy could be changed radically in order to sort of help not only the peer reviewers,
but everyone who might want to follow the Pitt rivers to make their museums better places.
And I think also we've been really sort of captivated by the question what comes first like policy or practise?
But that's maybe a bit of like a chicken and egg problem whilst we sort of naturally develop simultaneously or organically.
So perhaps the duality here is a bit of a fallacy.
But I do think what we've learnt is that this is such a new field of work, the decolonisation work.
So a bit of trial and error is allowed.
Practise is allowed to run a bit ahead, but you should never policy should never sort of fall out of sight for that could be dangerous.
Yeah, I definitely agree in that kind of leads perfectly into our first topic, which was the idea of policy and practise.
And I think as we kind of discussed in a number of the episodes with our guests specifically, I know that came up in the episode.
I was speaking with Joel and Ethan Shaw about the idea about policy reflected need old wording and these old
ideologies and language and it being the last thing to change rather than it's not policy leading the way.
But I think, as John said, it should be policy to lead the way because how else are you going to have everybody being on the same page?
It needs to be clear what your organisational goals are,
and if the policy is needed for the accreditation and the accreditation is needed for the funding,
then surely it should be the policy that should come first in order for every single front that comes through the museum
to be in line with the policy and in line with the collections development policy and their accessibility policy.
To create this, you know, a uniformed body that has clear goals.
So it's great that the practise would work and be really forward thinking.
But if the accreditation body doesn't see the museum as enacting those changes, then it could be seen as kind of just saying You're doing something.
But you know, even though you are actually doing something,
it was actually easier to kind of change from the ground up in terms of implementing practise before getting longer tangible changes.
But I do think that review quality maybe needs to be in place more frequently.
I need to go into more detail and like we've done now,
which is something that was maybe not done in previous years to ensure that it does
align with the museum's goals and that we are reflecting language that is used in the.
Such as the collection policy to make sure that it doesn't reinforce some of the outdated power balances that the practise in the museum is really,
really striving forward to address.
But again, if it's in the policy and it is in the organisational goals, then it still reinforces that you can you can do it as much as you want.
But if if that's the motto that the museum is presenting, then instead ever going to be an equal power balance?
Yeah. So I think that was the main thing that really came up for me with this policy and practise dichotomy,
which is going to have to be explored further and further in multiple policies.
Motor practises in a passive to Mecca. What was your number one area that you wanted to explore and come out for you?
If our listeners have been hearing me talk at all, then they'll know that repatriation is one of my biggest scholarly interests,
as well as one of the main reasons that I wanted to come to work at the Pitt rivers.
Because the way that I was introduced to Marenco was in an article in Winnipeg,
in the Associated Press that talked about the removal of the census and their perhaps eventual repatriation.
And I emailed Branka and we talked about it a lot, and that led me, of course, to this podcast.
So repatriation occupies a very small space in the part of the policy,
which is perhaps not surprising since it really hasn't been much of a draw to public interest or museum interest until very recently.
And I think that's kind of a crime because repatriation is what the future of museums will be all about and whether this is physical,
repatriation, epistemic or emotional repatriation.
It doesn't really matter because the future of museums will be about creating good relationships between institutions and communities.
And you can't really do that if there's a huge power imbalance of, Hey, we have all your stuff, and we took it by violence on one side.
So like Solomon, Enos talked about the reason that we're all here is because there can be really great partnerships between museums and communities.
I definitely still have hope in that sense. I wouldn't be here if I didn't.
But I think a lot of inner work needs to be done on the museum side to further those relationships.
And a really big part of that inner work is going to be not just examining our practise because I
know that the peer reviewers is invested in some epistemic and physical repatriation practises,
but also making good on their promise to communities to further their relationships with
them emotionally and to ensure that they have the community's best interests at heart,
not just in practise, but in policy as well. And I know that repatriation is also a hugely nuanced issue.
We talked about this a lot in our workshop with the river staff who really explain it to us in fantastic terms.
There's a lot of different ways that repatriation can be done.
There might be cultures and some people who don't really want their stuff back who don't really care if the Pitt Rivers has it or not.
But the dialogue still needs to happen. It still needs to be initiated, and there will be many more cultures who really do want their stuff back.
And if museums want to create good relationships with those people, then they need to listen to those requests.
And everything really does need to be taken on a case by case basis, which is why interpersonal relationships are just so important.
And even so, like Carrie Newman talked about with the witness blanket,
there's ways that artefacts can be shown in museums with the consent of communities and with no actual ownership on the part of museums,
new partnerships and alliances that can be formed in ways that don't necessarily involve bills of
ownership or money or anything sort of that Western based museums have been pushing for thus far.
We can do things a different way where communities and museums are both happy and artefacts are
cared for in a way that is culturally relevant and significant and on a very practical level.
At some point there is going to be legislation regarding colonial repatriation.
I believe that some guidelines are even now in the works to create such a thing in the U.K.
I'm not sure about Kennedy yet, but we're getting there. Public sentiment has really put this issue into the spotlight.
So if the rivers can institute a solid repatriation policy when they rewrite their policy next summer, that might make things a lot easier.
And it'll make them a leader as they already are in the field of museum decolonisation.
And I think repatriation is going to be one of the things that really sets the Pitt Rivers apart in terms
of creating relationships with communities and remaining a global leader in museum decolonisation.
I think it's really interesting, just reflecting that both the policy and practise of discussion of the repatriation that you've discussed Meghan,
it comes down to the power balance as well with kids.
It's very interesting that that is at the core of addressing that in the museum is and should be at the
forefront of the decisions that we're making going forward with policy making in the cultural heritage sector.
What about you? What did you think was the kind of top, top theme?
Yeah, I think what? I can just mentioned about expanding the definition of repatriation.
It's going to be really important for the future because when we talk about concrete steps in rewriting the CDB,
this is definitely something that will have to be explored more.
I do think the current section on repatriation in the CTP is limited because it only focuses on physical repatriation of objects and human remains.
So a next step will be expanding this notion,
also including guidelines on policy around things as emotional and spiritual, as well as digital repatriation.
Then what stood out to me most during this podcast series,
wordy many conversations we had around barriers from within and without when we talk about changing policy and policy and practise,
I should say because what surprised me or perhaps what I had not anticipated,
is that the barriers towards implementing changes are mainly barriers from within the museum and not so much from without.
Because many of the interviewees mentioned the problem of limited staffing.
This decolonisation project is just so big it's it's overturning an entire worldview.
So naturally that just requires a lot of research and work and does also time, which is difficult to accept sometimes.
But that's the reality we're facing here. And then on top of that, the issue of limited space came up.
I think there are these great ambitions to make changes within a museum space.
But Piers Rivers is running out of fiscal space to tell particular stories.
The museum is so full that sometimes tough decisions need to be made on what can be done within space.
But as, for example, Fayaz mentioned, digitisation could play an important role here,
although digitisation too has its own barriers that need to be investigated, particularly around access.
And then a final barrier mentioned was limited funding,
so as to stupid rivers is a non-national university museum operating within the framework of the University of Oxford.
It is tied to sometimes very specific and extensive procedures to get resources.
And then at the same time, it's also included from a lot of the resources that are made available to national museums.
And this funding issue is, of course, already ties to barriers from without.
But when we talked about external barriers amongst ourselves prior to the podcast series,
we were talking more about external parties like the Arts Council.
And as we've heard, the aren't counter effects really taking responsibility and rethinking the museum's role,
and they are leading the way and helping to improve policy.
So what's going to be concluded is indeed that a lot of focus will have to be on the internal issues.
And some solutions that came up are working more closely with our museums, fire things as co-curator,
curatorship or with community curators and with artists that sent close to stakeholder communities.
Still, this all will take a long time. There's no denying. Change is slow, but truly steps.
We could be able to speed it up in the future, or we should be able to speed it up in the future.
And. What's also been mentioned is that slow but well-considered change tends to have more endurance, which I guess is the positive side to this all.
Yeah, I think that's a really positive note to end on that. It's going to take a very long time.
But I think as you said, that slow change hands have endurance and that is what we should be aiming to do is to make changes that do last for
multiple generations to come and also employ practises like we're evaluating the policy like we've done with this podcast,
that that practise of re-evaluation is also something that should be done in the future and paving the way for that is very important.
Yeah. And to give just a little bit of extra hope, I think we're also living in an extremely transformative time for museums and museum professionals.
There's a whole lot of public interest in anti-racism, in decolonial theory and in holding museums accountable.
So it's a really interesting time not only to be working in museums, but to be just entering the field as the four of us and the intern squad are.
And I think it'll be really interesting to see what happens when we finally get jobs and enter the workforce.
And I know from my studies at the U of T that a lot of the people who I am working with and being in school with
right now are really interested in the same things that we are in making sure that museums change positively.
So if everyone out there is looking for faster change, I I think it is coming.
I think that we are creating a workforce and a contingent of people who really want to see museums change,
who really want to do good work and the people who have been working in museums thus far.
We owe them an enormous debt for taking us this far.
But this is an extremely important moment in museum history, and I think that we're raising a group of museum professionals who are rising to meet it.
I'm full of optimism, especially after doing this wonderful podcast.
Yeah, I think that's very, very helpful. I really did implement some changes.
Moving forward, we're going to release a report suggesting some of the more tangible changes that we have
recognised in the collections department policy before it's rewritten for the new accreditation.
And we're also not just us, but other members of the squad will be looking at producing maybe some blog posts
to go along side to kind of reflect upon our more personal journeys and themes.
So, yeah, have a little look at the Pitt Rivers Museum's website for that again.
Thanks. I'm Becky. I'm a massive student at the University of Glasgow.
And yeah, if anyone wants to hire and everyone belongs to them, but please let us know.
I'm Megan Man from the University of Toronto. I have enjoyed this podcast and getting to know the interns squad and our fantastic guests immensely.
I am really looking forward to seeing where we go, and I'm so grateful for the opportunity to get to learn alongside you guys and
from our fantastic guests who gave up their time so willingly to talk to you,
the intern squad, about their experiences with decolonisation in museums and especially to Muranga,
who has helped us all through this with the benevolent grace of a wonderful mother in.
Thanks, Megan. And I'm your bottom and I'm a massive student at Lady University.
Thank you very much, everyone. It's been great working on this podcast, especially during a global pandemic.
It's been great to still connect with other parts of the world. I think like we've connected with almost all continents.
Well, that's not true, but not an Antarctica, for sure.
But it's been great to stay connected here from other people, people working in different fields, artists, curators, staff members.
I've really enjoyed it. So thanks to everyone who's been part of this podcast and thanks to the listeners.
That was the Rivers Museum's Matters of Policy podcast produced by Darcy Woodhouse.
Yet boom maker man Alexis Barriere and Bobble Hat Sound Music by Jack Forcett.
Voiceover by who? A special thank you to Muranga, Thomas Oslo and the Knowledge Exchange.