Much of our work at the Pitt Rivers Museum involves working on reconciliation and repatriation with communities from all over the world. All repatriations are different but a few recent cases stand out.
In November 2024, we returned a decorated sunhat to the Kenyah Badeng community to go on display at the Borneo Cultures Museum, a spectacular museum that opened in Kuching in 2022. The sunhat had been taken as part of the 1895-96 punitive campaigns in Sarawak (now part of Malaysia) and was transferred to our collections when the Chesterton House Museum closed in 1923.
This was the first cultural object we had returned and thanks to the extraordinary collaboration between national, regional, academic and community partners in Sarawak, combined with knowledge gained from other recent repatriations, we were able to complete the return in under 18 months.
This was in sharp contrast to the return of five Tasmanian hair samples to the Tasmanian Aboriginal Council (TAC) in March 2025, more than 30 years after the initial claim in July 1994.
Initially, the lack of a policy covering the return of human remains was an barrier and when a policy was implemented in 2006, it excluded human hair – an omission which the TAC successfully argued for the UK Government to amend.
The main issue, however, was that the claims made by TAC for the return of Tasmanian human remains related to remains held at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History and the Pitt Rivers, but there was a lack of clarity around the provenance of the skulls held in the former institution.
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Following the successful return to Australia of all aboriginal human remains held in the Pitt Rivers, I met TAC in Hobart in summer 2023 and in an effort to at least get the hair samples home as soon as possible, we agreed that the next claim would be solely for the hair samples, with a separate claim for the skulls. I am happy to say that the latter are also now in the process of being discussed by Oxford University Museum of Natural History.
Acknowledging the history of parts of our collections and their entanglements in colonial military violence, oppression or coercion, this work of redress and reconciliation is a crucial part of our work.
It helps to restore trust, leading to deeper understanding and, when approached from a point of listening and collaborative partnership, can lead to societal healing, solidarity and hope.
It is not, however, without feelings of deep pain for communities who mourn the loss of their ancestors and who feel anger about having to jump through so many bureaucratic hoops (often for decades).
For the holding institution, it can come with remorse that we once felt entitled to collect these sensitive, intimate and often sacred remains or frustration at the slowness caused by the complexity of identifying claimants, reasoning and process.
Despite every case being different, what we have learned is that this vital work requires endless patience from all parties, a willingness to approach each other as partners in the process, working and learning together with shared ethics and mutual respect.
Laura Van Broekhoven is the director of the Pitt Rivers Museum