The time has come for museums and museum staff to start thinking differently about their collections: who owns them, who has rights over them and who should be involved in decisions about them. A good place to start might be human remains, which for too long have been treated as objects, not as the remains of once living people.
Last month the government published Guidance for the Care of Human Remains In Museums. The Museums Association, National Museum Directors' Conference and Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) have all endorsed the document, and it is likely to have a major impact on museums with remains in their collections.
The history of this document is relatively well known. In July 2000 the prime ministers of the UK and Australia made a joint declaration agreeing to increase efforts to repatriate human remains held in UK museums to Australian indigenous communities.
This declaration came at a time when in New Zealand, Australia and North America substantial progress had been made in repatriating remains from museum collections but it was still an area that UK museums were only beginning to consider.
The other driving force for change were the revelations from Alder Hey hospital, Liverpool, where large numbers of organs had been retained from the dead without the consent of relatives. In response, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) sponsored the 2003 Palmer report and the Human Tissue Act was passed in 2004.
The Human Tissue Act deals specifically with remains from people who have been dead for less than 100 years and makes consent a fundamental principle. Remains can only be retained and used with the consent of the dead person (given when alive or in a will) or their immediate relatives.
It also requires those institutions holding human remains under 100 years old to be licensed. Under section 47 of the act, nine named national museums are allowed to legally deaccession human remains from their collections. This overcomes a major barrier to repatriation for nationals.
The Palmer report recommended a consent-based regime for ancient and historic human remains; a licensing system for institutions that held remains; a national advisory panel for dealing with repatriation claims; and written guidance for museums.
The last of these recommendations is realised in the Guidance for the Care of Human Remains in Museums. This provides national museums covered by section 47 of the Human Tissue Act, and all other institutions holding 'historic' human remains, with expert advice on the standards they should adopt for the curation of remains and how they should deal with any requests for the repatriation of remains.
The guidance does not use consent as a guiding principle, nor does it recommend a national advisory panel or licensing. I think this is the right decision at this time. It was considered consent was inappropriate for remains of over 100 years old where the specific views of the person concerned are unknown. Licensing and a formal advisory panel were viewed as potentially both too bureaucratic and too expensive.
Instead the guidance places the onus on individual museums to operate in an ethical and legal manner; to state publicly what human remains they hold and why; to strive for the highest standards in curating remains; and, if requests for return are made, to make decisions on a case-by-case basis, operating within a stated framework openly, constructively and transparently.
The guidance recognises the value of human remains to museum collections but also the rights of individuals and communities to ask for the return of certain remains. This approach was widely accepted when the consultation draft document was made available.
To accompany the guidance, specialist expertise will be available to smaller museums from the DCMS. It is also possible that in time the MLA will consider making adherence to the guidelines a stipulation of its accreditation system.
Proportionality is recognised in the guidance; museum human remains collections vary in size and nature. In effect museums will be able to place different relative weightings on different aspects of it. While this is appropriate, it also makes museums responsible for working to the spirit of the guidance.
When developing the guidance it was quickly apparent that museums with scientific, ethnographic, medical and archaeological collections think about human remains and relationships with indigenous peoples in different ways.
The sector must step outside these boundaries and instead adopt common standards and share common ethical frameworks. The new guidance will assist this process. Calls for the return of human remains by indigenous peoples will increase and intensify.
Potentially the public will take a keener interest in why museums hold human remains and how they are treated. In all of this the status quo is not an option. The guidance will help museums contextualise and deal with this interest, but it will depend on individual museums embracing the spirit of the guidance, not just its methods.
It is still anathema to some museum staff to consider 'giving up' collections, especially when their fate is unclear. But there are extremely strong grounds for some indigenous peoples to want to correct the wrongs of the past and have their dead returned.
It is also the case that some museums hold human remains without having a clear reason for doing so. The evidence from North America, Australia and New Zealand is that, after an initial period of tension, an open dialogue brings long-term benefits to museums and indigenous peoples.
Inevitably, following on as it does from spoliation, the guidance on human remains will lead to questions about the fate of other material for which there might be claims. It would be a much-diminished world if museums only collected and displayed objects from a 'home' culture.
Museums should continue to communicate knowledge about world cultures and world peoples. But museums must change how they think about this and start sharing ownership and control.
Ideally the guidance will have support from across the sector and be seen as a step forward in the process by which museums evolve during the 21st century. But by publishing the guidance the stakes have been raised. To continue to ignore indigenous communities or treat their views as secondary is no longer acceptable.
Hedley Swain is the head of department, London history and collections, at the Museum of London
Last month the government published Guidance for the Care of Human Remains In Museums. The Museums Association, National Museum Directors' Conference and Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) have all endorsed the document, and it is likely to have a major impact on museums with remains in their collections.
The history of this document is relatively well known. In July 2000 the prime ministers of the UK and Australia made a joint declaration agreeing to increase efforts to repatriate human remains held in UK museums to Australian indigenous communities.
This declaration came at a time when in New Zealand, Australia and North America substantial progress had been made in repatriating remains from museum collections but it was still an area that UK museums were only beginning to consider.
The other driving force for change were the revelations from Alder Hey hospital, Liverpool, where large numbers of organs had been retained from the dead without the consent of relatives. In response, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) sponsored the 2003 Palmer report and the Human Tissue Act was passed in 2004.
The Human Tissue Act deals specifically with remains from people who have been dead for less than 100 years and makes consent a fundamental principle. Remains can only be retained and used with the consent of the dead person (given when alive or in a will) or their immediate relatives.
It also requires those institutions holding human remains under 100 years old to be licensed. Under section 47 of the act, nine named national museums are allowed to legally deaccession human remains from their collections. This overcomes a major barrier to repatriation for nationals.
The Palmer report recommended a consent-based regime for ancient and historic human remains; a licensing system for institutions that held remains; a national advisory panel for dealing with repatriation claims; and written guidance for museums.
The last of these recommendations is realised in the Guidance for the Care of Human Remains in Museums. This provides national museums covered by section 47 of the Human Tissue Act, and all other institutions holding 'historic' human remains, with expert advice on the standards they should adopt for the curation of remains and how they should deal with any requests for the repatriation of remains.
The guidance does not use consent as a guiding principle, nor does it recommend a national advisory panel or licensing. I think this is the right decision at this time. It was considered consent was inappropriate for remains of over 100 years old where the specific views of the person concerned are unknown. Licensing and a formal advisory panel were viewed as potentially both too bureaucratic and too expensive.
Instead the guidance places the onus on individual museums to operate in an ethical and legal manner; to state publicly what human remains they hold and why; to strive for the highest standards in curating remains; and, if requests for return are made, to make decisions on a case-by-case basis, operating within a stated framework openly, constructively and transparently.
The guidance recognises the value of human remains to museum collections but also the rights of individuals and communities to ask for the return of certain remains. This approach was widely accepted when the consultation draft document was made available.
To accompany the guidance, specialist expertise will be available to smaller museums from the DCMS. It is also possible that in time the MLA will consider making adherence to the guidelines a stipulation of its accreditation system.
Proportionality is recognised in the guidance; museum human remains collections vary in size and nature. In effect museums will be able to place different relative weightings on different aspects of it. While this is appropriate, it also makes museums responsible for working to the spirit of the guidance.
When developing the guidance it was quickly apparent that museums with scientific, ethnographic, medical and archaeological collections think about human remains and relationships with indigenous peoples in different ways.
The sector must step outside these boundaries and instead adopt common standards and share common ethical frameworks. The new guidance will assist this process. Calls for the return of human remains by indigenous peoples will increase and intensify.
Potentially the public will take a keener interest in why museums hold human remains and how they are treated. In all of this the status quo is not an option. The guidance will help museums contextualise and deal with this interest, but it will depend on individual museums embracing the spirit of the guidance, not just its methods.
It is still anathema to some museum staff to consider 'giving up' collections, especially when their fate is unclear. But there are extremely strong grounds for some indigenous peoples to want to correct the wrongs of the past and have their dead returned.
It is also the case that some museums hold human remains without having a clear reason for doing so. The evidence from North America, Australia and New Zealand is that, after an initial period of tension, an open dialogue brings long-term benefits to museums and indigenous peoples.
Inevitably, following on as it does from spoliation, the guidance on human remains will lead to questions about the fate of other material for which there might be claims. It would be a much-diminished world if museums only collected and displayed objects from a 'home' culture.
Museums should continue to communicate knowledge about world cultures and world peoples. But museums must change how they think about this and start sharing ownership and control.
Ideally the guidance will have support from across the sector and be seen as a step forward in the process by which museums evolve during the 21st century. But by publishing the guidance the stakes have been raised. To continue to ignore indigenous communities or treat their views as secondary is no longer acceptable.
Hedley Swain is the head of department, London history and collections, at the Museum of London
