Event date:
Thursday 21 June to Friday 22 June
Time:
13:00
Location:
Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, 2 Hope Park Square
Dr Megan Ward (Oregon State University / IASH Fellow): Imperial Collections: A Scottish missionary, a Bemba chief, and the Scramble for Africa
Abstract: Why did Scottish missionaries to Africa bring back thousands of items at the end of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries? And what drove - and continues to drive - the preservation of these items? This talk explores the collecting practices that informed colonial missionary work and proposes that those practices continue to shape these objects' current preservation. Protecting cultural heritage items against degeneration creates their value in the present and shapes the way we imagine possible futures.