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SUMMARY:Unveiling the curtain with ukubuyisa or go lata: complicated roles
  of museums and nation states in the cultural repatriation discourse and p
 ractice in southern Africa - Dr Siyakha Mguni\, Senior Lecturer - Universi
 ty of Cape Town
DTSTART:20260507T160000Z
DTEND:20260507T170000Z
UID:TALK246403@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Tohamy Abulgasim
DESCRIPTION:Repatriation\, the act of returning cultural objects to their 
 communities or countries of origin\, has become a focal point in global he
 ritage discourse. In recent decades\, the question of restitution has beco
 me one of the most visible contestations of our times confronting museums 
 and nation states in southern Africa. Globally\, institutions that once de
 fined themselves as universal repositories of human culture are increasing
 ly pressured to return certain categories of cultural objects acquired dur
 ing the colonial period or through unethical forms of extraction. With gov
 ernments leading the diplomatic negotiations of returns\, and museums taki
 ng stock of their possessions and reassessing their future roles\, indigen
 ous communities are increasingly becoming aware of their moral duty and au
 thority to assert their rights to their ancestral heritages. One difficult
 y with repatriation concerns the opaque provenance\, contexts\, and histor
 ies of many of these contested objects in museum collections. This present
 ation explores some cases of international repatriation and intra-national
  restitution to indigenous communities\, and the growing importance of dig
 ital technologies and databases in preserving cultural materiality. Using 
 a parallel indigenous notion of ukubuyisa (Nguni word) or go lata (Sotho-T
 swana word)\, which is a widespread cultural practice among southern Afric
 an Bantu-speaking people meaning to ‘bring home the spirit of a deceased
  person’\, it critically examines the oft-unenlightened treatment of the
  intersection between tangible and intangible assemblages of materiality i
 n restitution practice. This relates especially to complexities of indigen
 ous cosmological beliefs concerning the spiritual dimensions of repatriate
 d materials\, challenging the primacy of diplomatic agreements and legal f
 rameworks through which these returns are negotiated and executed\, and th
 e elevated agency of museums as surrogate acquirers\, interpreters\, exhib
 itors\, and even authorised ‘disposers’\, of returned objects and coll
 ections. Ukubuyisa or go lata signals that the focus and weight of repatri
 ation is not necessarily so much on the physical materiality of the herita
 ge object as it is on its immaterial attributes. In this practice\, it is 
 the invisible essences—the soulical character of the object or being tha
 t animated its former mediatory role—and not the outward visible form th
 at is at stake. This view has important implications for the increasing us
 efulness and proliferation of digital materiality in heritage preservation
  and presentation. Accordingly\, the talk ends with the examination of the
  adequacy of digital surrogating\, and asks whether a reconfigured\, digit
 ally empowered museum institution—supported by a new heritage covenant b
 etween the Global North and Global South centring indigenous knowledge\, c
 oncepts\, and principles—can forge a more just\, moral\, and inclusive f
 uture for heritage collections along with their associated layers of power
  and information. Can traditional museums reconfigure their transformative
  influence through big data and digitisation initiatives to drive an indig
 enous-powered philosophical shift in how restitution\, access\, and stewar
 dship can be understood and accomplished?\n\nDr Siyakha Mguni bio: \n\nDr 
 Siyakha Mguni holds a PhD in Archaeology from the University of Cape Town 
 and is currently Senior Lecturer at the Michaelis School of Fine Art\, Uni
 versity of Cape Town. His research focuses on San rock art\, Khoe and San 
 cosmology and the study of hunter-gatherer visual heritage through archive
 s\, orality\, and ethnography. He has authored two well-received books\, T
 ermites of the gods: San cosmology in southern African rock art and Archiv
 al theory\, chronology and interpretation of rock art in the Western Cape\
 , South Africa and published articles in international journals\, among th
 em Antiquity\, Current Anthropology\, Cambridge Archaeological Journal\, J
 ournal of Social Archaeology\, South African Archaeological Bulletin\, and
  Azania. In 2006\, he won the Ben Cullen Prize from Antiquity. Dr Mguni co
 ntributes to research partnerships in southern Africa\, Europe\, Asia\, an
 d the US. Beyond academia\, he has curated exhibitions at both national an
 d international levels. Working closely with communities on local heritage
  initiatives and public archaeology activities\, he has featured in global
  media\, such as CNN and the BBC among others. He brings African perspecti
 ves and indigenous knowledge systems into contemporary discussions on art\
 , archives\, curatorship\, and cultural heritage.
LOCATION:McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research Seminar Room
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