Hello! I’m Christina. In addition to being in my last semester of the CCNY Art History/Art Museum Education program, I work in School & Educator Programs at The Met. Working in the field while pursuing my graduate degree over the past several years has been incredibly fruitful, as it has produced a constant exchange between my day-to-day work and the bigger-picture questions I have attempted to tackle in my studies. My thesis project has been no exception! It was through our Educator Programs that I came to develop my topic, which is focused on if and how museum educators facilitate dialogue about object repatriation in tours and programs.
Educators responding to works of art in one of The Met’s African art galleries
My project is actually also indebted to the film Black Panther. The “museum heist” scene, where Killmonger takes African objects back from a museum, inspired the K-12 educators I work with. They wanted to facilitate discussions about object repatriation and restitution—and, in some cases, about Black Panther itself—with their students. As a museum educator, it was my role to provide guidance on how to critically explore this topic, and I wanted to do in a way that still allowed us to examine and engage with the object on its own terms. But I was not sure exactly how to approach it. And it seemed I was not alone: I did not notice many of my fellow educators talking regularly and fluently about repatriation and provenance concerns.
A still image of the “Museum heist” scene in Black Panther.
Which brings me to today: I am collecting data on how museum educators discuss repatriation and provenance concerns with visitors. I’m trying to understand if and how museum educators talk about repatriation. I am asking with which objects, and which visitors, they discuss it, and what barriers they face in doing so. I am also collecting my respondents’ demographic and museum information, so I can track any patterns that arise.
As the data comes in, I’m exploring all the relevant existing scholarship I can find. I am seeking out resources on discussing repatriation, like the UBC Museum of Anthropology’s Teaching Kit and the Repatriation page of the National Museum of the American Indian’s website. I’m also trying to chart how discussions of repatriation fit into larger conversations around decolonization, as practiced by groups like Decolonize This Place and the Decolonial Collective on Migration of Objects and People.
I am hopeful that this research is a first step to help educators facilitate conversations about how and why objects got to museums, and where these objects belong—questions that are fundamental to do the work we do!
