Podcast for Muesems

Museum ethics are a code of values that museums must follow. They include providing public access to museums without discrimination, ensuring accurate information and research, and working in partnership with communities. The Chicago Field Museum follows these ethics and collects items in a non-invasive manner. Controversies in museum ethics include the British Museum holding mummies, Nazi stolen artwork, and religious artifacts. Reparations for looted artifacts are a topic of debate, with some arguing that artifacts should be returned to their country of origin and others claiming that museums can better protect them. France has passed a bill allowing African artifacts to be returned, while the British Museum is barred from returning artifacts. The issue is complex and raises questions about cultural preservation and access. Hello and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I am Michael Scarpelli. I'm here with my co-hosts Ethan Nooner and Ari Salgado. Today we are talking about museum ethics, what they are, the various artifacts that museums hold, and the ethics behind holding mummies and other religious remains. Before we get into the thick of it, this episode is kind of not really sponsored by a coffee company I tried, which is very ironic for this episode, Mummy Coffee Company, where you can get premium coffee for a low price. Museum ethics are a code of values in which a museum abides by. A key ethic listed by the American Alliance of Museums is that museums must be a good steward of its resources. Museums have a formally approved and separate and distinct institutional code of ethics. The Museum Association lists their code of ethics into subsections such as public engagement, public benefit, stewardship of collections, and individual and institutional integrity. The first section says that the way a museum maintains public engagement and benefit is to provide public access to and meaningful engagement with museums, collections, and information about collections without discrimination. They must ensure editorial integrity and programming and interpretation, resist attempts to influence interpretation or content by particular interest groups, including lenders, donors, and funders, support free speech and freedom of expression. They must respect the right of all to express different views within the museums unless illegal to do so or inconsistent with the purpose of the museum as an inclusive public space. They must ensure that information and research presented or generated by the museum is accurate. They must take steps to minimize and balance bias in research undertaken by the museum, and they must acknowledge publicly that the museum benefits from all those who have contributed to the making, meaning, and presence in the museum of its collections. They must work in partnership with communities, audiences, potential audiences, and supporters of the museum. They must ensure that everyone has the opportunity for meaningful participation in the work of the museum. The rest of their page goes into very similar detail about the many subfields there are. Moreover, a popular museum that's close to the three of us here, the Chicago Field Museum, follows the AAM's rules along with their own personal rules. One of these rules is collecting items in a non-invasive manner. They have to inquire about the history and origin of the items that they acquire and having most of all, most-all of their collection open to the public or library. And then some very famous controversies within museum ethics are the British Museum because they did some stuff, some mummies, and Nazi stolen artwork, and also various religious artifacts. These controversies will be extrapolated, as Ethan once said, later in the episode. So generally guys, like, what do you think? Are there any extra areas? Do you think this covers, like, everything for ethics? Like, what do you-what do you guys think? I definitely think that, like, a movement for the ethics of museums to, like, be better has been more so recently. And we'll definitely get into it, I think. I honestly don't really have anything to add there. But I do think that was a quite, maybe just a little bit congested, you think, just for our listeners, if you could pinpoint the most important aspects of what you just talked about. Yeah, so myself personally, I feel like the Chicago Field Museum does a really great job on the non-invasive manner, and then inquiring about the history and origins of items that the museum acquires, and then also making sure it's open to the public. I've been inside the museum, the Field Museum, and I've seen a lot of the stuff that they even have underground. They'll show you, and I've always thought that that's pretty cool. So, all right, segwaying into some concrete examples. We can consider a lot of the artifacts which are displayed in museums that happen to be religious or relate to a specific culture in some way or another. This is used in a multitude of examples. We see this in Nazi-stolen artwork during World War II. A lot of these paintings are displayed in museums, artwork stolen during colonial invasions, or taken through manipulation. A prime example of this is of the Benin Bronzes, a group of sculptures which are world-renowned in their ability to communicate aspects of the culture of the Kingdom of Benin. These sculptures were looted during a British colonial invasion of Benin and have been held captive, one might say, in the British Museum. Another situation involving Britain involves an Indian object originating... Okay, I'm just going to have to cut that. Another similar situation also involves Britain. An Indian originating object, the Khornor Diamond, which had circulated through East slash Southern Asian dynasties, eventually ending up in the hands of Sikhimarajaranjit Singh, a Punjabi official in the early 1800s. Following his death in 1839, Britain's company coerced the successor, a 12-year-old Dhanjip Singh, to surrender the jewel. Under its independence, India requested the jewel back two times, both of which went unfulfilled. These examples are not only limited to the British Museum, though. Examples of these situations are quite common. There are examples from all around the world. Take, for example, an object that was taken in 1847 from Indonesia. A deceased soldier clutched an ornate dagger, known as a kris, considered a spiritual object in Bali. This dagger was taken by a German soldier and held in the king's art room for tens of years. More recently, though, German officials have presented the dagger in Bali, Indonesia, where King of Klongkun Aida Dewa Anggun Istri Kanya, but he didn't want it. He claimed he felt no connection to it any longer. This presents an interesting dichotomy of two possibilities. Artifacts which are wanted back, and artifacts which are not wanted back. Another issue to consider, which is slightly more personalized, considers Nazi stolen artifacts. Estimates say that around 650,000 pieces of art were looted by Nazi during World War Two. Primarily, these were paintings. These paintings went on to find their way into museums, and now just a few of them are being returned to their rightful owners, or at least descendants of them. This area is a little less contentious than the Benin Bronzes issue, because it's obvious that Nazi looted art should be returned as it was clearly wrongfully taken. That's not to say that the Benin Bronzes were rightfully taken, though. Regarding this area of museum ethics, we do hear a lot about reparations. One common argument against reparations is that antiques should go to the institutions best equipped to handle the responsibilities of protecting and preserving them. The British imperial system, according to defenders of the United Kingdom's possessions of looted artifacts, has kept millions of artifacts safe from theft and destruction in wars. However, state-of-the-art museums have emerged in countries such as Greece and Nigeria, both of which have a cultural patrimony residing in the British Museum. Another argument follows a slippery slope. Giving one artifact back will lead to having to give all of them back, since countries will demand everything returned. But do all artifacts belong in their country of origin, or do only some? Who gets to decide, and how should they? Some countries are moving forward with reparations. Consider France. France passed a bill in 2020 which would allow African artifacts to be returned, something we've considered, though. Was this an act of good faith, or was it a strategic political move done in hopes of strengthening the relations of two major economic trading partners? Britain, on the other hand, is barred from returning looted artifacts under the British Museum Act of 1963. Additionally, the British government has stated that it is not planning to amend those laws to allow reparation. The closest the government has come to anything involving reparations is adopting a retain and explain policy, where contested artifacts are on display, but contextualized, and the British Museum announced in 2021 that it would lend key artifacts on a long-term basis, yet none of these options are full transferrals of ownerships to an artifact's country of origin. Considering this, I'll open the floor up to you guys. What do we think about reparations? What do we think about the British Museum claiming that it should own these objects because it's protecting them? Thoughts? I feel if there is a genuine need to protect, like there are certain countries where it is realistic that a bomb might go through and ruin that artifact, and I feel like protecting that artifact is crucial. That's something that we've started doing since the late 1800s-ish, is protecting artifacts. However, there are a lot of places where that's not happening, and the British and other countries and other museums have artifacts in those places where that's not happening. I feel like those artifacts should be given back. Agreed. Agreed. I also don't think that people need to be punished because they don't have resources. If you don't have the resources to protect an artifact and you still feel like it belongs and it has a huge cultural significance to you, then you should have it at the end of the day. In my opinion, it's a contentious issue. There are some situations, as Michael said, where an artifact does need to be protected, and there are other artifacts where they don't, but it really is a question of how much do we want to spread these artifacts across the world? Because if every culture has possession of their specific artifacts, maybe people across the world will never be able to be exposed to those cultures, and that has a lot of implications that should definitely be considered. There's also been a lot of situations where museums have been like, hey, do you want this? We can give it back to you. Those specific people have been like, oh, you can have it. It's okay. I would rather have it on display. I think that a lot of the times, if museums had been ethical since the beginning, there would never be an issue with, oh, we're not going to have enough artifacts in our museum. Even then, a lot of the time, that respect goes a long way and lets for that culture and that museum to be able to move forward and be able to feel like they're being honored more so than watch some kind of zoo animal. Agreed. Segueing to another portion of museum ethics, and this portion mainly considers religion and culture a little more so. Many objects today in museums do represent the history of religious stories. There are plenty of artifacts which could be considered ... Okay, I'm going to cut that. Yeah, yeah, I'm going to cut it a lot. Don't worry. Is it? Do you think it's going to pick it up? I think it'll be fine. All right, I'm just going to start from the top. Another important aspect of museum ethics to consider originates from a religious cultural standpoint. While many objects in museums today represent the history of religious stories, there are plenty of artifacts which could be considered belonging to their original cultures. Do statues and depictions of Mary and Jesus belong in museums around the world, or should they remain in the churches in which they originate? Chalices, baptismal rows, hats, things which could still be potentially used in proceedings around the world. There's a challenging situation ... Okay, I'm just going to cut this because now I'm realizing it just sounds dumb. I'm going to skip straight to this point. I apologize. Okay. Segueing to a different portion of museum ethics, something that's a little more in the field, if you will, there are many communities around the world which still adhere to traditional values. Consider, for example, the monastery of Mount Athos in Greece. In situations like these, traditional communities are pressured by the government, economic incentive, or local efforts to open their doors and essentially share their practices and traditions with anyone willing. Specifically in Mount Athos, the monks feared museumification, a term which defines the loss of traditional values, culture, and practice to the idea of creating a museum around the group. While this may result in the solidification of history and proof that the group exists for many years to come, it may serve as a means to lessen local impact, putting a higher focus on monetary gain. Bringing up my next point, touristification. This was another fear of the monks, and similar to museumification, touristification is a term which defines an introduction of foreign travelers to, for example, Mount Athos. In the same way as museumification, this may expose people to the monks' practices that have never even considered them, but it may also violate the monks and their culture. Do you have a segue? I think that definitely museums can have a way of simplifying things and making it seem like, oh, it's something for us to be okay, like to be involved with and that's okay, and sometimes that's not the case. Like there's certain cultures where it's super, you know, specific to you, like for example, Judaism, like you can't just really convert, it goes through like a family line. And also, I feel like museums usually have a huge part in that, and like they kind of set the bar for like what's okay to be involved in, and they're not really doing a good job. Yeah, I mean, this is like, this is these people's lives. Like in the first part of your segment, Ethan, we talked about how more about things of the past, but this is people's lives. In my opinion, it's a little bit different because these people are living, they're practicing, doesn't matter what religion they're, like these are living people. So I think that becomes a little bit, it creates a different argument, and I agree with you Ari. Like museums make it seem a little bit more okay because it's for museum purposes. However, I think, like I said, these are living people. I feel like that shouldn't be okay. Right, right. Moving on to mummies and human remains on display. The idea of human remains on display has been a controversial thing for a very long time. For some people, it was the thought about how mummies were displayed in a really awful way that actually didn't preserve them at all. And some people just couldn't get over the fact that it was human remains. A lot of mummies were just dug up with no permission, and most, if not all human remains we find in museums come from colonialism and imperialism. People make the argument that it's for science, but destroying the actual sites makes studying them worse, as well as the conditions mummies are usually displayed in can destroy them. Others, like using the argument that these remains belong to old and ancient cultures. I think this is dehumanizing, also not true at all. In the 1980s, indigenous people had to fight for Native American Graves Protections and Reparations. In the 1980s, indigenous people had to fight for the Native American Graves Protections and Reparations Act of 1990, which didn't get fully recognized until 2007, which is extremely recent. The act allowed for Native Americans to ask for their family's bodies back. This could be somebody's grandparent being sold and traded through museums. For example, the New York Museum held an exhibition of dug up slaves from the Manhattan Cemetery of 1903. This isn't a rare occurrence either. They had remains from early 20th century German Southwest Africa. They had remains from the early 20th century German Southwest Africa genocide. The issue lies with museums not caring to cut that out. Any thoughts on this? I am honestly shocked to hear of the exhibition of dug up slaves in Manhattan. I had never heard of that. I think it falls under the same premises of displaying mummies and other forms of human remains. For me, I would never want one of my ancestors to be displayed in a museum, even if it is for scientific purpose. With mummies from Egypt, that's a challenging situation. That is an incredible feat of, I don't even know what you would call it, human medical technology and engineering. Preservation. Preservation, yeah. I do think that that deserves to be celebrated around the world, but in the form that some museums are doing it today, it is sort of uncomfortable. Yeah. In certain places, it's surprising to see. When I went to the Vatican and I saw mummies, I was a little confused because I was in the Vatican. Personally, when I was a younger child, I thought it was cool going and seeing. You grow up and you realize those are actual dead people from thousands of years ago. It just becomes a little weird. Also, I feel like something we see across cultures that is very significant is burials of dead people. Just the idea that people had to go to these burials and dig up bodies, it's like, how many years have to pass for you to make it feel like it's okay? Even then, we see now that it doesn't really matter how many years because there's still things happening. In one of the articles I read, there was this woman who was actually looking for her grandfather. She's indigenous. She had to go through a bunch of museums and just basically look for him in museums, which I think is absolutely horrifying. Again, 2007, that's not very far from us. That's when we actually recognized that Native people were allowed to have their deceased ancestors with them. I think considering that story, on a more personal level, we do have a mummy here at the College of Worcester in Ebert, I believe it is. After listening to this podcast, if you are a Worcester student, it might be worth going to check the mummy out and then considering it with a perspective such as the one just mentioned. Yeah. I don't remember the story on exactly how we got that mummy, but ultimately, we're in Worcester. I feel like the mummy isn't here from ... We didn't lease it out from Egypt. At the Chicago Field Museum, I remember when they had King Tut's tomb and all the artifacts that came along with that. The Chicago Field Museum really had to fight for that, and they had to lease that out. I think that kind of changes it, not the actual mummy piece, but more the artifacts that came with it because they leased it out from Egypt and whatever museum that was stored in previously. I feel like that kind of changes that whole game a little bit, but yeah. I'm pretty sure we did try to give it back, but they were like, we don't want it. You can have it, as far as I'm aware. Doesn't make the initial action right, obviously. Also, going on with the fight for human remains to be given back, a lot of the times museums still do not want to give human remains back, which I think is a whole different story than artifacts. Obviously, still, both are wrong, but that's insane. It's like, I'm holding your grandparent's body, and I don't want to give it back to you. Yeah, it's kind of an absurd situation when you think about it from a really logical standpoint. Also, a main reason why we displayed bodies in museums was to show that being white was a superior race and to look at these black and brown bodies and be like, they're not as good as white bodies. I think remembering that is also a huge part of it, because if you go into a museum, you'll usually see, again, black and indigenous bodies being displayed. We don't really question that. Why is there only people of color remains in museums? Why can't we see Thomas Jefferson on display? What makes him different than a chief of a tribe? Yeah, I think that's an important factor to bring up. A lot of sciences, and I guess a lot of everything, originated from racist practices. I heard a story about how geography, the science of geography, started from a racist standpoint of kind of... I'm just going to actually cut that out, because I can't remember exactly what the person said, but it is important to consider the sciences and the museums from a racial standpoint and understand how equality can play in here. Anything to add? Not particularly. I think you guys covered that. Also, I feel like a lot of the reason why human remains and artifacts are controversial, and keeping them in museums rather than giving them back, is because it kind of makes newer history feel like older history, if that makes sense. At least growing up, I'm Native American. Growing up reading USA Native American history, I personally thought it was a historical thing. These people don't exist anymore, which is crazy, because I'm indigenous myself. And I think it plays a huge part in just making it feel like it's old history when it's not at all. And even then, it's still good to recognize that it matters and still plays a huge part of our society. Yeah, I think considering all perspectives, especially in a museum ethics situation, is of the utmost importance, especially in today's world. You can cut out this blank spot. And yeah, that kind of draws back to the Chicago Field Museum's portion where they say, you inquire about the history and origin of the items. You got to know where they're from, who they are. I feel like that just draws full circle. Mm hmm. Well, drawing full circle, if nobody else has anything else to say, I think that's a pretty good ending point here on our podcast of museum ethics. We appreciate you for listening in today.