An Anthropology of Colonial Loot: An Exploration into “Sri Lankan” Artefacts in British Museums

Today, in Western metropoles, large museums have come to be seen by many as embodiments of European empires that once were. In the UK, in particular, conversations around the role of museums—especially within the context of increasing demands for restitution—constitute some of the key themes within what many have called the country’s “culture wars”. Existing scholarship has explored the ways museums have been “committed participants” in an Orientalist propaganda project which represented colonised subjects as exotic, inferior beings who needed the “civilising mission” that was European colonialism. Further, today, “looted” museum objects are also sites onto which ethnonationalist fantasies have been projected by those in the postcolony, especially various elite groups that reside there. These discourses on restitution often position such objects as missing elements of long lost “authentic” heritage. Within a context in which the objects themselves predate the “invention” of the postcolonial nation-state, such discourses on authenticity also belie various forms of exclusion. While existing literature has long considered questions of colonialism and coloniality, the majority of postcolonial theory, especially texts that are considered foundational to the field, has focused on analysing colonial and postcolonial literary and archival texts. This research began, instead, with the conviction that returning to some of those sites which engaged in Orientalist propaganda could be a starting point for post/decolonial theoretical and historical work. The work in the Fellowship builds on the findings and analyses of my doctoral research which considered a series of artefacts with relationships to Sri Lanka which are currently housed in, or have historically been housed in 13 museums and collecting institutions across England and Scotland. The Fellowship will allow me to disseminate the findings of my research and engage with a broad range of stakeholders while developing a unique set of skills. During the Fellowship period, I wish to develop a proposal and a manuscript to publish my thesis in the form of a monograph and a journal article. The contributes to postcolonial theoretical and historical scholarship by drawing attention to how museums are not only sites through which histories and cultures are mediated but also those from which post/decolonial theory can be produced. I also want to publish one photo-essay aimed at a more public audience. Additionally, I wish to conduct two guided tours: first at the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford and the second, at the Colombo National Museum. Each tour will be followed by a workshop exploring the entanglements of histories of the objects considered to contemporary issues and social movements (e.g. in relation to questions of gender, sexuality, caste, migration, neocolonialism and ethnonationalism). Following the event, the participants will produce reflective pieces (e.g. blog posts, photo-essays) to reach a wider audience. The work piloted as part of the Fellowship has the potential to shape how museums and cultural institutions understand "reparation" and engage local communities with their collections. Further, the work also aims to reach organising groups interested in restitution in order to demonstrate the ways their calls for restitution might also reproduce and belie various exclusionary logics. This work is interested in histories that reveal the entanglements between the colonial past and the way we live in the present. Hidden in these stories are clues about how we can leave behind better archaeologies for the future.