Indigenous Futures: Towards Policy on Ancestral Remains in the Netherlands

Date: 12-13 May, 2026
Time: 10:00-17:00
Location: Wereldmuseum Leiden
Organisation: Wereldmuseum Leiden, Research Center for Material Culture, Colonial Collections Consortium.
Language: English

Together with members of the Colonial Collections Consortium, Wereldmuseum Leiden and Research Center for Material Culture are organizing an international workshop to contribute to policy frameworks on the repatriation/rematriation and handling of ancestral remains in the Netherlands. Because of the way in which ancestral remains entered museum collections, developing a national policy framework necessitates centering the perspectives of Indigenous and formerly colonized people. This workshop brings together theory and policy input, to understand current policy frameworks in other localities and contemporary (institutional) restitution practices to develop a more comprehensive national policy shaped by Indigenous people from across the world.

How might a policy look when we foreground the lived realities and voices of those past and presence whose lives were most affected by colonial and post-colonial practices of collecting, researching displaying human and ancestral remains in museums and other heritage institutions? Should ancestral remains “acquired” under colonial situations be researched or exhibited within museums today? And how might policies embed Indigenous struggles for self-determination and sovereignty in their framework? These are only some of the questions that this workshop focuses on. More information about the workshop is available below.