Keepers of the bones: when museums disagree

A report from London, via the Art Newspaper:

A report to the government on the question of human remains in museum collections has revealed fundamental differences between the Natural History Museum (NHM) and the rest of the working group, which included the British Museum (BM). Sir Neil Chalmers, NHM director, added an eight-page “statement of dissent”, resisting what he fears is the threat of mandatory repatriation. BM ethnography keeper John Mack accepted the report. It is unusual for national museums to have fundamentally different approaches on an issue of such ethical importance. . .

The main thrust of the report is that museums should not retain human remains without the consent of close relatives of the deceased, where these can be identified. More controvertially, it also calls for consent where those “within the deceased person’s own religion or culture [have] a status or responsibility comparable to that of close family”. This was the majority view of the working group, but some members disagreed about repatriation requested by non-family members.

In his statement, Sir Neil points to his own fundamental areas of dissent. The working group’s recommendations “do not provide a proper balance between the public benefits deriving from medical, scientific and other research on the one hand and the wishes of claimant communities on the other”—it is “slanted heavily in favour of the latter”. Some recommendations are “disproportionately complicated and cumbersome” or even “unworkable”. Sir Neil fears that if the report is implemented, it “would bring all research upon human remains from claimant communities to a halt and would result in their mandatory return to those communities.”

Posted by David on December 10, 2003 9:39 AM