Behind the Headlines | Returning Remains: Context, Consent, and Colonialism

Recorded February 21, 2023 Global conversations centred on custodianship and care of historic human remains provide the focus for the Trinity Long Room Hub’s latest Behind the Headlines discussion, which highlights the complexities and tensions surrounding the retention or reburial of human remains. As many international news sites have recently reported, Trinity College Dublin is currently working with inhabitants of Inishbofin Island to address the potential return of remains taken from the island in 1890 and stored for more than a century on campus. In this panel chaired by Dr Ciaran O'Neill from Trinity’s School of Histories and Humanities, we hear from Dr Olof Ljungström, the Head of Department at the Karolinska Institute (Stockholm); Peggy King Jorde, the activist behind New York City's African Burial Ground; Prof Samuel Redman, author of Bone Rooms (2016); and Evi Numen, the Curator for the Old Anatomy Museum at Trinity College Dublin. They hope to situate this case in a broader philosophical, moral, and cultural context, and to learn from four experts who will reflect on their own experience of negotiating questions of repatriation in the museum and university sectors. Learn more at: https://www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub/