Relational Curatorship and the Pragmatic Meanings of African Collections at Manchester MuseuM: Njabulo CHIPANGURA
READING GROUP RECAP
On 19 June 2026, the Natureculture Lab Reading Group welcomed Njabulo Chipangura, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the Maynooth University and former curator at Manchester Museum, for a thought-provoking discussion on museums, colonial legacies, and the ethics of care.
Drawing on his research in anthropology, museum studies, and heritage studies, including his work on provenance research and the colonial histories embedded within museum collections, Chipangura explored how ethnographic museums holding African collections are confronting the enduring consequences of colonialism. His presentation moved beyond familiar debates on restitution and repatriation, asking a more fundamental question: What are museums for, and whom do they serve? The session explored how museums might move beyond their role as repositories of objects toward becoming spaces of dialogue, collaboration, and relational care. The discussion was grounded in the readings by Chipangura and Motsane (2025), Community Collaborations and Social Biographies of Museum Collections from Colonial Contexts: Meanings of Zulu Beadwork, and Modest and Augustat (2023), Spaces of Care: Introduction, which examine how museums can confront colonial afterlives through practices of participation, responsibility, and shared authority.
A central theme of the presentation was the inseparability of colonial collections from the histories of violence, dispossession, and unequal power relations that produced them. Referring to the aftermath of the 1884–85 Berlin Conference, during which African territories were divided among European colonial powers, Chipangura emphasized that many museum collections emerged through processes of conquest, coercion, and colonial extraction. Objects collected during colonial rule often remain catalogued primarily through the names of collectors, while the identities of the communities who created, used, and cared for them are obscured or absent. In many museums, objects continue to be classified through broad categories such as “Africa,” erasing the continent’s immense cultural, linguistic, and historical diversity. Chipangura argued that this is not simply a problem of incomplete documentation, but an epistemological issue. Museum collections often continue to reproduce colonial systems of knowledge by privileging institutional authority over the knowledge and experiences of originating communities.
One of the most compelling aspects of the discussion was Chipangura’s challenge to the category of the “object” itself. Many materials held in ethnographic museums are not inert things but participants in living cultural worlds. They may hold spiritual significance, ancestral relationships, social agency, or ritual meanings that cannot be separated from the communities and practices that sustain them. Through examples ranging from sacred objects to ceremonial drums, Chipangura highlighted how objects can lose meaning when removed from the relationships that give them life. A drum, for example, is not simply a material artifact valued for its physical characteristics; it produces meaning, participates in social and ritual worlds, and sustains relationships within communities. Similarly, at Manchester Museum, human remains are approached not as anthropological specimens but as ancestors. This distinction shifts the focus away from ownership and preservation alone and toward questions of respect, responsibility, and care.
Chipangura also revisited the history of anthropology and ethnographic museums, particularly the legacy of salvage anthropology — the belief that Indigenous cultures were disappearing and that their material heritage needed to be collected and preserved by Western institutions. From this perspective, collecting was often framed as a form of care. Yet Chipangura invited us to question whether removing objects from communities, separating them from their contexts, and placing them within museum collections can genuinely be understood as care. While museums preserved material objects, they often contributed to the disruption of relationships, practices, and forms of knowledge that made those objects meaningful. This critique resonates with contemporary debates in critical heritage studies and conservation, where attention is increasingly shifting from preserving objects alone toward sustaining relationships and living practices.
The discussion also addressed the case of the Benin Bronzes, one of the most prominent examples in contemporary restitution debates. Chipangura emphasized that these objects were not acquired through neutral processes of collecting, but through colonial violence, particularly the British invasion of Benin in 1897. Similar histories characterize many museum collections worldwide, where military force, coercion, and unequal relations of power shaped the movement of cultural heritage into European institutions. While repatriation remains a crucial question — the “elephant in the room” — Chipangura suggested that it should not be understood as the only response to colonial collections. Equally important are questions of representation, interpretation, authority, and participation: who has the right to interpret collections, and whose knowledge is recognized?
At the heart of Chipangura’s presentation was the concept of relational curatorship. Rather than positioning curators as experts who speak on behalf of communities, relational curatorship understands communities as partners and co-producers of knowledge. It is based on dialogue, reciprocity, and shared authority. This approach connects with the African philosophical concept of Ubuntu — “I am because we are” — emphasizing that knowledge emerges through relationships rather than through isolated expertise. In this model, curators become facilitators and custodians rather than owners or ultimate authorities. Chipangura described this shift as one of curatorial humility: an acknowledgment that museums do not possess all forms of expertise and that communities hold essential knowledge about the histories, meanings, and relationships connected to collections.
A particularly inspiring example came from Chipangura’s work with diaspora communities from Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Tanzania, and South Africa. Community members were invited into museum collections to engage with objects through memories, stories, sensory experiences, and shared interpretations. These encounters transformed the museum from a repository of objects into what anthropologist James Clifford described as a contact zone — a space where different histories, perspectives, and forms of knowledge meet. Chipangura illustrated this approach through his work with Zulu beadwork. Historical photographs and museum collections were brought back into conversation with communities, who contributed memories, interpretations, and cultural knowledge. The resulting exhibition was collaboratively produced, allowing communities to shape how their heritage was represented. This example demonstrated how museums can enact forms of restitution even when physical repatriation is not immediately possible. Equal participation, shared authority, and meaningful collaboration become practices of care in themselves.
Perhaps one of the most significant contributions of the session was the expansion of the concept of care. Museums, Chipangura suggested, should not care only for objects. They must also care for stories, communities, relationships, and futures. Care becomes an ethical orientation that extends beyond conservation toward social responsibility. This perspective aligns with broader transformations in museum studies, where museums are increasingly understood not as neutral repositories of knowledge but as institutions capable of addressing historical injustices, fostering dialogue, and creating more equitable relationships.
Njabulo Chipangura’s presentation offered a powerful challenge to conventional understandings of museums, collections, and conservation. By foregrounding relationality, humility, and community participation, he invited us to reconsider what — and whom — we are caring for when we preserve cultural heritage.
For those working across conservation, heritage, and natureculture studies, the session highlighted a crucial shift: from caring for objects alone toward caring for relationships.In this vision, museums cease to be institutions that simply hold collections. They become spaces of encounter, dialogue, and care — places where heritage remains alive because the communities connected to it remain present.