Provenance, Accessibility, Repatriation and Restitution Working Group

The PARR (Provenance, Accessibility, Repatriation and Restitution) Working Group is a SOAS-wide network that draws together colleagues with shared interests in grounding SOAS’s decolonising agenda through practical approaches that seek to repair post-colonial trauma and loss. 

Launched in 2023, the Network looks at issues surrounding repatriation, encompassing both digital and material dimensions especially in relation to Area Studies, the digital humanities and colonial archives (textual, sonic, visual, and material culture). PARR is underscoring the necessity of expanding definitions and approaches to repatriation, evolving into rematriating practices that redefine the process beyond the mere physical transfer of objects to source cultures. 

Since its inception in 2023, PARR has been compiling a working bibliography of documents and digital resources relevant to ongoing repatriation discussions globally. PARR has played a facilitating role in the establishment of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between SOAS and the African Foundation for Development (AFFORD). One of AFFORD’s key initiatives focuses on advancing conversations regarding the holding of African human remains and cultural artefacts by UK museums and other institutions. 

Our collaborations with AFFORD also resulted in the participation of PARR members at the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Afrikan Reparations (APPG-AR). Also in 2023, PARR worked with digital Humanities approaches to colonial archives through the Digital Bridges, Archival Gaps Symposium with Graeme Earl as one of its  keynote speakers.  

In 2024, PARR hosted a seminar series  that included talks by Graeme Were, Panggah Ardiyansyah and Dan Hicks. At the beginning of the term, PARR worked with the SOAS Impact Acceleration Account to explore issues around material culture and its return in the UKRI Festival of Ideas. 2024 and later in the Seminar/workshop on Routes to Return which included speakers Amy Shakespeare and Lewis Mc Naught and Benjie Manuel, school head of the  Tboli Senior HIgh School.  

In early 2025, PARR began the year with a panel  discussion reflecting on recent developments at the Horniman Museum, focusing on its restitution and repatriation efforts. Convergences within SOAS  and public institutions are ongoing as PARR  plans activities  with the SOAS Decolonizing the Library  Network  and  Decolonizing the Archive,  co-developing  practical workshops  that will support  SOAS faculty and students in using decolonial methodologies in establishing  a reparative framework for SOAS collections and archives.

Dr Cristina Juan is Chair of the SOAS PARR Network. Please get in touch if you would like to get involved: cj14@soas.ac.uk.