Seedcorn 2023/2024

Black Life Matters and the fall of the Colston Statue in Bristol have rekindled discussions about colonial legacies in museums, collections, educational and scientific institutions and foregrounded questions about cultural ownership and repatriation.

The return of natural history and geological specimens (soil, rock, sand, minerals, and fossils) has so far been overlooked or excluded from repatriation discussions or practices in the UK. The focus is on man-made objects in ethnographic and archaeological collections that hold a perceived cultural, artistic, spiritual or even financial value (e.g. return of the Benin Bronzes to Nigeria, human remains to Native North Americans or the Euphronios Krater to Italy).

What will the project involve? 

This is a co-created project with partners in Aotearoa (New Zealand), necessitating the use of te reo (Māori words) in the project description. This project's key research interests are situated in the reconsideration of the cultural, spiritual, and community importance of rocks using a particular example from Aotearoa. To this end, the researchers seek to consider and explore the following:

• How a rock is seen and held within cultural stories (esp Māori).
• How complex and animate relations with land in other cultures and diverse worldviews inform the collecting, storage and potential return of geological samples currently held by institutions in the global north.
• Why natural objects (rock samples) in contrast to cultural objects are often excluded from discussions of repatriation in the UK even though there is historic (and modern) evidence in our European/Western cultures of humans attributing spiritual and cultural meaning to geological samples.
• What best practice might look like in the future with regard to acquiring rock samples and the practicalities of returning rocks from the UK to Aotearoa and how this research can be shared with other institutions (museums, archives, universities)

The project will work creatively and collaboratively across the disciplines of art, humanities and science and will use creative practices (poetry and illustration) to facilitate interdisciplinary discussions about the movement of rocks (including soil, minerals, gems) between cultures and countries. Illustrations remove linguistic barriers. Poems and the poetic imagination invigorate research practice and bring in necessary questions of what languages are being used and the need for translation. Poems are a means of communication in many cultures and particularly relevant to our case study as Māori culture frequently uses karakia (prayer) to increase the spiritual goodwill of a gathering, so as to increase the likelihood of a favourable outcome.

The team are interested in early-stage research related to how geological collections can spark questions, feelings and curiosity about how rocks are viewed in different cultures and how different stories, languages and practices can strengthen relationships with the land. The need to create respectful and meaningful connections with the ground we stand on is imperative in a time of climate crisis.

The team also acknowledge that building trusting and equal relationships with iwi communities, especially from the UK, takes time and has grown over decades. Identifying common interests areas and outputs that are beneficial to an iwi community like the Ngāti Rangitihi will take time. Whilst Tanira (chair of the Ruawahia 2B trust of the Ngāti Rangitihi iwi) has expressed interests in being involved in this collaboration, the researchers recognise that their time is precious and thinly spread across various Māori focused projects. They hence are using this project to identify meaningful and fruitful ways of engaging with Tanira: a) about the repatriation of rocks and b) to find an koha (gift) or output that is helpful to the iwi (something that goes beyond re-numerification eg enhancement of iwi education or a scholarship). As a result of this complexity, Tanira is listed outside of the core team.

Case Study

A collection of volcanic rocks from Aotearoa (Tarawera volcano) is currently stored in the vaults of the Wills Memorial Building. In 2015, then PhD student Ery Hughes and her supervisor Geoff Kilgour collected the samples and exported them to the UK for analysis using methods unavailable in Aotearoa. Extraction required permission from the local iwi (tribe) Ngāti Rangitihi and the samples were only released from their rohe (land) after an agreement was made to return these samples to the maunga (mountain) once research had been completed.

These arrangements are common in Aotearoa and every iwi has a different approach to releasing and welcoming back samples from their land. Extraction and repatriation agreements are often developed on a case-by-case basis.

GNS have a long-standing history (decades) of working collaboratively with iwi to develop links and relationships. Mark Rattenbury (GNS representative on the Crown Research Institutes Māori Data Governance Working Group) has offered his advice on the project sharing insights into approaches and policies that support Indigenous data management, access and representation in Aotearoa. Co-created research of our key questions through this case study will help develop a deeper understanding of timescales, opportunities and challenges associated with repatriation of rocks, ethical negotiations, awareness of colonial bias, a readiness to explore radically different ways of thinking and working. This will enable a capacity for future collaboration at a national and/or international level (including multiple universities, collections and museums in the UK and abroad as well as source communities) and to apply for larger research grants.

Workshops

Meeting 1 - Online - Jan/Feb 2024 - A 2 hour meeting with a focus on exploring past and present practices and policies connected to research and Māori land and data (Core Team and GNS partner). Illustrator Edie Woolf to illustrate the discussion.

Workshop 1 - Feb/March 2024 - In person - A day workshop that will bring together the creative practice of poet Alyson Hallett and illustrator Edie Woolf with research by ethnographer Fiona, historian Lucy Donkin and volcanologists. This activity will be facilitated by poet Alyson Hallett and illustrator Edie Woolf to enable creative engagement with geological samples such as rocks, soil, fossils, minerals, gemstones and archives. Their creative practice will support attendees in their exploration of emotional and intellectual connections with materials of the land and our human association with the landscape. The workshop will focus on human connections with earthy materials without offering a typical curatorial, museological or scientific connection to the samples to create a space and time to rethink and reflect on our very own connections with the ground beneath our feet.

Workshop 2 - March/April 2024 - In person - A day long workshop will focus on collections and samples led by collection manager Claudia Hildebrandt and supported by museum curators Deborah Hutchinson and Lisa Greaves or Tony Eccles. It will offer tours of the City Museum and UoB geological collections to explore ideas of migrating stones, touch on colonial and postcolonial legacies and explore approaches to repatriation in ethnographic collections that may inform similar approaches in geological collections. (Core Team and partners.

Meeting 2 - May 2024 - A 2 hour hui (meeting) with Tanira (Core Team, GNS partners).

Workshop 3 - July or Sept 2024 - A half day workshop exploring potential for future collaboration and putting learnings into practice with a view to extend beyond the UoB and GNS network. Explore potential funding avenues.

Who are the team and what do they bring?

• Fiona Jordan (Anthropology and Archaeology, University of Bristol) is a linguistic anthropologist who wants to understand cultural diversity. Fiona is particularly interested in kinship and language, and her primary region of interest is the Austronesian-speaking world.
• Lucy Donkin (History of Art, University of Bristol) is a researcher who explores the materiality and portability of place as this was exemplified by the symbolic movement of soil.
• Claudia Hildebrandt (Earth Sciences, University of Bristol) has over 15 years’ experience of working with geological and natural history collections. She is a collection manager and curator with an interest in decoloniality, co-created collection knowledge and the meaning of rocks and stones across different cultures and times as a petrified symbol of our earthy origins.
• Alyson Hallett is a poet who has been working with stones and the migration habits of stones for more than two decades. Her current work involves developing experiments and workshops that involve listening to stones, bringing increased awareness to the land. Alyson's work included making journeys around the world with stones, using practice as research as evidenced in her PhD in Geographical Intimacy. Alyson’s Website.
• Edie Woolf is an illustrator and creative with a practice that captures complex conversations and research questions in easily accessible artworks. Eddie’s Website.

What is to come?

The project will develop links across the academic community at UoB (between researchers that don’t usually cross paths as they work in different schools and faculties). The project will also connect researchers with artists to ensure a diverse set of methods and practices is used to design and answer research questions that explore what it means to practice respectful relationships with the land and between human beings who hold different world views.

The other outcomes of this project may include:

• Blog Post summarising the projects aims, findings and activities https://earthsciences.blogs.bristol.ac.uk/home/decolonisation/
• Pamphlet (digital) including poems, illustrations and text (English and te reo) based on the NZ case study which a) project partners and the iwi can use as a resource to talk about the movement of rocks, volcanic landscapes and the associated science undertaken by Kilgour and Hughes b) the core team can use as a stepping stone to develop best practice guidelines as part of a future project involving a wider Uk and international collaboration network.
• Research that identifies avenues of bringing humanities, arts, creative practices and sciences together to develop future research and best practice approaches to acquiring and repatriation rocks. Identification of knowledge gaps to identify future funding avenues.