From Ghana to Bristol: Reimagining Reparative Justice in a Postcolonial World

3 January 2025

What does the future of reparative justice look like in the ever-changing world of our climate crisis and post-colonial environmental challenges? This research project seeks to redefine reparative justice through a lens informed by indigenous knowledge and postcolonial perspectives.

Seedcorn 2024/25

From Ghana to Bristol will explore how reparative justice can evolve within an environmental context by using indigenous materials, methods, and perspectives that challenge hierarchical structures. The team aim to initiate deeper dialogues on how museums and similar institutions can prioritise reciprocity and meaningful exchange within cross-cultural collaborations. By focusing on progressive care, environmental considerations, and subverting power dynamics, they intend to propose new pathways for how cultural institutions can actively engage with the communities they aim to serve, particularly those impacted by colonial legacies.

A Journey Home
A Journey Home is a project unearthing the hidden colonial histories of animals in the natural history collection at the Bristol Museum & Art Gallery. It now moves to challenge the ownership of animals, disrupt the current displays, bring silenced voices to museum spaces and develop new reparative opportunities. A Journey home fosters a holistic approach; facilitating creative consultations with diaspora communities, indigenous groups and conservation organisations around the repatriation of animals to their original land. This project documents the animals’ stories and provides context on their cultural significance beyond the colonial lens. Currently, the work draws on research tracing the Black-bellied Pangolin via ship records back to Cape Coast Castle, Ghana,1829. Iman Sultan West has consulted with the Alliance for Pangolin Conservation Ghana exploring the pangolin’s importance in local ecosystems, cultural histories, and how the organisation engages schoolchildren with conservation. Iman has also consulted with a group from the Ghanaian diaspora living in Bristol, about the pangolin’s display.

Brigstow research project, From Ghana to Bristol, will centre around the case study of the Black-bellied Pangolin in Bristol Museum.

Access As A Creative Tool (AAACT)

Emmanuella Morsi has been co-developing a system that empowers marginalised communities to reimagine alternative possibilities, and then strategically partnering with key industry personnel to shift change in their various sectors. AAACT is an inclusive design framework that aims to supports accessible and equity-led inclusive considerations as the foundations for creative decision-making and provide tools that can expand and inspire how we reimagine.

What will the project involve?

From Ghana to Bristol involves an Asaase residential on Indigenous Reconnection: Ancestral Wisdom, and a month-long residency across Ghana with DēpART. Connecting with creative entrepreneurs across Ghana who are restoring and innovating indigenous practices. From them, they will learn about the importance of spatial justice being embedded into restoration and reparative efforts and will prioritise transparency and reciprocity by implementing the AAACT framework. DēpART bridges continents using creative collaboration to connect global audiences with the richness of Ghana and foster deeper cross-cultural engagement. With a focus on authentic storytelling DēpART amplifies the voices of Ghanaian heritage creatives and thought leaders, connecting them with global brands, organisations and individuals to collaborate on immersive experiences that inspire meaningful dialogue and change.

This curiosity-driven approach will challenge conventional museum practices and power dynamics to create more progressive strategies and repatriation solutions that are equitable and nature-inspired. Bristol Museum’s approach to repatriation and reparative justice will be enhanced through the development of an equity-led ‘Proactive Repatriation Framework’. This will incorporate non-Western views on conservation, ethical repatriation and nurturing international partnerships.

Who are the team?

Emmanuella Morsi (P2P Fellow and Access As A Creative Tool Researcher)
Iman Sultan West (P2P Fellow and A Journey Home: The Taxidermy Pangolin Researcher).
Chantel Akworkor Thompson (DēpART Consultancy Residency)
Oti Yeboah Augustine (Alliance for Pangolin Conservation Ghana)
Edson Burton (English, University of Bristol)
Isla Gladstone (Bristol Museum and Art Gallery)