Conference

Global Restitution & Reparative Efforts in Museums
A Hybrid International Interdisciplinary Conference

October 29-30, 2026
Online & In-person
University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, USA

The Center for Global and International Studies, the Kansas African Studies Center, the Spencer Museum of Art, and Museum Studies at the University of Kansas invite proposals for a two-day hybrid interdisciplinary conference on global restitution and reparative efforts in museums. This conference will bring together scholars, curators, museum professionals, artists, legal scholars, community leaders, and graduate students to explore the various forms of reparative work occurring within museums to address the complicated life histories of objects in their care, including through repatriation, collaboration, and partnership.

Conference focus

Restitution has emerged as a major global question that lies at the intersection of museums, archives, law, history, anthropology, Indigenous sovereignty, cultural memory, race and ethnicity, colonialism, and international politics. In recent years, the colonialist legacies of western museums has led institutions across the U.S. and Europe to reconsider their missions as it relates to the stewardship, collection and display of material culture, particularly objects held outside of their country of origin. This conference seeks to illuminate future pathways forward for museums and source communities by highlighting new and varied approaches to collaboration and partnership, as well as the diversity of outcomes produced by these efforts. Through critical conversations across disciplines and geographies, sessions will consider the opportunities and challenges presented by reparative efforts inside and outside of museums, including repatriation (or physical transfer), propatriation, reciprocal loans/acquisitions, long term stewardship agreements, and co-curated exhibitions , dialogues fostered by and through collaborations with contemporary artists, as well as foregrounding ethical and transparent frameworks to shape these and other practices.

This conference seeks to foster critical and comparative conversations about the role of restitution within contemporary museology, particularly as it exists on an international level. It aims to explore the legal, cultural, diplomatic, financial, and historical factors that contribute to and prohibit progress, while providing a forum to discuss strategies that have shown promise for advancing reparative efforts and strengthening museums as shared spaces of practice.

Proposals are welcome from a wide range of disciplines and fields, including (but not limited to) Museum Studies, Indigenous Studies, African and African Diaspora Studies, Race and Ethnic Studies, Latin American Studies, Art History, Anthropology, History, Legal Studies, American Studies, Global and International Studies, Religious Studies, Public Humanities, Memory Studies, Archaeology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Geology, Information and Library Science, and Heritage Studies.

Possible themes
Topics may include, but are not limited to:

International law, policy, and diplomacy in restitution cases
Cultural heritage, sovereignty, and Indigenous rights within nation states
Restitution and contested claims of cultural heritage
International repatriation and rematriation of human remains, sacred objects, and cultural patrimony
Museum collecting practices: ethics, provenance research, and accountability
Role, value, and responsibilities of encyclopedic museums in the 21st century
Competing ontologies: natural history collections and cultural restitution
Archives, libraries, and the restitution of documentary heritage
Repair through propatriation and reciprocity
Shared stewardship and long-term loans as restitution
Digital platforms as restitution
Museums, source communities, and restitution through partnership and collaboration
Exhibitions and museum programming as methods of restitution
Curatorial democratization as restitution
Restitution through Knowledge Sharing: Integrating museology with oral histories and Indigenous epistemologies
Memory, trauma, and the politics of repair
Artistic, curatorial, and activist responses to restitution debates
Pedagogies of restitution in museums, universities, and public institutions
Decolonization theory as hegemonic practice: when contemporary western museum ethics are imposed cross-culturally

Submission guidelines

The organizing committee welcomes individual paper proposals, full panel proposals, roundtables, and practice-based or community-engaged presentations. Contributions from academics, museum and archive professionals, artists, activists, and community practitioners are especially encouraged. Please submit:

• Individual paper proposals: title and abstract of 250–300 words, plus a brief bio of 100 words

• Panel proposals: panel title, 250–300 word panel abstract, individual paper titles and abstracts, and brief bios for all participants

• Roundtables or alternative-format sessions: 300-word description and brief participant bios

Proposals may address theoretical, historical, legal, ethical, artistic, curatorial, or community-based dimensions of restitution.

Format and audience

The conference will be held in hybrid format, with options for both in-person and virtual participation at the University of Kansas.[cite:39][cite:48] The intended audience is interdisciplinary and includes scholars and practitioners from museums, galleries, archives, universities, cultural institutions, and community organizations.[cite:39][cite:49]

Questions about the conference may be directed to the organizing committee.

Luciano Tosta (lucianotosta@ku.edu)
Ryan Clasby (ryan.clasby@ku.edu)
Sarah Crawford Parker scrawpar@ku.edu)
Glenn Adams (adamsg@ku.edu)

Proposal Submission

Deadline: September 28, 2026

Proposals can be submitted at the following links depending upon which format you have chosen.

Key dates
Proposal deadline: September 28
Notification of acceptance: October 9
Registration deadline for speakers: October 16
Conference dates: October 29–30, 2026