This article reimagines fashion provenance research methods by presenting an alternative, queer-centred approach that expands the field beyond its restrictive, hegemonic value systems towards a more nuanced and diversified landscape. By proposing queer object histories as a critical methodology, this article presents a reformation of normative provenance research. Curator-led object and image analyses emphasise the interpretive potential of garments and visual culture to present a history of queer identity. By shifting focus from ownership to interpretation, this approach underscores the value in orienting historical contexts and queer readings as techniques for queering provenance.This article challenges the dominant conventions of fashion museology and provenance through interviews with two curators. Queer readings of two case studies presented by curators - a nineteenth-century waistcoat and a George Barbier illustration - exemplify where using interpretive methodologies to map an object's itinerary can construct a more comprehensive provenance of that object's 'life'. This approach seeks to both expand the breadth of museum programming and offer museum practitioners a framework through which to recontextualise their collections to represent diverse audiences.
This article examines postcolonial provenance research as a collaborative practice to address the challenges of colonial-era museum collections, focusing on Malagan carvings from New Ireland, Papua New Guinea, and housed at the Linden-Museum Stuttgart, Germany. Amid current critical discourse on colonial legacies in museums, the study responds to calls for a reappraisal of European collections and engages with alternative research methods, including collaborative fieldwork with communities of origin (Scholz 2019; Rappaport 2008; Lassiter 2005a, 2005b; Sanjek 1993; Strathern 1987). The displacement of Malagan carvings into Western museum contexts has often obscured their meanings as dynamic agents, and perpetuated epistemic violence. In this case study we try to break the colonial narrative of static artefacts, viewing objects as a processual part of social and spiritual networks. Through collaborative research carried out by two Malagan carvers, a museum anthropologist, and local communities, the paper highlights the transformative potential for museums of shared authority in provenance work. The findings emphasise the need for community-driven approaches to redress historical injustices, foster inclusive museum practices and develop reparative futures. This research contributes to decolonial museum studies (Smith 1999) by proposing methods of collaboration for provenance research and the interpretation of collections: ones grounded in accountability, reciprocity and equitable knowledge production.
This article tackles the specific challenges that arise when studying the provenance of natural and human sciences collections, a unique and extremely diverse form of heritage whose establishment and uses are closely tied to scientific practices. It is often assumed that provenance studies apply only to requests for the restitution of human remains. To correct this misunderstanding and address provenance research as a whole, we organised the symposium Provenance Research of Natural and Human Sciences Collections: Museology and History for the Present Day in Paris at the Mus & eacute;um national d'Histoire naturelle (MNHN) in October 2025. We wanted to start a conversation about the need for museum professionals and researchers to have an intimate and historically-informed understanding of these collections - whether they are held at universities, natural history museums or multidisciplinary museums - and of the many issues raised by this subject. Scientific establishments are responsible for researching, documenting and situating their specimens or scientific collections in their historical contexts. They must understand the roles played by all actors, be they individuals (naturalists, collectors or community members) or institutions.
Provenance research focuses on determining the ownership history of one or a group of objects. However, secondary information found in evidence used to reconstruct life histories of past object owners can record important information about an object's history, such as associated stories about persecuted communities and groups in diaspora. How can life histories enrich our understanding of the provenance or one or a group of objects? How can records of provenance document the lives and stories of persecuted communities? What does this personal, historical and contextual information add to our understanding of the provenance of one or a group of objects?This article explores how genealogical and in-depth archival research is vital for thorough provenance research. It shows how such research can reveal antiquities collectors, vendors, and donors' personal stories of survival and migration. By exploring three case studies of individuals from persecuted communities discovered during provenance research for the Yale Babylonian Collection - Esa Kazazian, Fanaollah Sobhani, and Elias Isaac Solomon David - this article illustrates the necessity for a refocusing of scholarship to consistently investigate and document these often-overlooked stories. In doing so, the article highlights the distinctly human element of provenance research.
At the start of the twentieth century, material culture from the Wayana and Trio Indigenous groups of Suriname was collected along with natural history specimens during colonial expeditions commissioned by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society. Newly donated personal diaries from one of the members of the expeditions, Claudius Henricus de Goeje, offer unprecedented insights into the provenance of the objects. This paper explores the research question: How did the agency of Indigenous and Maroon Surinamese shape the material culture collection during colonial expeditions, and how can a nuanced understanding of the provenance of these objects challenge colonial narratives of 'discovery' and collection? By examining the provenance of ten selected objects, this paper addresses the complex histories of these items, including the identities of their owners, the methods of acquisition and their raw materials. The objects were acquired through various means: some were traded, others were created specifically for the expeditionary team and some were acquired through coercion. The methodology combines a comparative analysis of primary sources - diaries, correspondence, photographs and expedition reports - alongside the direct analysis of ethnographic collections and archival material housed at the Wereldmuseum (Amsterdam and Leiden) and Leiden University, as well as natural history collections housed at the Naturalis Biodiversity Center. By reframing Indigenous and Maroon individuals as active collaborators rather than passive subjects, this analysis confronts colonial biases in provenance narratives that historically centre European collectors while marginalising Indigenous and Maroon contributions, aiming for more inclusive narratives that recognise the complex entanglements of power and agency in the historical creation of museum collections.
In Zambia, museums have been predominantly viewed and even celebrated as institutions that preserve the nation's heritage for education and posterity. This conventional view of museums, which had long been inscribed in the National Museums Board of Zambia's mission, obscures the problematic colonial contexts and heritage on which most of the national museums in Zambia were founded. Both the Livingstone Museum, Southern Province, and the Moto Moto Museum, Northern Province, established during the colonial period in the 1930s and 1950s, respectively, were part of the colonial apparatus of governance. Despite possessing an extensive collection, they are inadequately represented in its inventories. This lack of adequate documentation, rooted in colonial-era collecting practices aimed at salvage ethnography, makes it difficult to properly understand many objects from both ethnological and historical perspectives. Focusing on the Livingstone and Moto Moto museums, this article explores these colonial contexts and the resultant histories of unprovenanced collections, shedding light on colonial legacies and the ongoing challenges of undoing these problematic foundations. This article employs a mixed methodological approach, drawing on archival research, oral histories, contemporary museological frameworks and provenance studies on selected ethnological collections in the museums. It demonstrates that collectors in colonial Zambia obscured the wider political, social and historical contexts under which they studied and collected. They inadequately documented objects using improper channels of acquisition, and Indigenous communities had almost no opportunity to evaluate or reinterpret the displayed or stored collections. By unravelling the colonial legacies that underpin these institutions and their collections, we open pathways for reimagining museums as spaces for inclusive and dialogical engagement with the past. Addressing the obscured histories of unprovenanced objects is not only an act of historical justice, but also a step towards transforming museums into institutions that genuinely reflect and serve the diverse communities they represent.
Arctic Indigenous communities have long adapted to extreme environments through women's expertise in crafting garments from fish skin (salmon and Arctic char), birdskin (seabirds: eiders, loons and puffins), gutskin (sea mammal and bear gut) and woven seashore grass (cottongrass and rye grass). Colonial-era collecting removed many of these belongings to distant museums, severing cultural ties. This study explores collaborative provenance research aimed at restoring relationships between museums, communities and their material heritage.Over 35 years, the Arctic Studies Center (ASC) at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, supported by consultations with Alaska Native Elders, has returned more than 600 artefacts, culminating in a permanent exhibition at the Anchorage Museum. Since 2017, as an ASC research associate, I have facilitated community-led workshops involving clothing to consult Indigenous knowledge systems and re-establish cultural continuity.In 2025, ASC and the Penn Museum co-hosted the 'Deep Dig: Arctic Fashion' virtual course, featuring Indigenous artists, scholars and museum professionals. I co-led two of the sessions, examining Arctic clothing as cultural heritage and sustainable innovation. In 'Arctic Fashion: Sustainability, Identity and Healing', together with ASC curator Stephen Loring, we contrasted the ecological knowledge of traditional Arctic garments with the impacts of Western fashion. In 'Salmon Entanglements', with Native Elder June Simeonoff Pardue, we discussed the role of fish by-products in Arctic life.Sugpiaq Elder Pardue's contribution exemplifies collaborative provenance research and the transformative potential of community-led participation. By building bridges between historical belongings and Indigenous communities, museums can repair historical legacies, developing new methods of knowledge co-production and dissemination.
In recent years, the role of the provenance researcher in the museum has grown exponentially - both in terms of the number of positions offered and the increasing authority and accountability of those who hold them. Not only are provenance researchers responsible for tracing the ownership histories of the objects in their collections; they also have a duty of care towards the communities from which their objects originate, as well as towards the varied audiences that encounter their collections. But how are provenance researchers in museums exercising their authority? This article draws on exclusive interviews with the Curators of two recent exhibitions on contested art and its provenance: discussions that underline the principles, practices and possibilities of the discipline in the public eye. In what follows, I discuss Concealed Histories: Uncovering the Story of Nazi Looting, at the V&A in London (2019-21, curated by Jacques Schuhmacher and Alice Minter) and Looted, at The National Holocaust Museum and The Jewish Museum, Amsterdam (2024, curated by Mara Lagerweij and Julie-Marthe Cohen).These discussions with curators explore the question of how best to communicate provenance - in the transfer of knowledge from scholarship to the public - and offer pioneering approaches to curating provenance: from presenting gaps in object histories and collaborating with stakeholders, both within and outside of the museum, to putting human stories at the heart of exhibitions. In conversation with Schuhmacher, Lagerweij and Cohen, the paper moreover questions what, if any, lasting impact such temporary exhibitions have on a museum's more permanent collections/displays. The conversations also underline that the role of the provenance researcher in the museum has shifted considerably: from a 'lonely, quiet and essentially antiquarian pursuit' (Feigenbaum and Reist 2012, p. 1) to a collaborative curatorial process, and one that is progressively geared towards knowledge production and raising awareness, as much as it is to restitution.
Archival material constitutes a central element of provenance research, offering critical insights into the history of ownership and objects' biographies. However, the concept of 'provenance' is subject to differing interpretations depending on the ontological framework in which it is situated. Within the field of provenance research, it is understood as encompassing the various associations an object accrues over time with individuals, communities, collections or institutions (Milosch and Pearce 2019; Tompkins 2020), and is distinct from the notion of 'origin', which refers to geographical provenience (Joyce 2012; Anderson 2024). On the other hand, in archival studies the term is typically associated with the entity - whether individual or institutional - that generated, gathered or maintained, and sometimes donated the records, underpinning the principle of 'respect for provenance' (Hurley 2005b, p. 125; Barr 1989, p. 141). While these two concepts coexist within the same socio-historical and institutional contexts and face similar challenges, particularly with regards to colonial collections, they largely operate independently.The disjunction is particularly apparent when archival materials, generated within the imperial systems that enabled the creation of museum collections, are treated solely as sources of information, divorced from their material realities. This disconnection neglects the archival materials' potential to be considered as colonial artefacts themselves - created, transported, and now kept within colonial frameworks, often without the consent of Indigenous and colonised communities. This paper seeks to reframe archival material as integral components of colonial assemblages, with their materiality grounded in the data and knowledge extracted.Through a case study examining archival materials related to provenance research from museums across Europe and North America, this paper engages with emerging archival theories, particularly the concepts of multiple or parallel provenances. Employing an interdisciplinary lens, it aims to challenge prevailing ontologies in provenance research and to advocate for its inclusion within contemporary decolonial archival practices. In doing so, it seeks to contribute to a more nuanced understanding of the entangled histories of colonialism, knowledge production and institutional stewardship. This paper discusses topics including colonial violence, and the collecting of ancestral remains and some readers may find these subjects distressing.
The illicit excavation and trade of antiquities pose an acute threat to the preservation of cultural heritage worldwide. Since 2023, motivated by restitution claims for several objects in its possession, the Allard Pierson (the heritage collections of the University of Amsterdam) has undertaken a research initiative into the provenance history of its archaeological collection. As a leading university museum in the Netherlands, a 'market country' in the Global North, the Allard Pierson seeks to address head-on the ethical issues related to the provenance of antiquities in its collections, to consider the role museums can play in shaping best practices around questions of provenance and restitution and to explore how provenance research can be used as a tool to foster ongoing discussions with researchers, institutions and the general public both in the Netherlands and, crucially, in the source countries of the collection. This article presents two case studies from our ongoing research in order to highlight the importance of unlocking archives and collections, doing provenance research proactively rather than reactively, and exploring new terrain by discussing future ownership and stewardship of the collections with source countries on the basis of ethical rather than legal arguments.By sharing the results of our ongoing research, the Allard Pierson seeks to articulate its long-term vision regarding the role of provenance research in archaeological collections, with a particular emphasis on best practices relating to international collaboration, data transparency and exchange, acquisition and restitution policies and the importance of raising public awareness around the illicit trafficking of antiquities.
Provenance research, a dynamic and transformative process, is reshaping European museums by addressing the origins and histories of collections. Deeply connected to restitution and decoloniality, it challenges Eurocentric decision-making structures by engaging with new actors such as Congolese museums, universities, diasporas and source communities. At the Royal Museum for Central Africa (RMCA), Belgium, this approach seeks to integrate postcolonial perspectives to understand the creation of its collections and promote restitution as an ethical and collaborative process.Belgium's evolving political stance on shared heritage with Congo has institutionalised provenance research as a tool for addressing historical injustices. However, framing this as a 'shared history' risks overshadowing the need for Congolese communities to reclaim their past as a foundation for their present empowerment. To address these complexities, provenance research is experimenting with participatory methodologies that involve the co-production of knowledge.This approach emphasises the active inclusion of source community researchers, whose contributions ensure the equitable valorisation of diverse knowledge systems. By integrating traditional expertise with scientific research, this practice enriches institutional transparency, fosters bilateral exchanges and challenges existing power dynamics.This article explores tools and methodologies for participatory provenance research, highlighting how it redefines the role of museums as spaces for dialogue and social sustainability. Through collaborative decision-making and the recognition of community-led knowledge production, provenance research can become a foundational step toward restitution. It raises critical questions about the process of giving back - how, and to whom - and illustrates how decolonising museums can transform them into agents of equity and justice.
