Testing ethical disagreement on ancestral human remains in museums

Area of Science:

• Museum Studies
• Ethics
• Digital Humanities

Background:

• Displaying ancestral human remains in museums presents significant ethical challenges, conflicting respect for ancestors with scientific and educational value.
• Recent high-profile deinstallations and evolving ethics codes highlight the urgent need for new approaches to managing ancestral remains.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore the efficacy of interactive workshops and digital participation technologies in creating inclusive spaces for ethical decision-making regarding ancestral human remains.
• To identify priority and action areas for the museum sector in handling sensitive collections.

Main Methods:

• Implementation of a trial interactive workshop focused on the ethical display of ancestral human remains.
• Utilized digital participation technologies to enable anonymous and accessible input from attendees.
• Gathered feedback to identify key priority and action areas for museum practices.

Main Results:

• Both workshop and digital participation methods successfully created inclusive spaces for discussing emotive subjects.
• Attendees and participants identified concrete priority and action areas for the museum sector and their institutions.
• The study provided insights into value disagreements and polarization within museum contexts.

Conclusions:

• Interactive and digitally-supported methodologies can effectively facilitate ethical decision-making processes concerning ancestral human remains.
• These approaches contribute to addressing complex ethical disagreements and polarization within museums.
• The findings support the development of more inclusive and ethical museum practices for sensitive collections.