Repairing the past. Third international seminar on Historical Justice and Colonialism

Since 2021, the Ethnological and World Cultures Museum of Barcelona (MUEC) hosts this seminar promoted by the European Observatory of Memories and the City Council of Barcelona with the aim of reflecting on and approaching the debates on the decolonization of heritage and museums. The origin of the pieces of these institutions, the ways in which they are exhibited, and their uses are, among others, issues that involve legal debates about possible restitutions to proposals for the transformation of museographic discourses that make visible and contextualize colonial domination structures, power relations and their consequences for the present.

In this third edition, the seminar will discuss the project (Tr)afican(t)s, a pioneering initiative that aims at locating the traceability of the origin of the Moroccan, Guinean, Philippine and Senegalese collections of several Catalan museums. The programme will also delve into the decolonization of meuseums in Europe throughout a comparative debate on the management of heritage with the participation of representatives of The Africa Museum (Tervuren, Belgium), the Museum of America (Madrid); and the Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum – Cultures of the World (Cologne).

The closing conference will be delivered by Clement Emeka Akpang ( (Institute of Advanced Studies – Cross River University of Technology, Nigeria). He will discuss the results of his research on the cultural ramifications of the found object in European and African Arts.

• Free activity with prior registration. Room capacity: 80 seats..
• Languages: Catalan, Spanish and English. Simultaneous interpretation will be available.
• Programme: Download the Catalan version here