Exploring Ethics and Interdisciplinarity in Provenance Research of Museums’ Ancestral Remains

A Case Study of the A.L. Pinart Collections from Oceania

Abstract

This article presents recent provenance research on the Indigenous ancestral human remains gathered by Alphonse Louis Pinart (1852-1911) during his journey in Oceania on board the French navy cruiser Le Seignelay. The collections he brought back from this trip, including both ancestral remains and artefacts, are currently scattered between different museums in Paris and Boulogne-sur-Mer (France). Based on the documentation available, it appears that the context of acquisition of the remains is vague and highly questionable in terms of ethics. Working on the provenance research of the ancestral remains, brought back by Pinart, does not come as an obvious task considering the numerous calls for repatriation, the decolonization of museums and the development of new ethical standards when dealing with human remains. Moreover, the recent introduction of a new set of legislation in the French cultural sector increases the complexity of the issue. In this article, we aim to explore the ethical and decolonial questions raised by working with the ancestral remains ‘collected’ by Pinart and to offer some points of consideration with regards to interdisciplinarity and the cultural and historical specificities of Oceania. We argue for the contribution of scientific data in provenance research, showing that physico-chemical and anthropological analysis, if consented to, are not necessarily antagonistic to ethical considerations.