Virtual repatriation as a methodological reframing for museum learning in the digital age: repositioning, digital transformation, and collaborative meaning-making

Abstract

Although virtual repatriation projects have been utilised by many museums to redress the dichotomy between possession of displaced legacies and decolonisation-oriented outreach for source communities, their procedures and outputs often do not fully realise the decolonising initiatives. By arguing that latent educational potential is embedded within such projects, this study utilises the current virtual repatriation practice as a methodological reframing for museum learning. Drawing on previous cross-disciplinary research in decolonisation, digitalisation and museum learning, this study repositions virtual repatriation as a community-oriented methodological approach for building object-based reciprocal interfaces. It is argued that these interfaces help integrate, mobilise, and empower digital learners and people from source communities in the process of meaning-making. Also, whilst these object-based reciprocal interfaces are framed by source communities and museums at the initial stage, in the long term, they are inherently made alive through ongoing meaning-making and knowledge reciprocation within and across nodes of participation in the digital world.

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