Part 1

• A Looted War Jacket, Brooke Expeditions and an Anglican Missionary Valerie Mashman Unversiti Malaysia Sarawak

  A looted fish scale jacket from Sarawak found its way to the Raffles Museum in Singapore, having been sold there by Archdeacon Sharp, an Anglican clergyman based in Sarawak .This paper examines the jacket in multiple dimensions: as a material object in its own right; as an item circulated through warfare; as an object looted during a military expedition in Sarawak and the broader significance of such acts; and it investigates how the artefact was transferred to Singapore through the agency of Archdeacon Sharp. A common theme shared elsewhere in Southeast Asia is the experience of hill peoples living in border areas evading the control of emergent states. Another is the role of Christian missionaries and the local experience of Christian conversion. In this context, any decolonising discourse surrounding the jacket becomes complex and layered. The meanings that can be attributed to it must be understood through intersecting histories of state control, conflict, collection, and critique.

• A Small Collection of Stone Hooks and Related Items in the Sarawak Museum (Kuching, Sarawak, East Malaysia) Antonio Guerreiro IrAsia, Aix Marseille Université

  While doing a survey in the Sarawak Museum’s ethnoarchaeology collection I came upon a rare collection of stone hooks and stone fragments. This collection of about 15 items had not been studied previously and no documentation or accession lists were available at the time of survey. How and when the collection was made remained a guess (Heimann 1998 ; Harrisson 1951, 1965). The place of origin or the background of these stones are obscure.
  The identification of the collection’s items, in terms of geographical and cultural attribution raised also other issues. Both ritual and functional uses of stones in Borneo, including cyclons, adze/axe blades and charms would be rewarding in finding clues (Sellato, 1992, 1996). Although reconstructing a detailed history of the collection may not be possible, interpretative approaches can be attempted (compare Hodder 1986 ; Renfrew 1991). Indeed the historical and ethnotechnological contexts can bring up insights about the practices and representations attached to such intriguing artifacts. Now, the heritage value of the collection has to be considered as well.

• “A very beautiful collection of race skulls arrived 8 days ago directly from Java via Rotterdam, without any costs for us other than those for transport” – the role of German princely orders in the economy of skull collecting in the Dutch East Indies (1860-1880) Adrian Linder University of Bern

  Research on the provenance of human remains from the Dutch East Indies housed in German museum collections reveals two distinct contexts of acquisition: the Banjar War in Borneo and the systematic collection practices by medical doctors in Batavia hospitals related to European researchers through dedicated networks. The flow of these “specimens” to Germany was driven by a specific economy of prestige, wherein colonial actors exchanged human remains for dynastic orders awarded by monarchs such as Duke Ernst II of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Are there any specific implications of this acquisition context for provenance research and restitution processes?

Part 2

• Entangled Trajectories: Confiscated textiles from Papua in Dutch museums Emilie Wellfelt Linnaeus University

  Objects in museum collections have passed through numerous hands, assuming shifting functions and meanings along the way (Thomas 1991). Makers and users, vendors and purchasers, curators and others have understood and valued them through distinct interpretive lenses. Encountered in the museum at the end of their trajectories, such objects evoke a wide spectrum of responses.
  This paper examines a category of textiles known under the Malay trade name kain timur (“eastern textiles”). Produced mainly in the eastern Indonesian archipelago, these textiles were traded to communities in western New Guinea (Papua), where they were circulated in diverse contexts (Timmer 2011; Andaya 2015). In the 1950s, colonial officials, operating with radically different understandings and valuations from those of the owner, precipitated a rupture in which many textiles were destroyed and others removed to the Netherlands. The surviving material, held in three Dutch museums, forms the basis of this study.
  The study analyses the trajectories of these three kain timur collections and considers divergences in perspectives of the actors involved, including the weaving communities who originally produced the textiles. Particular attention is paid to differences in value, meaning and memory. Such divergences complicate questions of how, in a landscape of competing claims, access can or should be provided by the current custodians.
  We review earlier research (Elmberg 1955, 1959, 1965; 1968; Galis 1956; Pouwer 1957; Du Bois 1960; Kamma 1970; Miedema 1986; Timmer 2011) on how the textiles were regarded in the Papuan communities from which they were removed, and examine, using the fragmentary documentation that exists, how they have been evaluated during their time in museum custody. A central component of the project is the investigation of contemporary attitudes to kain timur in Papua, where the tradition continues, using photo elicitation and interviews to explore local perspectives on the museum-held material.

• Reconnecting archives and communities: revisiting Ruy Cinatti’s ethnographic legacy in Timor-Leste Lúcio Sousa Universidade Aberta

  This paper examines the prospective contribution of Ruy Cinatti to the development of ethnographic archives in Timor-Leste and discusses how his legacy can inform current debates on community reconnection, heritage access, and decolonising practices.
  Cinatti was a unique figure in Portuguese anthropology: a colonial civil servant, an agronomist, a renowned poet, and an anthropologist who never completed his Oxford PhD. Between the 1940s and 1960s—particularly during his PhD fieldwork in 1961–62 he conducted extensive research in, at the time, “Portuguese Timor”, recording oral traditions, ritual practices, house structures and environmental transformations, and producing a substantial visual and textual record. The remaining’s of his materials are now preserved at the Catholic University Library and the National Ethnological Museum, both in Lisbon, where they remain partially unpublished.
  This paper draws on research carried out within the project “Ruy Cinatti, ethnographer and poet” and further exploratory fieldwork returning documents and testimonies to local Timorese communities. This approach allows for a discussion of object biographies, archival circulation, local actors’ recognition processes, and the institutional challenges of mediating sensitive heritage.
  We argue that Cinatti’s work, either poetic or ethnographic, offers an early model of participatory reconnection, providing insights into how collaborative methods, digital repatriation, and co interpretation can address contemporary demands for decolonising research within the Southeast Asian context.

• Connecting communities with national collections: challenges, opportunities, and the British Museum Borneo collections Jennifer R. Morris British Museum

  The British Museum houses more than 33,000 objects from Southeast Asia, many of which were acquired during the height of European colonial activity in the region. This includes more than 4000 objects from Borneo, which represent cultures from all three states on the island. Exploring the histories and contemporary significance of colonial collections at such a large, historic and internationally prominent institution presents both unique opportunities and significant challenges.
  The Interpreting Borneo in Britain project, which ran from 2024 to 2026, focused on the Borneo collections acquired through Sarawak government officer Charles Hose at the turn of the 20th century, the largest of which is held in the British Museum. The project sought to build relationships between museums and community interest-holders, both in Borneo and in the UK, in order to improve understanding of and access to these collections. This included extensive community engagement activities in Sarawak, organised in collaboration with Sarawak Museum Department. These were particularly focused in the Baram River region, where many of the Hose collections came from. Findings from the project have fed into updates to the British Museum’s online resources and into ongoing preparations to exhibit the British Museum’s Southeast Asia collections.
  Drawing on case studies from this project, this paper will explore how national museums might tackle long-standing barriers to connection between such large and prominent institutions and Southeast Asian communities (both in Southeast Asia and diaspora communities); raise awareness of the collections; improve access to them; and work towards genuinely collaborative relationships that can improve the understanding, interpretation and use of these historic objects.

Part 3

• Subject Stories: Narrating lived experience through Filipino colonial exhibition photography Enrico Joaquin Lapuz IIAS, Leiden University

  Indigenous Filipinos were among the most photographed colonial subjects in exhibitions, often juxtaposed with Western attendees to perpetuate narratives around the civilizing mission. They are framed as passive objects on display in many archival collections today, their labels often static and detached from the realities of Indigenous communities in the present.
  This paper presentation uses the Stories Toolkit method and digital platform developed by the Humanities Across Borders educational research programme of the International Institute for Asian Studies to reexamine indigenous Filipino exhibition photographs as objects-in-context. Through this method, it presents the argument that museum labels—often seen as neutral descriptors—can instead function as entry points for critically interrogating an object’s biography and afterlife across different historical and contemporary lived experiences. In doing so, the Stories Toolkit introduces reworked ‘accession cards’, pedagogical interventions that serve as training tools for critical thinking around the question of culture and its public representation.
  The presentation will look specifically at the lived experiences of Igorot, Moro, and Bagobo women and youth in these exhibitions with the aim of shifting the gaze to the perspective of these subjects of photography and empire, and in the process, reframing museum documentation as a dynamic process instead of a fixed archive.

• Reconnecting the Disconnected: Decolonizing Ethnographic Collections Through the Javanese Traditional Calendar System Ayu Dipta Kirana Sebelas Maret Univeristy

  The collection of ethnographic materials in Indonesian museums during the colonial era is often characterized as a process of “musealization” that strips material culture of its living context, effectively “freezing” it within museum walls. Unlike archaeological artifacts perceived as high-value treasures, ethnographic objects are frequently relegated to the status of everyday material culture. Consequently, they are often excluded from “high culture” narratives, resulting in many items being stored in archives rather than exhibited—a practice that persists in contemporary Indonesian museum management.
  This research examines the provenance and collection practices of ethnographic objects, specifically focusing on the traditional Javanese calendar system (papan perhitungan waktu). Once a vital instrument for traditional agricultural knowledge in Java, these calendar boards have become obscure, with their practical application largely forgotten by the public. This study employs a dual-method approach: archival research from the Dutch colonial era to trace the objects’ origins, combined with direct observation and consultation with local farmers in Gunung Kidul, Indonesia, who retain the indigenous knowledge required to interpret these systems.
  The findings indicate that many ethnographic objects have become severed from their originating communities, leading to a gradual erosion of the intangible heritage they embody. This study concludes that establishing a “reconnection” with these communities is essential to dismantling colonial discourses. True decolonization in the museum context requires moving beyond mere preservation toward an active restoration of meaning, where the museum serves as a bridge for indigenous knowledge reclamation rather than a site of cultural isolation.

• The Keris Sajen, the Keris Majapahit: Fantasy of Antiquity Fiona Asokacitta University of Oxford

  Scattered around museums throughout Europe, the keris sajen, commonly known as the ‘keris Majapahit’ in the West, is a small, ceremonial keris, featuring a blade and hilt forged from one piece of metal. The keris is a traditional dagger originally thought to originate from the region now comprising modern-day Indonesia. Throughout the last three centuries or so, the significance of this dagger has morphed and evolved, from weapon to status symbol, talisman, and centrepiece of men’s dress. Captivating Western collectors since the 18th century, the keris sajen typically feature an anthropomorphic figure as the hilt, which has been theorised as a Hindu deity. Using examples from the Pitt Rivers Museum and the British Museum, this paper discusses how the keris sajen is particularly emblematic of the specifically British attraction to the keris’ spiritual powers, and perceived ability to be a window into the mysterious, lost past of Hindu-Buddhist tradition in Indonesia. The term ‘keris Majapahit,’ harkens back to the Hindu-Buddhist empire of the 13th-16th century, despite bearing no correlation with the period, except to signal an air of authentic antiquity. The collecting and framing of these kerises in British museum collections contribute to the fantasy of typologically representing a full chronology of the development of the keris throughout time, from its most ‘primitive’ to sophisticated form. The keris sajen is a vignette into the production of anthropological knowledge based on material culture. In museum collections, these kerises continue to (re)produce the fantasy of objects which are purported to show the evolution of technology, progress, and culture.

• Curatorial Lessons through Digitization Anna Vécsei Ferenc Hopp Museum of Asiatic Arts

  This presentation examines the digitization and reinterpretation of the Southeast Asian Collection at the Hopp Ferenc Museum of Asiatic Arts. Founded in 1919 through the bequest of Ferenc Hopp, the museum today holds around 30,000 objects, of which approximately 1,000 belong to the Southeast Asian Collection, a distinct curatorial unit formed only in the past decade.
  Between 2021 and 2023, I led a digitization project that resulted in nearly 800 objects becoming publicly accessible online. Focusing on curatorial decision-making during this process, the project revealed key challenges, including the condition and restoration of objects, the reliability of legacy records, gaps in archival knowledge, and tensions between inherited classification systems and more culturally sensitive approaches.
  Through selected case studies from the digitization process, the paper raises broader curatorial and ethical questions: how to represent diverse and historically interconnected regions through a limited number of objects; how to prioritize among competing values; and how to address the colonial entanglements of collections shaped by European collecting practices.
  Drawing on practical experience and ongoing dialogue with researchers and peers, this presentation reflects on these challenges and invites exchange on good practices for rethinking museum collections within institutional constraints.

Show Paper Abstracts

Abstract

Keywords

• Anthropology
• Borneo
• Iban
• Indigenous Filipinos
• Indigenous knowledge
• Indonesia
• Javanese calendar system
• Ruy Cinatti
• Sarawak
• Sarawak Museum
• Southeast Asia
• Timor-Leste
• arms
• collection management
• collections
• community engagement
• community reconnection
• curatorial practices
• decolonisation
• ethnographic archives
• ethnographic objects
• exhibition photography
• human remains
• keris
• looted objects
• material culture
• military expeditions
• musealization
• museum
• museum collections
• museum practice
• orders of chivalry
• provenance research
• skull collecting
• stone hooks
• subject biographies