From edinburgh university to the ngarrindjeri nation, south australia

Abstract

European institutions collected indigenous Australian human remains from the late eighteenth century onwards, forming part of collections that contained the physical remains of people from all around the world, including Europe. Obtained for the purposes of studying so‐called ‘racial’ difference, their removal was deeply embedded within a racist scientific paradigm that has long been abandoned but which played a large part in the oppressive treatment of Aboriginal people by the colonizing state. Evidence that remains were taken without consent, and against the wishes of the indigenous population, permeates the historical literature. Since the 1980s many indigenous groups have campaigned for the return of their remains from institutions around the world so that they can be reburied. This article considers the case of Edinburgh University, which amassed a large collection of human remains from around the world in the nineteenth century and, following campaigning from Aboriginal people, adopted a pro‐repatriation policy in 1991.