Born of Spiritual Obligation. Australian First Nations and the Repatriation of the Ancestral Dead

As the experience of repatriation of the Ancestral dead of Australian First Nations exemplifies, Western museums cannot decide the future of their collections without taking account of the ethical implications of what, in numerous instances, have been long histories of demands for the return of cultural property by peoples who have experienced European subjugation. Often these long histories tell of the efforts of communities to secure not just the return of stolen cultural treasures but also the bodily remains of their ancestors from anthropology and comparative anatomy collections across the Global North.