Tag: decolonisation

France and the restitution of cultural property 

On By europeancollectionsIn ebooks, French, New Acquisitions, The Department of Collections and Academic LiaisonLeave a comment

The question of restitution of spoliated cultural works currently engages most European countries, especially former colonizing nations. It came into the forelight in France when President Emmanuel Macron advocated for the “return of African heritage” during a visit to Burkina Fasso in 2017. This blog post will look at the headlines of France’s handling of the question of restitution with the details of related books inserted throughout.

Macron commissioned a study by two academics, Bénédicte Savoy (then History professor at the Collège de France in Paris, now at the Technical University of Berlin) and Felwine Sarr (a writer, then Economics professor at Gaston Berger University, Senegal, now in the Romance studies department at Duke University, US). Their report on The Restitution of African cultural heritage: Toward a New Relational Ethics was published in 2018: it examined the history and current state of publicly owned French collections of African artworks originating from illicit or disputed acquisitions, as well as claims and recommendations for preparing restitutions. From a wider perspective, they recommended international and inter-African cooperation, improved access to research, archives and documentation (including through digitisations), to fill the gap relating to the preservation, study and wider appreciation of African culture. This would imply training, circulation of temporary exhibitions, as well as educational initiatives to ensure transmission of African cultural heritage.

  • Objets du désir, désir d’objets : Leçon inaugurale prononcée le jeudi 30 mars 2017 / Bénédicte Savoy. Paris : Collège de France, 2017, ebook
  • Restituer le patrimoine africain / Felwine Sarr, Bénédicte Savoy. Paris : Philippe Rey, 2018. C207.d.5916
  • Afrikas Kampf um seine Kunst : Geschichte einer postkolonialen Niederlage / Bénédicte Savoy. München : C.H. Beck, 2021, EBSCO ; Africa’s struggle for its art : history of a postcolonial defeat ; transl. Susanne Meyer-Abich. Princeton University Press, 2022. C218.c.8787 and de Gruyter eBooks; Le long combat de l’Afrique pour son art : histoire d’une défaite post-coloniale. Éditions du Seuil, 2023. C219.c.6031    Continue reading “France and the restitution of cultural property “ →

Decolonising the old classification of Ukrainian literature

On By europeancollectionsIn Slavonic, UkrainianLeave a comment
Iurii Sherekh’s ‘Ne dlia ditei’ – one of the many Ukrainian texts in the “Russian literature” section.

Readers might remember that one strand of decolonising our collections in response to Russia’s war against Ukraine, as outlined in an earlier blog post, was about classification.  As explained then and long known by readers using our open-shelf collections, large parts of the UL’s classification system still strongly reflect the times and attitudes of empire.  There’s a lot of work to be done here just to tease all the various threads out.

Taking the focus back to Ukraine specifically, I have taken a preliminary look at the Ukrainian component in the “Russian literature” classes – 756 and 757.  These classes, meant to contain Russophone literature only, was in practice also the destination for Ukrainophone literature too until the introduction in 2011 of a separate class (758:6) for the latter.  There was always a different classmark for “Other Slavonic” (758:8) for languages without their own classmark, but unfortunately Ukrainian appears to have been placed standardly in Russian for decades.

Today’s initial work has been to work out what at least roughly what amount of books it is that we might potentially move, reclassify, and re-label.  Here are the initial results.

  • 756 contains 252 titles in or translated from Ukrainian
  • 757 contains 190 titles in or translated from Ukrainian

So far, so relatively straightforward, if still representing quite a lot of work (I think it would be a challenge to deal with one book in 10 minutes, given all the things that would need to happen, so those figures alone would mean 2 weeks full-time as a minimum).  What is missing here, though? Continue reading “Decolonising the old classification of Ukrainian literature” →

Decolonisation and Russia’s war against Ukraine

On By europeancollectionsIn Belarusian, Russian, Slavonic, Ukrainian1 Comment

When the Cambridge University Libraries Decolonisation Working Group was set up in September 2020, its members agreed that the group’s terms of reference should include the following: “We recognise that while the primary colonial legacy in Cambridge libraries relates to the British Empire, Cambridge also holds material relating to other colonial powers, past and present, and this is also part of our decolonisation focus.”  The wording came about because I was keen to ensure that non-British colonial legacies should not be overlooked when we hold such extensive collections from all around the world.

The Library of Congress authority name heading for Kyïv, previously listed as Kiev.

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine is a devastating reminder of these other colonial legacies.  Putin has openly compared his “military operation” against Ukraine to Peter I’s wars of expansion (or, more specifically, wars of reclamation, in Putin’s narrative).  In the library context, decolonisation work to address the colonial past and its violent embracing in the present involves many areas of library activities.  This post provides just a few initial suggestions, and I hope that future posts will pick up specific defined and achievable projects that come out of these. Continue reading “Decolonisation and Russia’s war against Ukraine” →

#LibrariesWeek: Cataloguing, Classification, and Critical Librarianship at Cambridge University

On By europeancollectionsIn The Department of Collections and Academic LiaisonLeave a comment
Typographic image with the Libraries Week logo, page title, and the cover of Narrative Expansions: Interpreting Decolonisation in Academic Libraries.

This year’s Libraries Week, the annual showcase of what the UK’s libraries have to offer, is centered around the theme of Taking Action, Changing Lives, with the aim of “highlighting the diverse ways that [libraries] take action with and for their community and make a positive impact on people’s lives; to showcase their central role in the community as a driver for inclusion, sustainability, social mobility and community cohesion”. 

Within this initiative is featured the upcoming Facet publication Narrative expansions: interpreting decolonisation in academic libraries, edited by Jess Crilly and Regina Everitt. The book “explores what is specific to colonial contexts that has impacted knowledge production, how these impacts are still circulating in our libraries, and what we can do about it.” 

Continue reading “#LibrariesWeek: Cataloguing, Classification, and Critical Librarianship at Cambridge University” →

Dutch resources on slavery and colonialism: an update

On By europeancollectionsIn Dutch, New AcquisitionsLeave a comment

Earlier this month the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam finally opened its doors to visitors for a major exhibition which examines the history of Dutch involvement in the international slave trade.  This exhibition, first conceived four years ago, was delayed due to COVID-19 but was officially opened in May by King Willem-Alexander and now runs until 29 August, with a powerful online version for people not able to visit in person. The exhibition tells the stories of slaves and the Dutch people who enslaved them, homing in on ten individual people and using oral history alongside historic objects and documents. There is a Cambridge connection as a plantation bell displayed at the entrance was until 2019 on display at St Catharine’s College. We have a copy of the accompanying exhibition catalogue: Slavernij: het verhaal van João, Wally, Oopjen, Paulus, Van Bengalen, Surapati, Sapali, Tula, Dirk, Lohkay (C216.c.9769)

News of this exhibition reminded me that a year ago I wrote about online Dutch titles on race and decolonisation. Since then we have looked out for relevant new titles to buy; already in October I reported on new Dutch books on race and identity. Here I will highlight some more new titles, mainly on slavery, along with a few older titles in print that we already had, now more accessible than a year ago. Continue reading “Dutch resources on slavery and colonialism: an update” →

Uncovering Official Publications

On By europeancollectionsIn Special collectionsLeave a comment

Some of the OP class catalogues.

One of the rare bright notes of the lockdowns has been the chance to embark on projects that we would otherwise have struggled to find time to do.  Chief among these has been our department’s retrospective conversion cataloguing of some Official Publications (OP) material.  The collection contains governmental publications from around the world, and the lion’s share of this enormous collection can be tracked down only through the subject-led OP card catalogue in the Rare Books Reading Room. Continue reading “Uncovering Official Publications” →

A successful project supported by the University Diversity Fund

On By europeancollectionsIn The Department of Collections and Academic LiaisonLeave a comment

I recently completed a four-week internship with the Decolonising Through Critical Librarianship group. The project was to overhaul the group’s WordPress blog. The aims included improving accessibility and user engagement. It would also require reorganising the content whilst ensuring it was expandable and straightforward to maintain. I was to work closely with the whole team, particularly my two supervisors, with whom I would meet regularly via Zoom as the internship was entirely home-based. Additionally, there were to be opportunities to engage with various faculty members and graduate trainees on ideas around librarianship and decolonisation.  

The new platform
Continue reading “A successful project supported by the University Diversity Fund” →

A paid internship to help decolonise library practice within the University

On By europeancollectionsIn The Department of Collections and Academic Liaison2 Comments

Just a few days before the March lockdown, the Decolonising through Critical Librarianship group, which includes two librarians from the Collections and Academic Liaison department that curates this blog, applied for a University Diversity Fund grant to upgrade our online platform. 

Continue reading “A paid internship to help decolonise library practice within the University” →

Some resources on racism and anti-racism in Eastern Europe

On By europeancollectionsIn Russian, Slavonic, UkrainianLeave a comment

The latest in our series of racism/anti-racism posts relates to Eastern Europe.  This is just the beginning of a collection of resources on the topic, and future posts will include material to broaden our coverage to include more areas, countries and topics: this list covers mostly Ukraine, Russia and part of the Balkans. Continue reading “Some resources on racism and anti-racism in Eastern Europe” →