Provenance & Restitution: AfricaMuseum & Its Colonial Legacy

In 2018, the AfricaMuseum in Tervuren, Belgium - one of Europe’s oldest and most prominent ethnographic museums - reopened its doors after five years of extensive renovation, aiming to shed its colonial legacy and embrace a more critical, decolonial narrative. This ambitious makeover, however, has been met with skepticism and criticism from various quarters, including activists, scholars, and even some members of the Museum’s own staff. They argue that, despite its makeover, AfricaMuseum continues to grapple with the deep-rooted structures of its colonial past.  Having engaged with this project not as an art historian but as a historian grounded in traditional archival research, I offer here a critical reflection on the provenance of the Museum’s African collections. This examination goes beyond the aesthetics of display to interrogate the historical conditions under which these objects were acquired. By tracing their often-contentious origins, I highlight the enduring power dynamics that continue to shape the Museum’s relationship with African communities.  Finally, I explore potential avenues for restitution, considering not only the return of physical objects but also the broader implications of epistemological and cultural repatriation. In doing so, I seek to contribute to the ongoing conversation about how museums can move beyond cosmetic change to embrace genuine decolonial transformation.

Bio

Didier Gondola is a historian and professor at Johns Hopkins University whose work explores popular culture, youth, masculinities, and postcolonial politics in Central Africa and the African diaspora in France. He is the author of Matswa vivant (2021), a landmark biography of Congolese anticolonial activist André Grenard Matswa, and Tropical Cowboys(2016), which examines youth culture and masculinity in colonial Kinshasa. His earlier work, Africanisme: La crise d’une illusion (2007), critically interrogates the ties between African studies in France and French neocolonial policies. Gondola is also co-editor of Frenchness and the African Diaspora (2009), and his current research focuses on restitution debates and museum collections in Belgium and France.