Dr Eva Namusoke (History PhD 2011) is Senior Curator, African Collections Futures at The Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge who hopes her work opens opportunities for others. 

When introducing the project in a blog post, Eva shared how it seeks to develop a better sense of where Africa-related objects and materials are across the University, what kinds of engagements scholars, African research and heritage institutions, and African diaspora and communities of origin have with these objects, and what more can be done. 

A report was published in December on the project, which covers eight museums and the Botanic Gardens, the University Library, and less well known collections in University departments and affiliated institutions, but not colleges. The aim is to tell the stories of the artefacts from a different perspective, with African people central, not peripheral or written out, as they have been in the past.

Eva was pleased with the cross-collections representation – from representatives of libraries, archives and museums – all in one room listening as the report was launched and to its recommendations. Prominent among the recommendations is the accessibility or availability of the collections to those for whom they are significant.

Eva says: “We were thinking about the recommendations: how can we make this work, not just as another report that sits on the shelf, but to feel like something that that has an impact moving forward?

“There's really kind of a common thread throughout, which is increasing the accessibility to the collections for African people, whether scholars or community members or people that just have a general interest.”

The idea is to go “some way to beginning to address the historic lack of accessibility to these to these collections”, Eva adds.

The project looks across four categories: artefacts by African people at the Fitzwilliam Museum and the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, mainly, but not exclusively; Natural History specimens, at the Botanic Gardens, the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences and the University Museum of Zoology, Cambridge; depictions or references to Africa or African people in archival material; and objects made with materials from the continent, such as ivory or gold. The full report discusses the University’s history of repatriation and restitution.

As a Ugandan academic who was educated in the UK and United States and has lived all around the world, Eva brings a phenomenal perspective and knowledge to the project.

She says: “When you read the archival material that goes with collections, scientific reports which go with collection expeditions and you see all the ways in which African people were part of the process that weren’t acknowledged… it’s very difficult not to think about what it means to be an African person now reading this material. You’re entering a room you were never allowed to enter.”

The report is comprehensive, but there is plenty of opportunity for further research.

In terms of an academic career, Eva thinks of others rather than herself, pointing to the recommendation of fellowship opportunities for scholars to come to Cambridge.

She adds: “I hope it means more opportunities for young scholars, particularly young African scholars, to come here and do research with the collections and for more opportunities for collaborations with African curators on the continent.”