Personhood Post-Mortem: A Survey Of Ethical Policies Within Collections Of Human Remains
Date
2022-05
Authors
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
The aim of this study was to survey changing ethics policy within collections containing
human remains. This was conducted in in the context of the April 2021 controversy which
centered around the University of Pennsylvania’s and Princeton University’s handling of the
skeletal remains of victims of the 1985 police bombing of the MOVE residence. Although
discussions of ethics had been developing since the 1990s, multiple museum, anthropology, and
public officials denounced the ways in which these remains were used and asserted that they
would be re-examining their policy relating to collections policy of human remains. However,
the practical implementations of these re-examinations have remained in private discussions
among collections professionals. To investigate the consensus among collection professionals of
human remains collections ethics and their current developments, this study aimed to
differentiate collection purposes by their historical lineage and to compare ethical museum
policies of acquisition, documentation, access, and repatriation. The survey was sent to fifteen
collections, but only six replies were received, primarily from curators and collections managers
of medical and forensic collections. Those that did participate did not have a formal written
policy regarding the treatment of human remains and relied on general collections practices or
informal ethical discussions. To gain a perspective of unwritten institutional policies, the focus
of the study was changed to anecdotal evidence of institutional attitudes and policy development
given by interviews of five out of the six responders. This study concluded that the most widely
agreed upon ethical policy is to establish and maintain documented provenance of human
remains within collections, but issues of acquisition, access, removal or return, and training
policy have yet to come to field wide consensus.
Description
Keywords
Collections, Ethics policy, Human remains