George is a Lecturer at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, but was employed as a postdoctoral research associate by the [Re:]Entanglements project.
He speaks to us about his experience encountering the Thomas collection in Cambridge, his positionality as an African researcher, as well as the different attitudes to collections he encountered in the UK and Nigeria.
He talks about the way people respond to photographs of their ancestors and the way this is different to responses to other kinds of artefacts.
We talk about the tensions that can arise around returns and the ways in which a drive to return may arise from guilt and shame around the colonial past in Europe.
Examples are given from the project, including a discussion of Ikenga and the intangible dimensions surrounding African artefacts. George talks about the need to listen to communities in which objects were made.
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