Empire, Slavery and Scotland's Museums steering group recommendations: Scottish Government Response

Annex A: Examples to demonstrate sector working towards each Recommendation

On a city-wide scale rather than a national approach, an important positive development in connection to the first recommendation is the creation of a dedicated space to explore "Glasgow and Empire" in Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum overseen by Glasgow Life. The Scottish Government would welcome other local and regional initiatives to best tailor exhibits and collections within the context of their local communities.

An example of our museums working in partnership is the Exchange project led by National Museums Scotland and funded by Arts and Humanities Research Council. Funding was distributed to seven museums to work with African, Caribbean, and South Asian diaspora heritage community members to explore experiences of empire, migration, and life in Britain. The three Scottish museums were Glasgow Life (working with the Bangladesh Association Glasgow and the Our Shared Cultural Heritage programme) David Livingstone Birthplace Museum (working with individuals recruited through job seekers' platforms) and Edinburgh Museums and Galleries (working with Edinburgh Caribbean Association).

The V&A Dundee's work to decolonise includes re-writing their object label texts in the Scottish Design Galleries. Input from an advisory group composed of academics, curators and people with lived experience of racism enabled the museum to acknowledge the transnational histories of these objects and unpack Scotland's involvement in colonialism and transatlantic slavery.

In Education, there are specific examples of collaboration including: the National Museums Scotland resource, created in partnership with educators, to support the learning and teaching of the Transatlantic Slave Trade component of the National 5 qualification; the resources created by the David Livingstone Birthplace Centre designed to introduce anti-racism perspectives to learning and teaching about its history; The Watt Institution collaborating with local education partners to create new resources for teaching about the Transatlantic Slave Trade and its local links and legacies in Inverclyde for use in all secondary schools in the area; and, Glasgow Museums' involvement in work with Glasgow City Council to create learning and teaching materials for primary and secondary education on the Transatlantic Slave Trade and Glasgow's role.

In February 2022 in Benin City, Nigeria, a Benin Bronze returned from the University of Aberdeen was handed to the Oba of Benin, 125 years after it had been looted by a British military force. This was world's first such return from a museum collection and followed two years of discussions with the Court of the Oba, the Nigerian federal government and the Nigerian National Commission on Museums and Monuments to ensure that it was returned in the right way to the right recipient. While this return had a substantial international media impact, museums in Scotland have an established track-record of returns, including the return of a Lakota Ghost Dance Shirt by Glasgow Museums in 1999 and the return of a totem pole to the Nisga'a Nation by National Museums Scotland in 2023, as well as the return of Ancestral human remains by museums over the past three decades.