Negotiations around Heritage: the return and circulation of Polynesian artefacts from the United Kingdom and France to French Polynesia

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My thesis will analyse the French Polynesian policy of conducting the return of its material heritage held in three British and French museums: the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology of Cambridge University (MAA), the British Museum (BM) and the musée du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac (mqB-JC). Unusually in the current climate, the local French Polynesian government and the Musée de Tahiti et des iles - Te Fare Manaha (MTI) do not emphasise restitution of rare historic treasures, but propose a model of circulation of objects, as they consider them to be vehicles that represent Polynesia around the world. Borrowing the term from Kanak people of New-Caledonia - also a French Territory - the French Polynesian government and the MTI call these travelling objects "ambassadors" (ambassadeurs). Thus, MAA, BM and mqB-JC are planning programmes of temporary as well as permanent returns of French Polynesian objects to MTI. They are collaboratively organised and affect British and French museums' relationships to Polynesian objects. From this French Polynesian perspective, decolonising the museum not only involves the return of collections but a critical reading of their colonial histories, allowing a multiplicity of voices to be heard. Besides, according to French Polynesia's Minister of Culture, Heremoana Maamaatuaiahutapu, and MTI, returning the artefacts to their home territory will allow them to "recharge their mana", a spiritual force from the gods and ancestors. This revitalisation of museum objects will affect people who interact with them and the museums themselves, in their operation and relationships to each other. I suggest re-investigating the question of mana, a classic concept in anthropological literature, in light of these circumstances. Mana has the efficacy to create links between people and things. The notion of authority, prominent in this concept, echoes the political and cultural legitimacy that French Polynesia seeks to assert by requesting the temporary/permanent return of artifacts.Using mainly an ethnographic methodology and juxtaposing fieldwork with anthropological and museological literature, my thesis will contribute more broadly to scholarship on restitution and ownership of collections. I will examine these unprecedented movements of Polynesian objects and associated significant shifts in north/south museum practice. Exploring the use of the concept of mana by the French Polynesian government and MTI will likely provide a better understanding of the policy of circulation of objects that they pursue and the way in which museum practices are changing.