ReConnect/ReCollect, a U-M group formed three years ago to connect with descendant Philippine communities and to inventory the U-M's extensive Philippine collections, has launched a website (https://www.reconnect-recollect.com/) that offers resources and information about the collections, their history, and the process of "developing models for culturally responsive and historically minded stewardship" of those collections.
From the website: "Scattered across several archives, libraries, and research museums, the Philippine Collections consist of roughly 20,000 items including manuscript collections, published works, maps and atlases, art, photographs, ethnographic objects, human remains, and thousands of animal and plant specimens from the Philippine Islands.
Collected in the context of U.S. colonization, the University of Michigan’s Philippine materials are not only critical sources for academic scholars who study the history of U.S. imperialism, they are also foundational to several of the U-M’s departments and institutions. In decentering the legacies of colonial collections and representation, this project reaches beyond an academic audience to mitigate the harm of traditional curation, representation, and scholarship that has largely ignored community voices and perspectives, glorified colonial actors, and almost exclusively catered to academic researchers.
ReConnect/ReCollect is supported by generous funding from the Michigan Humanities Collaboratory, and works in partnership with collections faculty at the University of Michigan’s Bentley Historical Library, Special Collections Research Center, and Museum of Anthropological Archaeology to create recommendations for representing Philippine collections held by various campus units."
Pictured here: Lantern slide of a stilt house, ca. 1900-1935 (record 1866). From the Manila, Philippines, and Environs collection, Special Collections Research Center. University of Michigan Digital Collections.
Read more and explore at: https://www.reconnect-recollect.com/
