The opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum has been hailed as a major museological achievement, a cutting-edge and high-tech advancement with the potential to shift global discourses on the repatriation of Pharaonic antiquities. And yet, little emphasis has been placed on how such discourses entrench existing museological norms, situating categories of “antiquity”, “artifact”, “treasure”, and “discovery” through extractive, colonial frameworks.
Decolonizing Archaeological Epistemologies is a conference critically examining archaeological histories and practices, proposing instead more expansive, democratic, and liberatory approaches to the past and material culture, challenging extant museological, academic, economic, and legal systems governing the ways that material culture is collected, studied, and traded. With implications spanning beyond Egyptology to archaeology, museology, and historical disciplines more broadly, this conference proposes a counter-colonial approach that rethinks the status of the historical object in the public eye.
Sessions include:
- Beyond “treasure”; challenging artifactual ontologies and epistemologies
- Counter-colonial museum exhibition strategies
- Resisting archaeological extractivism; new approaches to field-based research
- Community-based archaeology in theory and practice
- Beyond the “thing itself”; digital and ephemeral approaches to archaeological collections
- Who gets the past? New discourses in restitution, return, and repair
Keynote: Dr. Monica Hanna (Arab Academy for Science Technology and Maritime Transport)
Scholars engaging with these themes at a graduate, post-graduate, or professional level are invited to apply. Scholars working in the Global South are particularly encouraged to apply. Small travel stipends are available on a limited basis to offset travel costs.
Interested participants are requested to submit a 250 word abstract and contact information via the form below by August 15, 2025:
