The Ethics of Casts

In early 2022, the Australian Government committed to establish a National Resting Place to care for the remains of First Nations Australians that cannot be returned to their communities of origin. Scoping studies have identified plaster casts of skulls and skeletal elements, as well as casts taken from the bodies and faces of living individuals, among the kinds of Ancestral Remains likely to be held in a National Resting Place. At the same time, as collecting institutions worldwide continue to reassess their histories and the provenances of their objects, anthropological casts from colonial contexts remain on the periphery of repatriation and restitution discussions. In three case studies, we present different types of plaster casts of First Nations Australians in collecting institutions in the Global North. We set out the reasons why descendant communities may seek their return, and derive overarching criteria to map the cultural sensitivity – the ethics – of such casts

Indian and Buddhist Studies · Indian History and Philosophy · Italian Fascism and Post-war Society · Philosophy

• Ombre portée. Le sujet humain comme objet dans le moulage ethnographique de Bonangera

  Open Access•Claire Brizon, Daniel C Browning et al.•Gradhiva•2025

  Add to list