[Humanities Across Borders] Care, Custody, Conservation I

Panel Convenor(s)

• AK

  Aarti Kawlra

  International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS), Netherlands

Panel Chair(s)

• AK

  Aarti Kawlra

  International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS), Netherlands

Presenter(s)

• MM

  Mizuho Matsuo

  National Museum of Ethnology (Minpaku), Japan
• NP

  Nisha Poyyaprath Rayaroth

  Independent Scholar, India
• FV

  Françoise Vergès

  Sarah Parker Centre for the Study of Racism and Racialisation,, United Kingdom
• MM

  Mariko Murata

  Kansai University, Japan

In her 1986 essay, “The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction” Ursula Le Guin presents an alternate narrative for imagining the history of the world, drawing attention away from the perspective of spear-wielding hunters towards women gatherers (of food, firewood, and stories), and their woven baskets, or other carrier bags. This panel speaks to conservation as a practice of everyday life inspired by Le Guin’s retelling of human evolution as a story of collecting and holding in custody rather than of possessing and preserving.
The panel Care, Custody, and Conservation aims to critique the notion of conservation when used as an act of legacy creation and seeks to go beyond state- and non-statist heritage practices associated with human and nonhuman nature. The conundrum of “whose heritage” and “who owns” have tended to divert attention from spaces of transmission of knowledge and the acts of holding in custody.
This Humanities Across Borders panel brings together practices of worldmaking, namely collecting and organizing human and nonhuman species into institutions and practices, as a form of knowledge transmission for future generations. The idea is to expand our understanding of conservation, beyond processes of restoration and preservation for posterity, and view it instead as a dynamic process of change, involving sustained practices of care and custody in the present.
The papers in this panel interrogate collections ranging from colonial institutional structures and associated practices like museums, zoos, botanical gardens, libraries, photo archives, illustrated taxonomies of flora and fauna, topographical maps, prison registers, including in vitro fertilization banks. 

Presentations:

• 14:00 – 15:45 (GMT+7)

  Management and Preservation of the Bodily Substances: the social imaginaries of gametes in reproductive technologies
  

  Presenter: Mizuho Matsuo – National Museum of Ethnology (Minpaku)
• 14:00 – 15:45 (GMT+7)

  Circus Animals and Indian State: Care, Custody and Conservation
  

  Presenter: Nisha Poyyaprath Rayaroth – Independent Scholar
• 14:00 – 15:45 (GMT+7)

  Holding in Custody
  

  Presenter: Françoise Vergès – Sarah Parker Centre for the Study of Racism and Racialisation,
• 14:00 – 15:45 (GMT+7)

  Decolonising Museums Through Care and Dialogue
  

  Presenter: Mariko Murata – Kansai University