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In the summer of 2010, Laura Kraak's CHIP placement took place at the Department of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas (AOA), British Museum in London and the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa in Wellington ('Te Papa'). 

British Museum

“I did mainly research on certain parts of the collection of which not that much information was known yet. An important part was the research on human remains from Oceania. Human remains are a sensitive part of a museum’s collection, especially in the light of an increasing amount repatriation requests and a changed legislation making repatriation of human remains possible. I also did research on the biographies of Maoris who were portrayed in paintings and photographs of the collection and on Australian plants and their use by Aboriginals for the Australian Garden, which will be in front of the British Museum in the summer of 2011.

Furthermore, I helped with a variety of smaller tasks, such a updating the Museum’s records by photographing and measuring objects, making a transcript of an interview with the Maori artist George Nuku and making a start on setting up a display for Vanuatu baskets. My internship at the British Museum gave me a good and interesting insight in the various tasks that are part of museum work.”

Te Papa

“I went on to do a five-week internship at the Karanga Aotearoa Repatriation Programme of the National Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa Tongarewa, in Wellington (later in 2010). This programme is government mandated to work on the repatriation of Maori human remains back to New Zealand and subsequently back to the community of provenance. My tasks included communication with Dutch institutions to find out if they have Maori human remains in their collections; research on the collection of Maori human remains in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; reviewing a research paper on the trade of Maori human remains in the Bay of Islands, a region in the north of Zealand; and organizing, summarizing and making indices of articles on repatriation in the team’s files.”

“The Karanga Aotearoa Repatriation Programme is a case study in my bachelor thesis on the repatriation of human remains back to source communities. I will discuss the debate on the repatriation of human remains and other cultural property and compare the situations in settler and non-settler societies. Subsequently, I will put the case of Te Papa in the larger context of this debate. This internship provided unique insight into how Maoris deal with repatriation. It was a very fascinating and enriching experience.”  

Class of 2011, HUM Major; SSC Minor
PhD Deakin ľ�ϸ���Ӱ�� 2017