Epistemic repair
The active restoration of knowledge systems destroyed by colonialism — indigenous narratives, classifications, and naming take precedence over western art-historical categories.
The active intellectual project of restoring knowledge systems destroyed by colonialism. In digital catalogues this means giving priority to indigenous narratives, terminology and classification systems over western art-historical categories, in order to recognise the agency of origin cultures.
In practice for the archive: where a Yoruba object has both a Yoruba name and a western label, the Yoruba name comes first; where an object's function is described in colonial-era notes as "fetish", the description is rewritten using the relevant indigenous concept (e.g. nkisi, boli) with the colonial term shown only as a historical citation.