Announcements

Call for Papers

Issue 1 : Decolonising university collections? Challenges, stakes and perspectives

The first issue of Unimusea – Research and Practices on University Collections will focus on current reflections and practices related to the decolonisation of university collections: provenance research, colonial legacies, institutional transformations, collaborations with originating communities, and new forms of museography and research.

This issue is associated with the study days “Decolonising University Collections? Challenges, Stakes and Perspectives”, organised by Musée L – the University Museum of UCLouvain – on 8–9 October 2026 in Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium). The event will be held in a hybrid format (on-site and online). Authors whose contributions are selected will be invited to take part.

The issue is part of a broader set of scientific, political and museological debates on the role of universities in the production, transmission, and critical reassessment of knowledge shaped within colonial contexts.
A detailed state of the art and theoretical background are provided below.

Submission Guidelines:Guidelines for Authors and Editorial Standards

1. Manuscript length and formatting

The journal accepts papers in French, English, Dutch or German. Please accompanied by a brief biographical presentation (1,000 characters max.).

Papers submitted for publication must meet the following requirements:

  • Maximum 25,000 characters (including spaces and references, excluding abstract and keywords);
  • Times or Times New Roman font, single spacing;
  • No formatting, styles or bullet points;
  • Maximum of three heading levels (not including the article title), numbered 1., 1.1., and 1.1.1., respectively, with each heading not exceeding 50 characters (not including the numbering). The numbers will be removed during layout.
  • Word (or OpenOffice) without formatting. No PDFs.
  • Keywords: 4 to 5

  • The text does not exceed 25,000 characters (including spaces and references, but excluding captions, abstract and 3 to 5 keywords).

  • The instructions for anonymising the manuscript (described in the guidelines for authors) have been followed to enable double-blind review. 

  • All references cited in the text have been checked for accuracy and completeness. The list of references does not contain any works that are not cited in the text.

  • Submissions by email to: unimusea-museel@uclouvain.be

Authors publishing in Unimusea publish their articles under the Creative Commons  ‘Attribution – NonCommercial – NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence’ (CC BY-NC-ND). This licence allows anyone to copy and distribute articles for non-commercial purposes, without modification, provided that the author is appropriately credited.

There are no fees for the processing or distribution of articles.

Authors retain ownership of their articles. However, the journal does not accept articles that have been submitted or published in other journals. It is the responsibility and ethical duty of authors to ensure compliance with this agreement.

Footnotes shall only be used to comment on the content or add additional information. The footnote reference shall be placed directly after the word to which it refers, before the punctuation, never preceded by a space.

Italics shall be used:

  • For titles of works of art, books and exhibitions;
  • For all words in a language other than that in which the article is written;
  • To emphasise a word or passage.

Apart from these uses, bold and italics should be avoided as much as possible in the body of the text.

Years should be mentioned as follows:

  • In French: 10 AEC (Avant l’Ère Commune) ou 10 EC (de l’Ère Commune) ;
  • In English: 10 BCE (Before the Common Era) or 10 CE (Common Era).

Study days, round tables, symposia, etc. should be written in quotation marks “” (in roman type). Research programmes, study days and activity reports should always be written in lowercase and always in the singular form (research, study, activity).

The titles of papers, courses, etc. should be written in quotation marks “” (in roman type).

The reference work for the composition of printed texts and typographical rules for the French language is the Lexique des règles typographiques en usage à l'Imprimerie nationale. This should be supplemented by the ‘Vitrine linguistique de l'Office québécois de la langue française’ (Linguistic Showcase of the Office québécois de la langue française), which presents conventions that are more up-to-date than the classic codes, particularly for the use of capital letters https://vitrinelinguistique.oqlf.gouv.qc.ca/

For the English language, the reference work is the Chicago Manual of Style.

2. Author identification

The paper will begin with its full title but will not mention the identity of the author(s), to allow for double-blind peer review. Similarly, in citations and references to their own work, authors must present it in the third person to avoid identification in this way.

3. Figures

Within the text, figures shall be numbered in ascending order (Figure 1, Figure 2, etc.).

A separate text file shall contain the list of captions, including the titles of the illustrations and the sources and credits. Illustrations must be copyright-free; where applicable, the author shall have obtained all necessary authorisations for their reproduction.

A separate folder shall contain the illustrations in JPEG format with a minimum resolution of 300 DPI.

4. Abstract and keywords

The paper shall be accompanied by an abstract of 1,500 characters, including spaces, and four to five keywords.

The abstract and keywords shall appear in the manuscript file, between the title and the first paragraph.

5. Quotations and references

Short quotations shall be enclosed in double quotation marks (“”).

Long quotations (more than forty words) shall be placed in a separate paragraph indented to the left (i.e. with a larger than normal left margin) and shall not be enclosed in quotation marks. The parenthetical reference shall be placed after the final punctuation mark.

Example:

The MCRC provides each Makah tribal member the opportunity to learn about their family history, the history of the Makah Tribe, as well as how to incorporate traditional cultural values into their contemporary lives… While interpreting Makah history and culture to interested visitors is important, even more important is sustaining a strong sense of Makah identity. (Sadongei and Norwood, 2016, pp. 205-206)

Within quotations:

  • Modifications (deletions, additions, replacements of words or letters, etc.) made by the author of the text shall be indicated by square brackets: […] for a deletion, or by inserting the added text in square brackets.
  • Excerpts highlighted shall be italicised, and the quotation shall be followed by the words ‘emphasis added’ in brackets.

Quotations and references in the text shall follow APA standards: they shall be accompanied by the author’s name, year of publication, and, where applicable, the page number cited, all in parentheses.

For publications with two authors, both names shall be cited and separated by ‘&’ in parenthetical references. For publications with three or more authors, only the first author shall be cited, followed by ‘et al.’.

If several publications are referenced at the same time, they shall be grouped in the same parentheses, separated by semicolons for different authors, and by commas (without repeating the author’s name) for multiple works by the same author.

Examples:

  • Cameron (1968, p. 42) distinguishes between museology of knowledge and museology of objects...
  • (Simon, 2010, p. 187)
  • (Knez & Wright, 1970, p. 20)
  • (Cameron, 1968; Knez & Wright, 1970)

6. Reference list format

The complete references for publications cited in the text shall be grouped together at the end of the article and listed alphabetically under the heading ‘References’.

If several publications by the same author appeared in the same year, they shall be distinguished by adding a lowercase letter to the year of each publication (2004a, 2004b, etc.).

References shall be formatted according to the style defined by the American Psychological Association (APA), the main features of which are illustrated in the examples below. If in doubt, refer to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. The UQAM website lists the presentation rules to be followed depending on the type of document cited (https://style-apa.uqam.ca/regles-par-type-ressource/).

The punctuation rules followed for references shall be those of the language of the article (see point 1 above, Manuscript length and formatting).

Examples for an article in English

  • Book:

Silverman, L. H. (2010). The social work of museums. Routledge.

Falk, J. H., & Dierking, L. D. (2000). Learning from museums: Visitor experiences and the making of meaning. AltaMira Press.

  • Edited volume:

Davis, A., Desvallées, A., & Mairesse, F. (Eds.). (2010). What is a museum? Verlag Dr. C. Müller-Straten.

  • Journal article:

Sofka, V. (1991). Museology research marches on: The museum communication on the agenda. ICOFOM Study Series, 19, 7-8.

  • Journal article with online access (DOI):

Bertin, M. (2020). Le futur de la tradition: quelle muséologie pour les musées nationaux du Pacifique Sud ? ICOFOM Study Series, 48(1), 95-108. https://doi.org/10.4000/iss.2016

  • Online journal article:

Galani, A., & Kidd, J. (2020). Hybrid material encounters – Expanding the continuum of museum materialities in the wake of a pandemic. Museum and Society, 18(3). Retrieved January 12, 2022, from https://journals.le.ac.uk/ojs1/index.php/mas/article/view/3565/3163

  • Chapter in a collective work:

Maroevic, I. (2010). Towards the new definition of museum. In A. Davis, A. Desvallées, & F. Mairesse (Eds.), What is a museum? (pp. 140-151). Verlag Dr. C. Müller-Straten.

  • Theses and academic works:

Brulon Soares, B. (2012). Máscaras guardadas: musealização e descolonização (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Universidade Federal Fluminense.

  • Website:

Mairesse, F. (n.d.). Two ICOFOM giants. ICOFOM. https://icofom.mini.icom.museum/obituaries/zbynek_stransky_and_vinos_sofka/

ICOFOM. (2021, December 31, 2021). ICOFOM in 2020. https://icofom.mini.icom.museum/icofom-in-2020/

  • Exhibition in a museum:

Crill, R., & Stanley, T. (2006). The making of the Jameel Gallery of Islamic Art at the Victoria and Albert Museum [Exhibition catalogue]. Victoria and Albert Museum.

Martinez, J.-L., & Douar, F. (2018–2019). Archaeology goes graphic [Exhibition]. Louvre Museum, Paris, France. https://www.louvre.fr/en/expositions/archaeology-goes-graphic

Timeline:

  • Abstract submission deadline: 25 January 2026

  • Notification of acceptance: early February 2026

  • Full paper submission (max. 25,000 characters including spaces): 30 April 2026

  • Study days in Louvain-la-Neuve: 8–9 October 2026

  • Publication of the issue: late 2026

State of the Art

In recent years, several academic publications, conferences and civil society initiatives have highlighted the importance of engaging with the colonial legacies embedded within universities of the former European empires.
In Belgium, several universities have established internal working groups on this issue. UCLouvain, for instance, published in 2021 a final report from its “Colonial Past” working group. The Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB) also addressed this question through a mixed discussion group bringing together academic staff and student associations from the Congolese diaspora. The Koloniaal Verleden en Koloniaal Erfgoed commission at KU Leuven (September–December 2020) has similarly contributed to developing these reflections within the Flemish academic context.
All these reports underline the involvement of Belgian universities in the colonial enterprise. Moreover, an inter-university working group on the colonial past and decolonisation within Belgian universities was jointly mandated by the university councils VLIR/CRef.

Elsewhere in Europe, many universities and inter-university consortia have undertaken research on their collections and their colonial histories. At the European level, we may mention the working group of the UNIVERSEUM association and the Horizon Europe project COLUMN, both examining the colonial heritage of universities in Europe and beyond.

We should also acknowledge the contributions of the International Committee for University Museums and Collections (UMAC) and the International Committee for Museology (ICOFOM) within the International Council of Museums (ICOM). For example, UMAC Journal published a special issue entitled Beyond Provenance Research: Restitution and Return from University Museums (eds. Steph C. Scholten, Andrew Simpson, Gina Hammond), and ICOFOM Study Series released in 2024 Decolonizing Academic Disciplines and Collections (eds. Rainer Brömer, Susanne Rodemeier).

In formerly colonised countries, many universities—often founded by colonial powers—preserve collections with complex histories that require further study and contextualisation.
This call is therefore not limited to Europe and its former colonies but extends to other regions of the world, as well as to contemporary forms of colonisation.

More recently, the conference Études de provenances des collections de sciences naturelles et humaines. Muséologie et histoire pour le temps présent, organised by the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle in Paris, emphasised the disciplinary plurality of current research on decolonisation. We invite a broad and interdisciplinary reflection, taking university collections in their widest sense and welcoming approaches from all fields. Particular attention will also be given to so-called “mixed collections” (Bondaz, Dias & Jarassé, 2016, Collectionner par-delà nature et culture, Gradhiva, 23), which cross disciplinary boundaries historically shaped by epistemic divisions.

This call for papers is structured around two main thematic axes.

Axis 1 — What Does It Mean to Decolonise University Collections?

The need to critically examine the history of collections in relation to colonialism is shared by museums and other heritage institutions.
Here, we aim to question the specificities of university collections, which are closely linked to the definition and transmission of knowledge. These collections are material testimonies of the colonial past and its enduring effects in the present.

Is it possible and/or meaningful to decolonise museums or university collections? How can such a process be initiated? How can institutions train staff, rethink management, conservation and documentation practices, and strengthen relations with the concerned communities? What acquisition and deaccession policies are appropriate? What is the legal and ethical status of university collections acquired in colonial contexts?

Historicising and reassessing these collections often involves provenance research, which has become a key mission for heritage institutions over the past decade. In rethinking collections with colonial histories, what role does provenance research play? What are the origins and acquisition modalities of university collections in particular? Which research methods should be applied? Why are such studies undertaken and to what ends? How can institutions communicate about both the process and its results? How can the university community as a whole be involved?

Axis 2 — What Relationships Do Universities Maintain with Their Colonial Heritage?

University collections and museums represent only one facet of the colonial legacies within universities.
To what extent can they serve as a starting point for interrogating other tangible and intangible forms of colonial heritage embedded within academic institutions? How are university collections with colonial backgrounds used in teaching or research projects? Who engages with them? What relationships exist with the originating communities?

What strategies are adopted by universities seeking to decolonise their curricula, structures and operations?
What is the current state of university collections in former colonies, and how are they being interpreted today?
How can more equitable collaborations be built with civil society organisations and colleagues from universities in the originating communities?