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The 2025 Philippine Studies Conference at SOAS takes up the challenging theme of repatriation. 

This year’s theme explores the material return, digital reunification, and recontextualization of Philippine artefacts, manuscripts, and sound heritage kept in institutions outside of the Philippines. Philippine material culture is here defined in its widest sense. It includes objects that have been made in the Philippine archipelago of all time contexts, as well as objects that are related to the Philippines either through consumption, war, trade, and exchange, as well as aesthetic, domestic, or ritual use. 

For the conference, we will also include unaltered or non-ritualized natural objects like botanical or animal specimens, photographs, drawings and prints. We also welcome comparative perspectives from Austronesian-speaking peoples of Southeast Asia, highlighting similar cases and shared challenges.

SOAS invites scholars, curators, artists, IT specialists, archivists, cultural practitioners, politicians, and community representatives to submit paper proposals for our 2025 annual conference.

Conference themes

We invite papers addressing, but not limited to, the following topics:

• Case studies of ongoing, successful or contested repatriation efforts in the Philippines (nation to nation or between regions) of Philippine artefacts and manuscripts from global museums, natural archives, and private collections
• Comparative perspectives from Austronesian-speaking peoples of Southeast Asia, highlighting similar cases and shared challenges.
• Local perspectives on repatriation, restitution, and the right to cultural heritage
• Problematization of bilateral nation-to-nation repatriations vs the quest for rematriation or grassroots engagement with recipients as close to cultural originators as possible
• Community-led initiatives in cultural heritage documentation and preservation
• The role of museums, archives, and universities in facilitating repatriation and decolonizing collections
• Ethical and legal challenges in returning cultural materials, including international policies and agreements
• The impact of digital technologies on access, representation, and ownership of heritage objects
• Digital repatriation and virtual reunification of cultural heritage through digitization projects
• The intersection of repatriation with contemporary artistic and curatorial practices
• Identity politics and perspectives on the diaspora in relation to heritage kept in overseas institutions

Submission guidelines

We welcome proposals for individual papers, panels, and roundtable discussions. Please submit a 200-word abstract and a short bio (max. 100 words) by June 15, 2025 using the link above. Notifications of acceptance will be sent by 30 June 2025.

For further inquiries, please contact philippinestudies@soas.ac.uk. We look forward to engaging in critical discussions on repatriation and cultural heritage in the Philippine and Island Southeast Asian context.

Contact

• Organiser: Philippine Studies at SOAS
• Contact: philippinestudies@soas.ac.uk

Header image: Image depicting lime holders within CAS Mezzanine storeroom. Selected for use on the homepage of the Philippine Heritage Collections interactive web portal. (c) Field Museum of Natural History - CC BY-NC 4.0