Heritage Horizons

Understanding the Colonial Origins and Legacies of Collections

Summer 2026     |      1:00 - 2:00 pm     |      £25

This webinar explores the history of collections formed from territories across the British Empire in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It will discuss the often violent and coercive ways in which objects were acquired but also where local peoples exerted agency over these processes of acquisition. Many of these objects still reside in museums and heritage sites across the UK, and there is still much research to be done to understand their complex histories. The webinar will also highlight examples of how different organisations are managing these legacies in the present day.

About the speaker

Dr Sarah Longair is Associate Professor of the History of Empire at the University of Lincoln. Her research examines the history of the British Empire in East Africa and the Indian Ocean world, in particular through material and visual culture. She has published on the history of museums in the empire, colonial collecting, and the history of Indian Ocean islands. Her first monograph, Cracks in the Dome: Fractured Histories of Empire in the Zanzibar Museum, 1897 – 1965, was published in 2015, and her forthcoming book project is entitled Island Collecting: Objects and Empire in the western Indian Ocean, 1860 – 1930.

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