The French collections of Indigenous American objects

This project aims to identify, document, and map French collections of Indigenous objects from the Americas, encompassing all regions and time periods. It includes both public collections—namely institutional collections at the national, regional, and municipal levels—and private collections that are accessible to the public throughout France.

The documentation and cataloguing process will be carried out through an Agorha database entitled “Répertoire des ActeurS du Collectionnisme AméRicain en France (RASCAR)”. The project continues and expands upon the online mapping initiative Le Monde en musée (INHA-Musées d’Angoulême).

Beyond mere inventory, the ambition is to stimulate renewed interest in France in the study of Indigenous objects from the Americas, while providing material for research into issues of attribution and provenance related to these objects. In doing so, the project will also contribute to the evolution of the Le Monde en musée mapping platform, with a new focus on the actors involved in collecting, the key events that shaped collections, and the development of suitable visualization tools.