Call for Papers

ICOM is preparing an issue of Museum International on Provenance Research in Museums: Principles, Practices, and Possibilities (Vol. 77 Nº 307-308). All proposals submitted will be assessed for suitability, and if chosen, the subsequent articles will go through a double-blind peer review process. The issue is expected to be published, in collaboration with Taylor &Francis/Routledge, at the end of 2025.

The abstract submission deadline is 20 January 2025.

ICOM welcomes submissions and proposals that highlight practical examples of initiatives that include multiple perspectives in undertaking provenance and object biography research in museums, both in the Global North and South.

This issue seeks to unpack provenance research beyond its common conception as the tracing of ownership and legal history of objects, towards a nuanced understanding of underlying collecting histories and historical contexts of acquisitions.

ICOM interprets ‘objects’ and ‘collections’ in a broad sense to refer to both cultural and natural history collections as a way of challenging the existing binary division between nature and culture in museums.