Dr. Mary Mbewe
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Dr. Mary Mbewe is a historian, academic and lecturer at Mulungushi University in Kabwe, Zambia. Prior to joining the university she served as the Keeper of History at the Moto Moto Museum in Mbala, Zambia for 10 years. Shortly after joining Open Restitution Africa's third cohort of case study researcher in 2023, Mbewe obtained her Doctorate of Philosophy in History from the University of the Western Cape, South Africa. Her thesis titled “From Chisungu to the Museum: A Historical Ethnography of the Images, Objects and Anthropological Texts of the Chisungu Female Initiation Ceremony in the Moto Moto Museum in Zambia, 1931 to 2016” critically reflected on the disjuncture between sacred cultural practices and Westernised collection and display standards and practices in colonial and postcolonial museums. She recenty took up a visiting professortship at the University of Cologne, where she will introduce students to critical museum and heritage studies, postcolonial studies, and archival methods in research on colonial collections.
Problematic Museum Heritage in a Postcolonial Context: The Case of the Moto Moto Museum Chisungu Collection