Community elders, local leaders, and museum curators with members of the ReConnect/Recollect team at the Bontoc Museum (Bontoc, Mt. Province, Philippines)
The University of Michigan’s Philippine archival, photographic, and archaeological collections are well known to scholars of U.S. colonialism, but few have taken up the question of why, in the first place, these collections exist in Ann Arbor, thousands of miles from the Philippines. ReConnect/ReCollect: Reparative Connections to Philippine Collections at the University of Michigan builds on the efforts of former faculty, students, and members of the local Filipino American community to draw attention to the historical relationship between U-M’s Philippine collections and the institution’s own participation in American imperialism.
The project began as a series of conversations among U-M faculty, librarians, archivists, and external advisors from various Filipino and Filipino American communities. In 2021, the project’s leaders were awarded a generous grant from U-M’s Humanities Collaboratory to carry out a two-year project that combined reparative curation, community engagement, artist and culture bearer residencies, and original scholarship. Led by co-PIs Deirdre de la Cruz (History and Asian Languages and Cultures in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts) and Ricardo Punzalan (School of Information), the team comprised U-M faculty, curators, collection managers, undergraduate and graduate students, and an external advisory board of Filipino, Filipino American, and Indigenous elders, scholars, community organizers, and museum curators.
Master basket weaver and Kankana-ey culture bearer Johnny Bangao, Jr. examines baskets in U-M's Museum of Anthropological Archaeology Philippines collection.
Bayanihan House Relocation, 1916-1919, Walter Marquardt Collection, 1896-1952, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan
U-M Philippines Collection @ A Glance, Kalayaan, 2022
Filipino American Students Association students look through materials documenting FASAs of yesteryear. Image courtesy of the Bentley Historical Library
ReConnect/ReCollect: Reparative Connections to Philippine Collections at the University of Michigan
Fall 2021 - Present
ReConnect/ReCollect 1.0
Bayanihan House Relocation, 1916-1919, Walter Marquardt Collection, 1896-1952, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan
The first phase of ReConnect/ReCollect built on cutting-edge theoretical and practical interventions from critical archival studies and museology, existing historiographies of the Philippines and U.S. empire, research in U-M’s archives and museum collections, and community engagement. The project proceeded along three lines of research and activity: reparative curation, reparative connections to community, and reparative scholarship. The team conducted surveys of all Philippine materials across multiple repositories and collections on campus, created glossaries to identify and remediate harmful language in collection finding aids and catalogues, piloted public programming that engaged U-M’s collections, and forged new pathways for accessibility through artist and culture bearer residencies. The project team also distributed print and digital copies of several of U-M’s Philippine archival and photographic collections to museums, libraries, and Indigenous communities in the Philippines through two trips in the summers of 2023 (to the Cordillera region) and 2024 (to Manila, Cebu, and Bohol). Finally, the project conducted focus group research on Filipino and Indigenous perspectives on the existence of Philippine human remains in U-M’s collections. These activities culminated in the publication of a website and digital toolkit that documents the project’s process and brings the adaptable and practical resources it developed before a wider audience.
Now that the project has built a foundation for enacting reparative measures with regards to U-M’s Philippine collections, the project’s leaders are continuing and expanding these efforts. With the support of the IHP, phase two of ReConnect/ReCollect is pursuing three additional projects.
Balikan*: Shared Stewardship and Ethical Returns for Philippine Collections (major symposium, October 2025)
The first of its kind in terms of its focus on Philippine colonial collections, the ReConnect/ReCollect project has become an inspiration for other institutions. At the same time, there exist parallel efforts and interventions aimed at rethinking institutional practices and bringing Philippine collections closer to communities by pursuing outright repatriation, knowledge sharing using digital tools, and shared stewardship arrangements. In October 2025, ReConnect/ReCollect will host a major symposium that convenes scholars, archivists, cultural heritage workers, and community activists who are collaborating and advocating to better represent and activate Philippine collections in libraries, archives, and museums around the world. Our central question is: What does shared stewardship of Philippine archival and museum collections look like? The overall goals of the symposium are to share resources, experiences, and insights; explore the possibility of standardizing best practices for Philippine collections across institutions; and build a support network of those pursuing Philippine-related reparative work.
*Balikan in Tagalog means to return to something; to return for something; to return to somewhere.
Community Consultation in Mindanao, Philippines (July 2025)
Having consulted with institutions and communities in two of the Philippines’ three major regions (Northern Luzon and the Visayas), the project will turn its focus to the southern region of Mindanao, where U-M archaeologists, zoologists, and botanists conducted extensive collecting expeditions in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth centuries. In July 2025, ReConnect/ReCollect representatives will travel to Mindanao, where they hope to continue the work of sharing digital copies and facilitating dialogue around shared stewardship with communities/institutions in this region, particularly in the major provinces of Davao del Sur, Maguindanao, and Bukidnon. Owing to her institutional connections and deep knowledge of the region, Dr. Alyssa Paredes, co-principal investigator and an assistant professor of anthropology at U-M, is coordinating the visit.
The Kababayan Book (ongoing)
The ReConnect/ReCollect Project residencies for artists and culture bearers of Filipino and Filipino American descent (May 2022, April 2023, and May 2023) opened U-M’s archival and museum collections of Philippine materials to non-academic researchers. Their success has resulted in an unprecedented number of visual and literary artists seeking access to and engaging the Philippine collections, mostly on their own initiative. Informal conversations with visiting artists surfaced an interest in compiling or crowdsourcing an extra-institutional handbook that could provide insights and recommendations for how to navigate a visit to Ann Arbor and engagement with U-M archives and museums in holistic and culturally meaningful terms. The Kababayan Book (kababayan loosely translates as “my people,” i.e., fellow Filipinos) will be a community-built resource that takes its inspiration from The Green Book, the motoring guide for African American people traveling throughout the US in the mid-twentieth century that sought to support their safety by identifying establishments that served Black patrons.The Kababayan Book will also stand as a work of public engagement scholarship and model for other institutions with Philippine colonial collections.
U-M Philippines Collection @ A Glance, Kalayaan, 2022
Researchers
Deirdre de la Cruz
Co-Principal Investigator, Associate Professor, Department of History and Asian Languages and Cultures
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
Alyssa Paredes
Research Lead, Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
Ricky Punzalan
Co-Principal Investigator, Associate Professor, School of Information
