Troubling possessions and family reckonings: inheriting the legacies of colonial ancestors

Inherited family objects are often precious or cherished, a source of warm emotions connecting us to ancestors across time. But sometimes the family keepsakes we possess, tangible or intangible, can generate more troubling emotions. They may transmit to us things that we were not meant to have or do not want. They might link us to pasts with which we would prefer not to be entangled or feel compelled to set right. In this article, I draw from a sociological study of settler descendants in Australia who are reckoning with the lives of their colonist ancestors via family history research. I focus on several case studies to explore people’s relations to family inheritances that evoke troubling emotions and demonstrate departures from the lives of ancestors as well as connections. This analysis offers us ways to conceptualise the challenging and compelling roles that family inheritances can play in the lives of descendants reckoning with the material legacies of their colonist ancestors, and in the context of wider moves towards inter/national reckoning and reparative justice for colonised peoples and their descendants.