Biography
Guido Gryseels has been Director General of the Royal Museum for Central Africa (RMCA) since 2001. The RMCA is a federal scientific institute. It conducts research both in human and natural sciences, has a major program in development cooperation in 12 African countries and is active in information dissemination and projects to promote world citizenship. The AfricaMuseum has colonial origins but has been subject to a major renovation in 2018. In recent years, the AfricaMuseum has been in the middle of controversies surrounding the colonial past of Belgium and restitution issues.
Previously, Guido Gryseels was service chief on International Agricultural Research at the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations in Rome, Italy. Between 1979 and 1987, he was a scientist and assistant to the Director General at the International Livestock Centre for Africa in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. He has a PhD in Agricultural Economics from the University of Wageningen, Netherlands, and has graduate degrees from the Universities of Leuven, Belgium, and New England, Australia. Guido Gryseels has been chair of the European Ethnology Museums Directors Group. He is also a member of the Board of Trustees of the Belgian Development Cooperation Agency Enabel and is chair of the Program Committee of Food and Business Research at the Netherlands Foundation for Scientific Research.
Keynote Presentation (2022) | Restitution of African Cultural Heritage and Its Challenges
Panel Presentation (2022) | Whose Heritage? Reconsidering the Museum as a Global Commons
