Mirjam Sarah Brusius writes:

In my research, I have visited many storerooms of Western museums filled with countless objects from the colonial era. Many were never shown, but lived an unremarkable existence in not always adequate conditions, turning them into “contaminated” or “cursed” objects for their original owners – not least due to the colonial violence they endured.

Conversations with collaborators in the Global South, including Torres Strait Islander historian and curator Leah Lui-Chivizhe, revealed that not all communities of origin may want those objects returned. Their original functions might also be obsolete for today’s generations.

In other words, even if many museums are all of a sudden eager to return objects now that they are “done” with them, at a time when preservation and storage costs are skyrocketing in places such as London, Paris, and Berlin, it does not always mean that this is the right time for the other side.

Who will set the terms, in particular if minority groups question their own governments as to who the rightful owners actually are? Borders in Middle Eastern and African multiethnic nation states are often artificial and in themselves legacies of colonialism.