The colonial legacy continues to resonate in Portugal, shaping “organized forgetting” of colonial violence. Finding ways to dismantle the real effects of that historical legacy includes restitution of looted collections.
[ in Portuguese ] A 15-point action plan is the most tangible proposal put forward by the working group in a report on “sensitive heritage” at the University of Coimbra. Among the actions consists are “identifying and systematizing all the ‘sensitive heritage’ of UC”, the adoption of principles on dealing with them, legislation for restitution and the repatriation of a skull collection to Timor Leste.
Timor-Leste has a long and complex history of colonial entanglements with the Portuguese, and the number of Portuguese documents related to this is rather big. Their digitalisation will help on both sides.
