Emiline Smith, Rucitarahma Ristiawan and Tular Sudarmadi write:
We provide a broad overview of Indonesia’s current post-independence legislation and practice and highlight challenges that hamper the effective implementation of this framework, particularly in relation to repatriation of foreign-held cultural objects.
Agency, access, and ownership were violently removed through the colonial looting of Indonesian cultural heritage, so the first step towards restorative justice should be reinstating this to the communities of origin, or to the Indonesian government when the rightful origin community cannot be identified.
This concerns not only the cultural objects themselves, but also their digital and physical lives, i.e. the knowledge and expertise created based on these objects.
