In popular culture, a scene in the 1981 movie Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark reflects this normalisation of looting. After a perilous excursion in Mesoamerica, Dr Jones returns to New York with the idol he captured in a crumbling temple, lost in tropical vines.
But his friend and colleague from the Museum reassures him: ‘The museum will buy everything as usual, no questions asked’.Since the 1980s, the cultural property narrative within museums shifted from a universal narrative to a national narrative.
Scholars in critical heritage studies raised suspicion around phrases such as ‘cultural heritage of humanity’ as it appeared that Western Museums made use of it to justify the fact that they owned objects looted from indigenous and colonised nations.
In the past decade, the universal narrative has lost the public’s unconditional trust.
While the consensus remains that cultural heritage should be preserved and looked after, the public opinion leans in favour of heritage being preserved in its place of origin.
She concludes: If everyone is now talking about restitution, the conversations however engaged disproportionately more with Western experiences.
They often eluded inequality and vulnerability in the periphery, where artefacts contemplate their return.
Moreover, international law, for now, only offers one remedy: restitution to the State of origin.
Optimistically, this means that for extra-legal restitution, such as restitution of colonial objects looted during colonial times, we can discuss modalities, engage with other disciplines and, even resort to resources other than restitution, to ensure effective decolonisation of collections.
The future of heritage studies will certainly include more research on the cultural property of intra-state minorities.
