(In English, Italian and French) The central issue examined in this impressive collection of essays is how to respond to the desire of African-origin communities to reclaim what was taken from them.
(In English, French and Spanish) This issue of ICOFOM Study Series is the result of an international seminar at the University of Marburg in Germany in June 2024, where a wide range of speakers from the global south and north met.
[ in French ] Museums in the modern sense of the term first appeared in Africa during the colonial era. After independence, the colonial museum became the national museum. It was only a change of name, but the model remained Western
Seven German museums under the management of the Zentralarchiv of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (Central Archive of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin) systematically examine their holdings for looted goods from the Boxer War in cooperation with the Palace Museum Beijing.
[ in German ] Julia Binter talks about knowledge justice in relation to Namibian cultural assets and investigates cooperative research on cultural assets from colonial contexts in museums.
Police played an important role in the collecting of Aboriginal objects for colonial and imperial museums. Although most scholars have noted the unequal power relationship that occurred when police ‘collected’ Aboriginal objects on the frontier, scholarship has not previously explored the ‘authority’ of the police to collect objects.
The British Museum (‘BM’) has a collection of 224 objects from or likely from Cambodia, which were acquired across a period spanning from the end of the nineteenth century to the beginning of the twenty-first century. In this figure BM’s collection of banknotes, coins and medals from Cambodia is not included.
Kate Fitz Gibbon offers an extensive overview of India’s current cultural policies and the policies and practices during British colonial domination. It covers both the pro-Hindu policies of the Modi administration and the earliest laws to cultural heritage in Bengal (1810,1817).
Comment: Revisions to NAGPRA regulations require ‘deference’ to Native American ‘traditional knowledge’ and tribes’ permission to exhibit artifacts. The regulations do not address the possibility that a tribe and museum may disagree as to what is a cultural item subject to restrictions on display.
How do we trace the origin of collections? What new insights can be gleaned from these provenances? And what should become of such collections, within and beyond museum walls?
This paper outlines what makes the case of Ethiopia particular: the country that was never colonised but experienced the impact of European expansionism, and then discusses the two principal periods of looting
This ethnographic study aims to construct a thick description of how one migrant and diaspora community in a particular location – Somalis in Finland – preserve and discuss their cultural heritage.
Bone and tooth tools and ornaments have been made by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples for at least 46,000 years. Despite their beauty, sophistication and ubiquity, archaeologists and other researchers have overwhelmingly focused on the stone artefacts of Australia.
This book examines the ways in which law can be used to structure the return of indigenous sacred cultural heritage to indigenous communities, referred to as repatriation in this volume. In particular, it aims at developing legal structures that align repatriation with contemporary international human rights standards.
[ open access ] Editors Thomas Sandkühlerr, Angelika Epple, and Jürgen Zimmerer discuss in this book how the demand for restitution of art treasures of colonial provenance raises fundamental and complex questions about the presence of the past in ethical, scientific, political, legal and aesthetic dimensions.
This essay proceeds from the observation that the “Egypt” portrayed in museums and school education misrepresents the lived realities of modern Egyptians, their experiences, and their expectations concerning Egypt’s past and present.
The museum’s acquisition of works by contemporary Congolese artists is a consequence of the long effort to turn it from a temple of racist kitsch into a modern, ‘decolonised’ institution.
Jongsok Kim wrote this open access book in 2018, but it is still very relevant for our discussion. With legal and historical perspectives. Some case-studies about restitution are noteworthy.
The Museu Marítim de Barcelona has published TOOLS FOR THE DECOLONISATION OF MUSEUMS: A REFLECTION ON REIMAGINING THEMSELVES AS DIVERSE AND JUST INSTITUTIONS. Languages: Catalan, Spanish and English
Alexander Hermann takes a look at the principle of INALIENABILITY that applies in many countries, barring the removal of cultural objects from hashtag#museum collections, including for purposes such as hashtag#restitution.
The Mambesak Group was active in Jayapura from 1978 to 1984. After the murder of Arnold Ap in 1984, the group, mostly students from various regions in Papua, disbanded. This film tries to articulate the traces of the ideas of Arnold Ap, leader of the Mambesak Group, as mediators between their generation and the traces of their ancestors and Papuan culture. With firm statements about coloniality and restitution.
