Paul Stewens writes: Brazil and Germany have concluded an agreement to deepen their cooperation. The Joint Declaration covers a broad range of topics, with at the end the biggest dinosaur repatriation news in years: the decision to return the fossil of Irritator challengeri to Brazil.
28 April: Black Muse and Digital Benin: Benin Heritage & New Forms of Narratives: Digital Access & Reconnection to the Living Heritage of Benin Kingdom
3 May: Digital Benin and Kokopelli Gallery: Digital Benin: Digital heritage at the intersection of culture, data and practice
The fact that cultural possessions, which were brought from China at the beginning of the twentieth century, are spread throughout Europe and the US is proven by the Skušek Collection in the Ethnographic Museum of Ljublijana. Ivan Skušek had served in the Austro-Hungarian navy and was in a Chinese prison from 1917-1920, had several dozens of boxes filled Chinese art objects. The circumstances under which he had acquired such a mass of Chinese art are not yet completely clear.
Paul P. Stewens wonders: The restitution of cultural property has become a hot topic. Museums grapple with restitution claims and colonial legacies. Did I say museums? I meant to say: cultural museums that house artworks, antiquities, or ethnological collections. Natural history museums, on the other hand, have barely been touched by the general turn to restitution. Why is that?
In recent years human remains in museums have been the subject of increasingly critical attention, both within the museum sector itself and in public debate. This raises a large number of ethical, legal, and practical questions for European museums. 'Museum meets University' organises this meeting at the crossroads of academic museology and museum practice.
Two looted West African musical instruments languishing at the Fowler Museum in Los Angeles are creating a restitution challenge, because they have human skulls attached to them.
Since 2019, a number of sacred objects and ancestral remains have been repatriated to the Warlpiri people of Yuendumu community north-west of Alice Springs in the middle of Australia. For them repatriation is about healing the community, but in particular healing the young men and women of their community, writes Jamie Hampton*. In this Blog, he shares his story about the Yuendumu community and how repatriation has helped them heal from past injustices, providing pathways for the next generations of Warlpiri to ensure they live a life grounded in culture in a changing world.
Anthropologist Nancy Munn studied the Warlpiri people from 1956 to 1958. Now, with the repatriation of her collection to Australia, a younger generation is reunited with its ancestral heritage.
Books, oral histories, artefacts, images, textiles, posters, manuscripts, architectural documentation, and cultural records across Africa, the diaspora, and the Global South. It contains 70 locally indexed records · 300,000+ archive horizon · static-hosted discovery architecture, etc.
While Germany appears keen to expedite the conclusion of the negotiations with Namibia concerning the genocide committed against the Ovaherero and Nama communities between 1904 and 1908, the Namibian position reflects that the matter remains unresolved. Namibia continues to advocate for a comprehensive reparative framework grounded in five key elements: restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, guarantees of non-repetition, and satisfaction. Sarah Negumbo, the Director of Namibia Library and Archives Service, provides further insight into the historical, legal, and ethical dimensions underpinning these demands.
Although published in 2021, RM* distributes this open access book, as South Sudan is a much forgotten area. According to editors Zoe Cormack and Cherry Leonardi, the long-term effects of colonialism and conflict have largely precluded any concerted attempts to preserve material culture within the country; museums remained in Khartoum, the capital of the formally united Sudan. Furthermore, tens of thousands of objects had been removed from what is now South Sudan during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to museum and private collections around the world...
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.
The handover ceremony, directed by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, took place at the Iziko South African Museum in Cape Town, marking a significant moment in the restoration of African heritage. The repatriation also underscores growing cooperation among African nations in addressing historical injustices linked to colonial-era dispossession.
The French parliament has unanimously adopted on 13 April a framework legislation for the deaccession of cultural items plundered from former colonies. Nine years after President Emmanuel Macron pledged repatriation of African heritage, the new law finally opens the way for the return of items illegitimately taken by force. The bill was initiated in 2023, but it has been delayed by political instability and changes of government as well as the sensitivity of the subject.
The Expertise Center for Restitution (ECR) of the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies and Resistance Museum Amsterdam present Robbery Art Ontrafeld, a lecture series that focuses on the less exposed aspects of loot art and restitution.
Historians associated with the NIOD present recent research and surprising insights and enter into dialogue with the public, led by moderator Yuki Kho.
Lia Iannarilli and Malaika Bunzigiye conclude: The story of looted art from the Democratic Republic of the Congo is inseparable from broader struggles of political sovereignty. By holding on to these items, European powers are holding on to the narrative of their colonial rule. In a world shaped by imperial legacies, the decolonial project must be both material and symbolic. To repatriate art is to repatriate power.
Vast majority of Africa’s cultural legacy remains abroad, where institutions claim superior care, shared human heritage. Three African analysts comment. ‘Biggest issue is changing the historical narrative that excluded us.’
[in French] Recently, the restitution of cultural belonging has been stirring up the web. We talk about treasures, but there is no treasure without archives. However, colonial archives, true treasures of history, are often forgotten in discussions about restitution. This book offers a suggestion...
The V&A’s collections include around 90 objects from Ethiopia. The majority of these are in some way associated with a British military expedition to Ethiopia from 1867 – 68 against Emperor Tewodros. The museum also holds a selection of Ethiopian paintings from the 1940s. Restitution is out of the question. A provenance report.
[ in Dutch, in French] That this issue has received increasing attention is partly due to two important issues, namely the question of the restitution of works of art looted by the Nazis to relatives of victims of the Holocaust and the question of the restitution of cultural heritage objects illegally acquired during colonization by Western countries. Three Wednesday afternoons.
In this Second Parliamentary Gathering on 13 April 2026, APPCITARJ will build on the landmark November 2025 gathering and draw on international experiences of truth and justice processes to inform and deepen the movement for a genuine commission of inquiry.
Institutions are grappling with the human remains in their collections that were used to justify debunked theories about race. To understand this better, Nina Siegal visits Museum Vrolik in Amsterdam and its exhibition “Imagine: The Future of Human Remains from Colonial Contexts,” which runs up to 27 June 2027.
Laura Petersen argues that authors and artists have also taken up a responsibility for restitution. Deploying the literal translation ‘making-good-again’, this book focuses on the ‘making’ of law, literature and visual art to argue that restitution is a practice which is found in different genres, sites and temporalities.
[in English, in German] For the reconstruction of more than 90 % of human history, there are no other sources than archaeological ones. The ethical questions that arise in connection with the excavation, investigation, and exhibition of this central source group have been the subject of intensive study in English speaking countries for decades. Remains of colonial regions are part of this. How are these questions dealt with in Saxony Anhalt and other German speaking places?
'Cultural Capital: African Art, Repatriation, and Restitution', a critical documentary by Reilly Clark on art from Africa in western museums, will be released on 19 May 2026.
Please join the Denver Art Museum’s Native Arts and Provenance departments, along with special guests from the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and the Art Institute of Chicago, for a lively panel discussion on the vital role provenance research plays in museums.
[Italian] In “Restituire”, Maria ia Guermandi reconstructs, with historical precision and critical clarity, the complex path that has brought the issue of restitution from the halls of the UN to museum policies, from the claims of African countries to the struggles of indigenous communities in so-called settlement colonies.
The lechwe skin cloaks are a rare remnant of Batwa people's traditional intellectual, cultural and social worlds. They were recently rediscovered in a museum collection in Stockholm, Sweden. These belongings were slated for digital repatriation, along with +/- 100 other belongings, through a collaborative project between the Women's History Museum of Zambia, and the National Museums of World Culture, Sweden.
As one of the biggest targets of wartime looting in centuries past, China is now positioning itself as a global pioneer in repatriating lost cultural artefacts. In two articles, Xinlu Liang looks a Chinese demand that Japan returns an ancient tablet, which could mark a ‘historical reckoning’, and how China is wielding law, diplomacy and a Global South coalition to rewrite the rules of restitution, filling a void left by a retreating US.
Late in 2025 , it was announced that five sets of Ainu ancestors' remains were to be repatriated to Japan from the Natural History Museum in London. This follows repatriations in 2017 (Germany), 2023 (Australia) and 2025 (Scotland). Inside Japan, the University of Tokyo has apologised to the Ainu community for collecting ancestral remains without their consent. The Japanese government, working with the Ainu Association of Hokkaido, supports the repatriations. How can this increase be explained?
[in German, partially in English] In Germany, the federal, state and local governments decided to establish the "Coordination Council for Returns of Cultural Property and Human Remains from Colonial Contexts". The secretariat will be located at the Federal Foreign Office.
The Africa Institute, Global Studies University, in collaboration with the Open Society Foundations, announces its annual fellowship program themed, “Restitution and Reparation: Africa and the Post-Colonial Condition.” The program will convene scholars or practitioners interested in restitution and repatriation issues related to African art and artifacts.
Marking the beginning of the 2026 Ocean Space exhibition season, TBA21–Academy presents Tide of Returns, an exhibition based on the artistic research of the Repatriates Collective, initiated by artist Khadija von Zinnenburg Carroll and formed of artists from Australia’s Pacific North, South, and West Africa, Europe, and Latin America.
The chair, which will be launched on 22 June 2026, will address issues related to illicit trafficking, restitution and the management of collections originating from colonial contexts.
Mirjam Shatanawi gives an overview of Islamic collections in the Netherlands, focusing on their presence in museums, libraries, and archives. It provides a critical overview of how these collections have been shaped, preserved, and interpreted, with particular attention to the enduring influence of colonial perspectives on Indonesian Islamic traditions. Examples will be given of objects from Java, Sumatra and South Sulawesi.
The Center for Art Collection Ethics (ACE) at the University of Denver (DU) announces a hybrid training program: Provenance Research Today: Issues, Resources, and Networks. The program is geared toward graduate students and emerging museum and art market professionals.
An important moment! Congolese and Belgian experts presented their recommendations for the future of institutional provenance research at an open forum: ‘The current framework is insufficient.’
On 25 February 2026, the Togolese cabinet approved a draft law to establish a restitution committee. The committee will seek to repatriate tangible and intangible cultural heritage, as well as human remains and archives from colonial contexts. The bill refers to over 8,000 „objects“ currently held in foreign museums. They predominantly come from northern Togo.
Museums in a country like Ghana have an impoortant function in preserving ervidence of the past and in shaping together the country's history. A self-critical look from Ghanaian professionals in their museum practice, especially that of the National Museum.
South Africa has reburied the remains of 63 Khoisan people, among southern Africa's oldest indigenous communities. The remains were part of museum collections in the Hunterian at the University of Glasgow in Scotland and at the Iziko South African Museum in Cape Town. The remains were laid to rest at a historic monument near Steinkopf, in the Northern Cape province, during a ceremony attended by President Cyril Ramaphosa.
In addition to private and institutional collectors, natural history traders have historically been important sources of specimens and information for natural history museums in the past. However, the history and significance of the natural history traders is still little known and researched. One such naturalia trader with worldwide trading partners was the long-established Hamburg company of the J. F. G. Umlauff family.
Reporters from the Chinese newspaper Global Times visited Japan and found that looted Chinese cultural relics are being displayed and even promoted as militarist "trophies," including at a notorious shrine. History must not be distorted, and heritage must not be plundered. But to this day, Japan has not returned these looted relics. Instead, it has attempted to conceal and deny this history.
How can we trace and reconstruct the provenance of objects, collections and ancestral remains that were amassed in the past, and are now placed in museums as mundane and lifeless objects frozen in a timeless past without adequate information and context? The renewed interest in provenance research can be understood as part of the broader agenda to decolonise these museums.
In March 2024, Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments (NCMM) filed a formal restitution claim on behalf of the Nigerian government for 14 Benin artifacts held by the Ethnographic Museum at the University of Zurich (UZH). The University of Zurich has decided to honor this claim. "Signing the property agreement is not just a legal act, but the recognition of colonial injustices", Zürich's lord mayor, Corine Mauch, said.
Kedleston (north-west of Derby) houses an impressive collection of paintings, sculptures and furnishings, some collected by the then Viceroy of India, George Nathaniel Curzon during his travels. The exhibition sheds light on previously untold stories. Encounters, a new film by British-Tibetan artist, Nyima Murry, brings to life the artefacts.
Alioune Samb writes: As part of my research, I developed and tested a system called SYDOCOM. Not to “add voices”. But to create conditions where different forms of knowledge can exist without being reduced to a single authorised version.
The PAESE project (Provenance Research in Collections from Colonial Contexts in Lower Saxony) ran from 2018-2022. As part of the next phase, PAESE 3.0, we are updating and expanding this database. They do so recognising that the data concern the people, communities, and descendants from the regions where these *objects* come from.
Coloniality is ever-present. Even decades after the period of formal colonisation has ended it has persisted through structural forms of privilege and bias. Beyond their more obvious manifestations such as the racial stratification of labour and the proliferation of inequality and racism, there is the coloniality of knowledge, which is hard to discern and much more insidious to overcome.
The preservation and exhibition of human remains in museums is a painful open wound for many descendant communities. Any museum that stewards such human remains, like Museum Vrolik (the anatomical museum of Amsterdam University), must respond to its racist and colonial inheritance. The result can be seen in this exhibition. The exhibition is based on the results of years of research, including origin, ways of acquisition and suppliers.
The remains of an unknown Aboriginal man taken to London in 1900, have been returned to Country in Sydney. A reburial was held for ‘Uncle’, conducted by Indigenous elders at Berowra Creek.
The Royal Ethiopian Trust (RET) is celebrating the return of a historic treasure: the gold hairpin of Etege Tiruwork Wube, wife of Emperor Tewodros, once taken during the storming of Magdala in 1868.
In new episode of podcast "Decolonial Memories", Flaubert Djateng, coordinator of the civil society organisation Zenu Network in Cameroon, talks about remembrance work on the German colonial era in his country.
[in Dutch] On the occasion of the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade, the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy in Antwerp is organising an event on postcolonial history and culture: we will enter into a dialogue on African cultural heritage in Western institutions.
[in French] Congolese and Belgian experts presented their recommendations for the future of institution-based research at an open forum: "The current framework is insufficient". The provenance search is relevant, but it must neither condition nor delay the restitution. Today, Belgium and the DRC must move forward with concrete actions.
The University of West Indies Museum in partnership with the Centre for Reparation Research presents 'Exploring Restitution, Colonial Collection and the Caribbean' in an online discussion on March 20.
This DARCA decision aid is designed to support trustees of cultural institutions in coming to a decision about whether they might be under a moral obligation to return a cultural artefact in their possession.
The grandson of Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie I avoids confrontation and uses patience and strategy in oder to retrieve stolen objects from public and private parties in Great Britain. It is part of a wider demand for historical justice that continues to resonate across the African diaspora.
Descendants of Zimbabwe freedom fighters executed and beheaded in southern Africa by colonial British forces in the 1890s have called on the Natural History Museum in London and the University of Cambridge to help them find their ancestors’ looted skulls.
Exclusive Guardian study finds UK museums hold more than 260,000 items of remains, often in sacrilegious ways. MPs and archaeologists protest: It is a shameful legacy of colonialism.
The aution included 40 archaeological pieces and were auctioned during a live sale on 27 February 2026, at Maison Millon in Paris. The Culture Ministry started legal procedures and used diplomatic channels to seek a return. In the meantime the lots have been sold for 1,2 million euro.
Reilly Clark writes: Despite the return of Benin belongings, the relations between Africa and the West have remained fundamentally unchanged. African cultural objects were taken from the continent as part of the dual projects of Western imperialism and resource extraction.
[in French] Cécile Mendy, a student in Heritage Professions at the Gaston Berger University of Saint Louis in Senegal, discusses her research on endogenous conservation – the idea that conservation practices grounded in local knowledge can act as a form of cultural sovereignty.
[in French] The PROCHE project, implemented by the Royal Museum for Central Africa, is part of the 2022 Belgian law on the restitution of colonial collections. It aims to retrace the conditions of acquisition of the museum's so-called "ethnographic" and musicological objects, in close collaboration with Congolese institutions and cultural actors.
The Ashmolean Musuem of the University of Oxfoird has returned a 16th-century bronze to the Government of India following research into the object’s provenance and liaison with Indian authorities.
Bradley J. Gordon, Melina Antoniadis & Sokunthyda Long write: Cambodia is among the countries most profoundly affected by the large-scale looting of cultural heritage, particularly from the 1960s to the 1990s—before, during, and after civil war and genocide—as well as during the French colonial era, which saw the large-scale removal of artifacts.
Reilly Clark writes: Two Benin plaques were among the ones looted by the British from the palace of the oba in Benin. Later, they were given to the British Museum and later still, to the Nigerian National Museum in Lagos. The plaques were removed without permission from the Nigerian National Museum between 1950 and 1991.
This article by Elias Aguigah, Yann LeGall and Jeanne-Ange Wagne (TU Berlin) is part of The Restitution of Knowledge project. It documents the history of ‘plunder’ of former African colonies and addresses its legacy in ethnological collections, with a focus on loot from so-called 'punitive expeditions', this time in the Grassi Museum für Völkerkunde in Leipzig (+ an addition about Togo loot in Stuttgart).
[in French] This issue of Relations Internationales, edited by Anne Sophie Gijs, Matthieu Gillabert and Serge Jaumain offers a range of interesting articles about restiution issues, museums, diaspora groups and communitie sof origin, mostly in Switzerland and Belgium and in African countries as Cameroon and DR Congo.
[in French] Yasmina Zian, Aline Bosuma, Alexandre Chevalier and Laurent Licata make critical remarks about Belgium's decolonisation of museums effort. Belgium keeps control over decisions and there is a lack of a balanced dialogue with the DRC.
Prof. I Nyoman Aryawibawa emphasized that lontar manuscripts are invaluable sources of traditional knowledge with significant historical, philological, and cultural value. This donation is considered a strategic step in strengthening the faculty’s academic functions, particularly in supporting research, teaching, and community service based on local cultural heritage.
The Tangué is a ship’s beak carved from wood and placed on the bow of the ship of the royal Bele-Bele family. This mystical and sacred belonging symbolises power, particularly the ultimate authority of the King over the water tribes of the Douala kingdom, and is an integral part of socio-cultural and spiritual practices. n 1884, it was stolen by German military. Currently, it is in the Museum Fünf Kontinente in Munich.
[in English, in Portuguese] Pedro de Niemeyer Cesarino and Lucas da Costa Maciel raise important questions: What if so-called objects in museums are not just that? What if they refuse such constraints?
Ahmad Mohammed: Digital collections have become core infrastructure for heritage work. But as collections move online and become more searchable, recombinable, and transferable, “good stewardship” is no longer only a technical matter of storage and backups.
‘Extraordinary’ golden lamb’s head pillaged in 1874 from what is now Ghana remains hidden in officers’ mess. The glistening golden ram’s head would seemingly be worthy of any museum, but it remains hidden within the regiment’s mess at Larkhill in Wiltshire.
Ganga Rajinee Dissanayaka discovered at a conference in Europe that Benin Bronzes, Egyptian antiquities and African collections were discussed. But Asia was unmentioned. And then when a colleague from Indonesia brought up the topic of Southeast Asian collections, the moderator nodded graciously and then moved on to another topic. Decolonisation, it appears, is an African story.
[in English and in German] The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation (SPK) transfers custody of three ancestors to the Molelia family of Tanzania. They now have sole control over the remains. Howe ver, immediate repatriation to Kibosho is not possible because it requires the approval of the Tanzanian government, which has not yet responded to the SPK’s offer to return the remains.
[in Dutch] In museum De Fundatie in Zwolle, Nigerian artists shine their light on an antique plaque of a mud fish. The fish was stolen from Benin City at the end of the 19th century, and it will return to that city next summer. 'The mudfish is symbolic of the flexibility of the Edo people.'
France has officially returned the sacred Djidji drum to Ivory Coast. It is among 148 cultural belongings claimed by the Africab country in 2018. The text of the special law is included.
Jennifer Howes writes: Amaravati Stupa was the first Buddhist site in India to be systematically excavated by the British. Its first colonial excavation in 1816–17 led to 51 sculptures being removed from the site by amateur antiquarians. Some of these were sent to museums, but most of them were transported to the market town of Machilipatnam, where they were used to construct an eccentric marketplace monument.
Lewis McNaught writes: Britain’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) will review the exclusion it imposed on national collections that prevents them from returning cultural objects on moral grounds. The review provides an opportunity to reverse an unwelcome inconsistency in the UK Charities Act 2022.
Thomas Laely writes: The debate on the repatriation of (in)tangible cultural heritage and belongings has developed a broad dynamic in recent years. This sudden activism raises questions. What is its background, what are the goals behind it, and how are they to be achieved? Is it primarily about African or rather European interests?
Repatriation is urgent and important work and should be recognised as one of the UK museum sector’s top priorities. It is widely acknowledged that a lack of funding and capacity are two of the main reasons that more museums in the UK do not engage with repatriation, writes Amy Shakespeare.
President John Dramani Mahama has sent a clear message to the international community: the time for "ceremonial language" regarding Africa’s historical injustices is over.
[in French] After the Porto-Novo symposiums in 2022 and Yaoundé in 2023, after several days of study in Paris, the Dakar symposium is the final stage (or almost) of 5 years of research, publications, meetings of the international program "Returns: geopolitics, economies and imaginaries of restitution".
[in French] The 60-page guide is meant for directors and scientific officers of museums in France, and public collections under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Culture. The guide focusses on Nazi-looted art works, human remains, colonial collections and the ongoing illicit trade in art and antiquities.
The Louvre will restore Empress Eugénie’s crown, which was damaged during the $102 million heist in October 2025. Experts found the diamond-and-emerald crown deformed, but most stones remain intact after violent theft.
The restitution project, undertaken in Namibia from 2019 – 2024, was centred around 23 cultural belongings, which were selected from a collection of +/-1400 cultural belongings in the Ethnological Museum of Berlin, on the basis of their rarity, ability to travel well (fragility, arsenic poisoning etc), cultural, historical and aesthetic significance, as well as their connection to the history of Namibian fashion.
Tracing the course of Britain’s wars with the Asante alongside the course of its plundered relics, Barnaby Phillips weaves a thrilling and poignant tale of imperial ambition and African resistance. Travelling from the Gold Coast to the museum galleries, officers’ mess rooms and aristocratic homes of Britain, The African Kingdom of Gold confronts us with urgent questions about the legacy of Empire and, in particular, how our museums should respond.
During negotiations in the 1960s about a new relationship, DR Congo claimed the archives with information about its rich natural resources. Belgium was not prepared to do so. The documents, housed at the AfricaMuseum are now being sought by DR Congo and KoBold Metals, a Bill Gates-backed mining and artificial intelligence company that struck a deal last year with Kinshasa to digitise them.
Around 1900, the Isanzu chief and seven of his bodyguards were arrested and hanged and/or beheaded, and their bodies were not returned to Isanzul and given for burial. Currently, they are in the University of Göttingen. Since the emptying of graves, there have been significant periods of drought and famine in the area. The Isanzu people believe that these environmental calamities are as a result of their human ancestors being dishonoured.
Restitution debates – the question of whether a cultural object should be returned from a museum or other collection to a person or community – often begin with a deceptively simple question: who owns an object?
Barnaby Phillips: The decision by the university’s Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology to return looted Nigerian treasures leaves larger institutions increasingly isolated. Which museum will be the next one? Uwa Igbafe: This case reflects a gradual transition from legal acknowledgement to the actual transfer of artefacts.
In June 2026, Amsterdam School for Heritage, Memory and Material Culture organizes the conference “Unsettling heritage and memory futures: Decolonial trajectories between crisis and possibility”. One panel brings together scholars to reflect on the idea of “home” in relation to restitution. The panel is looking for contributors.
In the column, Alexander Hermann takes a look at the principle of INALIENABILITY that applies in many countries, barring the removal of cultural objects from #museum collections, including for purposes such as #restitution.
DARCA, or the Decision Aid for the Restitution of Cultural Artefacts (DARCA), is a user-friendly tool designed to assist museums and others in understanding the moral issues relating to restitution, developed by practical ethicists at the Oxford Uehiro Institute and supported by the philosophical literature in this field.
In the last hundred years, France has restituted only twenty-nine looted artefacts to Africa (26 to Benin, 1 to Senegal, 1 to Côte d’Ivoire, 1 to the Malagasy Republic). At this rate, how long will it take France to return the other 96 971 looted African artefacts in France? Kwame Opoku points to an African scholar and his troubling support who actively enables the Louvre/Musée du Quai Branly to retain, among others, the statue of Gou, the Vodun divinity from Benin, in Paris.
[in English, in Mozambiquan Portuguese] The five texts in this richly illustrated issue nr. 9 of Troubles dans les Collections trace how new local contexts in Mozambique and global debates have resonated in the country since the restitution debate gained heightened visibility. Civil society actors play a crucial role in raising the restitution issue.
Much of the scholarly attention for decolonisation and restitution in English has centred on developments in the Anglophone world. A special Issue - Portuguese Studies Review will bring together new studies on parallel and emerging developments within the Lusophone (Portuguese-speaking) world.
The Taonga Files, a new investigative podcast exploring the journeys of Aotearoa’s taonga now held in museums around the world — and the complex systems, histories, and relationships that shape their return.
[in French] This conference focuses on the spoliation of cinema and the representation of spoliation and restitution in film, within the context of 1933-1945 as well as in colonial and post-colonial situations. Punctuated by film screenings, it brings together researchers in history, film history and art history, anthropology, political science, law, and provenance studies, working on diverse cultural areas.
The Swiss School of Latin American Studies, supported by the Centro Latinoamericano-Suizo HSG and the Swiss Society of Latin American Studies (SSLAS-SAGW), invites the community to the public workshop entitled "Contested Heritage of Latin America: Collectors, Markets, and Coloniality," taking place on February 26 and 27.
Restitution of cultural property is gaining momentum across Africa, framed not as symbolic but as a fundamental right. Senior officials, ambassadors, scholars, and international representatives gathered in Addis Ababa to debate restitution as a pillar of justice and identity.
To Sell or Not to Sell: The British Association for Biological Anthropology and Osteoarchaeology’s Position on the Trade and Sales of Human Remains in the UK pleads for improved legislation if the UK is to end this industry.
The Kingdom of the Netherlands has formally handed over an inventory of Ghanaian cultural artefacts held in Dutch collections, marking a major step toward the restitution of objects looted during the colonial era.
The French Senate on Wednesday adopted a draft legislation to facilitate the return of artworks and other prized artefacts looted during the country’s colonial era. This new procedure could help address requests already submitted by various countries, including Morocco, Mali, Algeria and Benin.
This open access publication presents the results of a research project which is probably unique in this form: In the course of only two years, the provenances of approximately 1100 sets of Human Remains from the territory of the present-day nations of Kenya, Tanzania, and Rwanda were examined. Editors are Charles Mulinda Kabwete and Bernhard Heeb.
[mostly in French] Based on research in the DR Congo, Vicky Van Bockhaven explores a tension within contemporary museum and cultural policies, focusing on the decolonisation of colonial collections and associated knowledge production. These initiatives often remain under the control of Western institutions, leaving the concerned countries and communities unequally involved.
[English version, German version] Cultural heritage of the Nso in Germany - Episode with Dr Bulami Edward Fonyuy (Cameroon) by podcast Decolonial Memories (on all major platforms). In the podcast, Dr Bulami calls on the German government to play a long-term role in the healing process between the two countries, going beyond the restitution of colonial loot.
Grounded primarily in historical investigation into post-colonial memory, Edith Isoken Erhokpaidamwen examines how colonial conquest and Western ideological domination produced enduring psychological and cultural consequences without idealizing pre-colonial societies.
Centuries of colonisation and exploitation have substantially determined the fact that museums in the West own collections of art that originated from their former colonies. Anaïs Mattez historicises the development of restitution from museums. She sheds light on the mutual influence of post-colonial studies, art crime, and international law.
The handling of human remains from colonial contexts presents museums, collections and research institutions with complex professional as well as ethical challenges. According to a survey conducted by the German Contact Point, approximately 46% of the unmodified human remains recorded in German museums and university collections cannot be clearly attributed to a specific geographical origin.
[in French, in English] Since the 1990s, new forms of discourse and mobilization have emerged to question Belgium’s colonial past and postcolonial present. Journalists, researchers, archivists, community activists, artists, members of the African diaspora, former colonists and their descendants, national and political players, etc. have contributed to putting the issue of colonial legacy on the public agenda.
While Britain has shown little inclination to even seriously consider restitution of the Kohinoor or other cultural artefacts taken from India, several European countries have begun doing so, with the Netherlands emerging at the forefront. While doing so, all sorts of challenges pop up.
Ayọ̀ Akínwándé examines restitution, spiritual provenance, and the unresolved tensions between royal authority, state power, and museum-making in Benin City. The conflict between the MOWAA and the Benin Court goes back to the colonial days.
The British Museum’s attempt to frame its decision to ‘share’ a few colonial-era artefacts with the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS) in Mumbai as a move to ‘decolonise’ its collection has been ridiculed by art historians as a ‘con’. There’s only one way to show contrition: return the stolen goods.
Colonial officials, collectors, and anthropologists dismembered African buildings and dispersed their parts to museums in Europe and the United States. Most of these artifacts were cataloged as ornamental art objects, which erased their intended functions, and the removal of these objects often had catastrophic consequences for the original structures.
The protection of cultural heritage is increasingly shifting towards favouring the return of cultural property to its people of origin. Evidence of this shift can be found in a more intentional distinction between cultural property rights on the one hand, and traditional rights in rem on the other; the strengthening of international cooperation; as well as the reconstruction of traditional doctrines.
[in German] Parts of the collection of the closed, missionary Werl museum "Forum der Völker" in Germany are under suspicion. Three collections may have originated from colonial looting. The German Lost Art Foundation sees a need for further research.
The purpose of this article by Mirosław M Sadowski is to take a closer look at such instances of return of cultural heritage, by particularly focusing on the relationship between the matters of return and the questions of identity and collective memory in this respect. With case studies from Brazil and Angola.
The V&A’s collection includes nearly 200 Ethiopian objects – from metalwork and textiles to photography, manuscripts, and paintings. One of the most exciting outcomes of this research, Molly Judd writes, was uncovering records for objects that had effectively become hidden within the collection.
According to Ruby Satele, a PhD candidate from Sāmoa at the University of Vienna, rematriation involves not only the return of ancestors, but also practices of care while they remain in storage. Her research combines strong theoretical thinking with practical action to challenge power imbalances and promote greater justice in museums and universities.
Early in 2025, Patty Gerstenblith published 'Cultural Objects and Reparative Justice. A Legal and Historical Analysis'. She proposes an innovative paradigm for determining reparations, including restitution of cultural objects appropriated during the nineteenth century. This is a review of her book by Annaïs Mattez with both positive and critical points.
For decades, the demand for colonial reparations in Africa was treated by Western capitals as a rhetorical exercise — a radical plea from the fringes that could be safely ignored or pacified with vague “expressions of regret.” By the end of 2025, however, that era of Western comfort officially ended in Algiers.
[in English and German] One of the mortal remains of three people of Indigenous Australian descent in the University of Cologne’s Anatomy Center, which were planned to be returned on 4 December 2025. was discovered during the preparations for the return to have been replaced.
In 2022, the Republic of Indonesia submitted an official application for the collection’s restitution after which the Dutch State Secretary for Culture requested the Colonial Collections Committee to provide advice on this request. In 2025, the Netherlands transferred it to Indonesia. This Blog offers a reflection.
What can art and artists bring to researching the origins and biographies of objects? How do they shed new light on – or even unsettle – existing approaches to such questions? 'What is not said or shown – absences and gaps – needs attention and can itself open up new avenues of investigation.' [ open access ]
Between 1896-1916 today's Burundi was a German colony as part of what was known as ‘German East Africa’. Not only in colonial historiography, but also in provenance research, Burundi has been largely underrepresented and, similar to Rwanda, stands ‘in the shadow’ of the reappraisal of the material cultural heritage of present-day Tanzania.
On December 3, 2025, the Pavillon des Sessions at the Louvre reopened its new layout, now called the Galerie des Cinq Continents or Gallery of the Five Continents. In Maria Pia Guermandi’s opinion, the layout continues to express a Western vision that claims to ‘elevate’ other cultures by granting them admission to the sancta sanctorum of European art.
For several years, the Wereldmuseum in the Netherlands has actively engaged in provenance research, focusing on the unequal power dynamics that shaped the collection of objects amidst European colonialism. Daantje van de Linde and Karolien Nédée investigate this approach. 'The broader discipline is still in its infant years, and its goals and research methods are continuously developing.'
For an issue about 'Measuring Cultural Heritage: Indicators for Cultural Heritage Law and Policy Development', the e-journal Santander Art, Culture & Law Review welcomes contributions from legal scholars, policymakers, cultural heritage practitioners, and interdisciplinary researchers. Submissions should offer original research, comparative analysis, or innovative methodologies that contribute to the understanding, assessment, and governance of cultural heritage.
The Freer Research Center at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art and the Zentralarchiv and Museum für Asiatische Kunst (Staatliche Museen zu Berlin) of the Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz announce their second in-person symposium dedicated to the provenance of Asian art, occurring November 11–13, 2026, on Museum Island in Berlin, Germany.
[ in Spanish ] In 'Arte secuestrado' or Abducted art, Catharine Titi (CNRS, France) and Katia Fach Gómez (Uni Zaragoza) recount the stories of six iconic collections, from the Parthenon Marbles to Moctezuma's headdress, the Benin Bronzes, and the Bust of Nefertiti, to shed light on how they ended up in the museums where they now reside, and to open the debate about their repatriation.
Archaeologist and journalist Mariam Gichan wonders why complicated legal hurdles are sufficient to explain why the fossil hasn’t returned to Tanzania and whether “complicated” becomes a convenient reason for inaction.
[ in French ] The exhibition draws on more than eighty photographs from colonial archives, mainly held at the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren. But far from a simple presentation of heritage, Boma La Première offers a critical reading of these images.
[ in French ] The AfricaMuseum in Tervuren, Belgium, changed from a ‘museum for colonial propaganda’ and a ‘museum of avoidance’ into one that ‘multiplies voices on colonial history and its persistence’, says historian Yasmina Zian.
This restitution of 107 objects is being recognized as exemplary due to its transparent process and the collaborative approach between the institutions involved. The artifacts, once held in private and public collections in Switzerland, have now been formally transferred to the National Museum of Abidjan.
A new gallery at the Manchester Museum displays thousands of African artefacts, aiming to spark discussion on colonial-era looting and restitution. The initiative seeks public input on the origins and returns of these items, amid growing calls for repatriation of looted cultural heritage.
In recent years, there has been growing recognition that these collections carry painful legacies. In all these engagements, two words are often used: repatriation and restitution.
At first glance they may seem to mean the same thing, and both involve the return of something. But as South African scholars, working in the fields of history, museum studies and human biology, Victoria Ribbon and Ciraj Rassool argue that the difference between these terms is not just semantic. The choice of word reflects deeper politics of justice, recognition and repair.
The conference theme will reflect the project’s focus on equitable collaboration, community-engagement and revisiting the ways in which collections are acquired, interpreted and shared. This year we’re rethinking what a conference can be. Dates: 23-24 April 2026.
In 2025, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (MFA) achieved two significant ownership resolutions. First, the museum was asked to rescind and return the long-term loan of Benin Kingdom artwork to the private collection of Robert Owen Lehman. Both of these resolutions speak to the facts that (1) restitution does not have to be a zero-sum game, and (2) museum restitution has expanded beyond what the letter of the law dictates.
To exhibit taonga is not simply to interpret the past. It is to enter a living relationship with an ancestral presence. Museums do not own taonga. At best, they are temporary caregivers, and increasingly, digital co-stewards.
The Wereldmuseum collection includes 3,647 objects that contain ancestral human remains. Particularly harrowing are the 26 premature and newborn babies preserved in fluid. Together with members of various communities, Manuwi C. Tokai created an altar in the Wereldmuseum Amsterdam to serve as a place of remembrance for the ancestors held in the museum’s collection.
This paper investigates the political and cultural grounds in disseminating manuscripts’ digital copies and ask what kinds of shifting assumptions about the nature of textuality and manuscripts are indicated by digital returns. This is especially relevant given that some manuscripts in traditional Java, those designated as pusaka, are not merely media transmitting textual information. Rather, their materiality contains a power of its own.
Through the case of the Palembang Sultanate in Sumatra, Alan Darmawan investigates the extant manuscripts originating from the palace library. Some moved into the hands of private owners in Palembang, while others were dispersed into colonial collections in Europe and Southeast Asia.
Emeline Smith writes: Long-term loans to former colonies are not restitution. They do not acknowledge historical wrongdoing, nor do they restore agency to source communities. The loan program is a rebranding exercise that preserves colonial power structures while pretending to dismantle them.
[ in Dutch ] Heritage organizations preserve and make accessible archives, publications, and objects that tell interesting or moving stories. At the same time, these same collections often contain heritage that reflects painful and poignant histories. This heritage raises questions or even comes under fire.
Heba Abd el Gawad writes: There is a point at which professional detachment becomes impossible. As a member of a community of descent as well as a curator, when I enter the Horniman store, I am not simply surveying collections. I am standing in the presence of my own kin. I encounter my Egyptian ancestors in spreadsheets, acid-free boxes and collection management plans.
[ in French ] In the 19th century, the concept of "Asian art" gradually gained prominence in the European market, driven not initially by collectors, but by dealers, the true intermediaries between Asia and Europe. This phenomenon took root in a context of forced opening of Asian territories: the Treaty of Yedo (1858) with Japan, the Treaty of Tianjin (1858-1860) with China, and the Treaty of Saigon (1862) with Vietnam.
Call for Papers for the 12th Annual Conference of the Amsterdam School for Heritage, Memory and Material Culture. The conference 'Unsettling Heritage and Memory Futures: Decolonial Trajectories Between Crisis and Possibility', will take place on 17, 18 and 19 June, 2026.
The All-Party Parliamentary Group for Afrikan Reparations (APPG-AR) is calling for a ban on the public display of human remains without consent.
The group also recommended the establishment of a framework for museums to transparently audit their collections of human remains across the country as part of a briefing at the House of Commons last week.
Naturalis Marcel Beukeboom: “We will take time to think of a new story to tell. That story will most likely include references to the evolution and early humans, and may also address colonialism and perhaps even the influence of Dubois. But without his collection, and with everything we have learned, this will be a different story.”
Andreas Roth shows, the real story of the coral regalia does not fit the postcolonial narrative some want to attach to these artefacts. They do not provide a precedent for the return of Benin Bronzes.
Rodney Westerlaken writes: The return of the Dubois Collection: principled restitution, unresolved policy questions: – At what point does scientific heritage become cultural heritage? – Which criteria should govern this classification, and by whom are they determined? - How can restitution frameworks avoid becoming normatively expansive without sufficient conceptual precision?
[ in English and in German ] The Museum der Kulturen Basel is systematically examining its collection for coloniality and highlighting the central importance of collaborating with communities in the Global South.
In April 2026, officials from the Japanese government and the Ainu Association of Hokkaido will travel to Britain to receive four of the five sets of remains, the government said Friday. The locations where the four sets were excavated are known.
Four important objects from the Dubois collection were handed over to Indonesia on Wednesday 17 December. The handover ceremony took place at the National Museum of Indonesia in Jakarta, which will exhibit the objects.
The Indonesian phrase pasang surut — “the tide in and out” — evokes the continuous movement of people, objects, and ideas across the seas that once linked Europe and the Indonesian archipelago. These currents shaped the emergence of colonial collections but also suggest the possibility of renewed circulation: of knowledge, accountability, and dialogue.
[ in French ] What does decolonization mean when power relations remain unchanged? Anne Wetsi Mpoma invites us to rethink decolonization as a political, epistemic and restorative process — where art becomes a space of resistance, reappropriation and symbolic justice.
Barnaby Philips discovers one more return of a Benin object from the Netherlands and further analyses what went wrong in Benin City: Two days before the aborted viewing of the Museum of West African Art (MOWAA), Oba Ewuare II visited his ally Monday Okpebholo, the governor of Edo State. ‘Please stop the opening of the MOWAA.’
Leah Niederhausen and Nicole L. Immler joined forces with Markus Kooper (Hoachanas Community Library & Archives) and Talita Uinuses (Captain Hendrik Witbooi Auta !Nanseb Foundation) and listened to, archive, and amplify Nama knowledge (Namibia) on and experiences with restitution, reparation, and historical (in)justice.
All too often, the literature on the restitution of colonial cultural objects tends to focus on the public international law (PubIIL) aspects of the debate. With a few notable exceptions, the PubIIL and private international law (PIL) dimensions of the debate are rarely considered together. This article makes the case for a coordinated approach.
Western museums are returning the Benin Bronzes to Nigeria, but a state-of-the-art museum to display them is still a long way off. Alex Marshall saw hundreds of Benin Bronzes while reporting this article in Benin City and Lagos, Nigeria.
In January 2023, an online seminar was held to investigate the Vatican collections, their legal structure and how repatriation might be possible to countries and communities of origin. In particular we looked at the principle of ‘inalienability’ which governs the collections under Vatican civil law, Alexander Herman writes.
This paper explores the challenges of repatriating poorly documented Aboriginal secret-sacred objects—known as tywerrenge—to central Australia. 'No story, but we still want to see them come back. Then people can know them.'
Restitution activist Mwazulu Diyabanza explains why he is taking the law into his own hands. His actions are a calculated act of civil disobedience, executed for maximum political impact without engaging in violence or damaging property.
December 15th, at 4 pm (Lagos time), the International Repatriation Network (IRN) will host an online session exploring what restitution and repatriation mean for diverse communities and stakeholders in Nigeria today.
[ in German ] The Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz will return spiritual objects from Kpando containing human remains to Akpini People in Ghana, and spiritual objects to Australia. Currently, they are in the Ethnological Museum in Berlin.
In an address delivered in Algiers, the Caribbean Community (Caricom), unveiled a comprehensive ten-point plan calling for concrete reparations for the crimes of colonialism. This intervention strongly underscored the necessity of a unified, coordinated effort between Africa and its diaspora to confront centuries-long injustices, restore historical rights, and secure meaningful mechanisms for recognition, compensation, and restitution.
Senegalese economist and thinker Felwine Sarr called for a deep reconsideration of the museum, its history, its functions, and the narratives it upholds as African artworks dispersed across Western museums gradually return to the continent. Africa should rethink museum models.
[ in French ] Marie-Anne Léourier administered a questionnaire focused on these questions to visitors of the permanent collections area of the Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac Museum (MQB).
Open Restitution Africa has published a case study that is centred around 119 cultural belongings from the historic Benin Kingdom. This collection includes intricately cast bronzes, carved ivories and terracotta. They serve dually as both historical artefact and active carriers of spiritual and cultural knowledge, many of which remain relevant in Benin cultural and religious life today.
'Investigating Online Heritage Crime - New Directions, New Technologies, Emerging Markets' offers an introduction to a crucial new field of interest to all heritage researchers.
The Royal Ethiopian Trust announces the acquisition and planned repatriation of a 19th-century gold hairpin belonging to Empress Tiruwork, wife of Emperor Tewodros II of Ethiopia. It is one of thousands of artifacts seized by British troops following the battle of Magdala in 1868.
Through diverse voices, this (open access) Abécédaire rethinks the history of art and museums as an experimental space, transcending disciplinary and geographical boundaries. It offers a fresh, nuanced perspective on contemporary issues in the study of the past while paving new pathways for the future.
[ in Dutch ] Collaborative research between heritage institutions in Europe and heritage communities outside Europe offer a unique opportunity to democratise the production of knowledge about the past, the present ,and the future, writes Katrijn D'Hamers (p. 72 ff).
Africa has renewed its most assertive push yet for historical justice (including restitution), as ministers, jurists, and diplomats gathered in Algiers for a landmark conference on the criminalisation of colonialism.
The documentary Elephants & Squirrels by Swiss filmmaker Gregor Brändli chronicles a Sri Lankan artist’s discovery of looted artefacts in Basel and her mission to return them to Sri Lanka, exposing Switzerland’s uneasy reckoning with its colonial entanglements.
[ in Dutch, in French ] The MAS in Antwerp investigated the provenance of three important cultural objects from its Congolese collection. How did they end up in Antwerp, and what do they mean to Congolese communities today? The results are published in the new publication "On Origin and Future" and incorporated into the permanent exhibition.
The Catalan project "(Tr)African(t)s. Museums and collections of Catalonia in the face of coloniality" has recently created a travelling exhibition titled “To whom does history belong? Struggles for the decolonization of museums". This exhibition “invites us to reflect on the role of museums in colonial history and to rethink heritage from a critical perspective."
A £1.1million Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) standard grant has been awarded to an international team of scholars, archivists and filmmakers for a project on African film heritage restitution.
The Art of Status: Looted Treasures and the Global Politics of Restitution examines the relationship between looted art and international status, by focusing on the debates about acquisition and restitution of the Parthenon Marbles, Benin Bronzes, and a never before written about collection of Nazi-looted art housed in the National Museum of Serbia.
[ in Dutch ] Time is running out to return the hundreds of human remains collected by soldiers, missionaries and others in Congo, says historian and anthropologist Lies Busselen. The combination of archival and fieldwork in Belgium and Congo continuously encourages us to reflect on the colonial past.
There’s a shift in museums of the global north. They have begun to decolonise. Finally! But the weird thing is the ones who are leading this shift are the descendants of those who stole, murdered, oppressed. Is this one of our blind spots? It is high time to sit in our discomfort, for serious self-examination, and for a shifting of power dynamics.
[ in French ] It was in 2021, after 129 years of plunder by France, that the royal treasure of Abomey was returned to Benin. The restitution of this piece of history is part of a campaign launched by Benin in 2016 to make its heritage the cornerstone of its cultural influence.
This article examines how an eighteenth-century decision to bureaucratize gift exchange continued to disrupt long-standing South Asian protocols of reciprocity and regard well into the twentieth century.
The aim of the project is to reveal and connect all collections of material made in Africa that are held in 32 Scottish museums, including lesser-known as well as better-known ones, and to connect these collections with relevant and interested diaspora and descendant communities.
[ in Spanish ] The work of the two expert committees created by Ernest Urtasun, Minister of Culture, to "overcome and challenge the Eurocentrism" of these two institutions, has concluded after six months with the delivery of two projects outlining concrete guidelines for renewing their museographic narratives.
University collections are more than any others, linked to the definition and transmission of knowledge. The Musée L, UCLouvain's university museum, is launching a new open-access online scientific journal dedicated to university collections and museums: UniMusea – Research and Practices on University Collections.
On November 9th, 2025, as 250 Nigerian and international guests – donors, diplomats, and the heads of national cultural agencies – gathered in Benin City at the new Museum of West African Art’s opening event, protesters in red baseball caps broke into the museum, forcing its closure. Cultural Property News analyses what happen, and why.
Symposium on current debates around the spiritual artifacts collected under colonial or postcolonial conditions and housed in European ethnographic museums. It will be held Dec. 3 and 4 in Groningen with many wonderful scholars and MA and PhD students involved.
Twelve historical artefacts have been formally returned to Ethiopia after being kept by a German family for more than 100 years. The artefacts were y collected in the 1920s by Germany's then-envoy to Ethiopia Franz Weiss and his wife Hedwig.
[ in Dutch] Due to the death of Otto van der Mieden on February 1, 2024, the founder and director of the Puppetry Museum, the museum is closed and the collection is being deaccessioned.
The purpose of this article is to take a closer look at such instances of return of cultural heritage, by particularly focusing on the relationship between the matters of return and the questions of identity and collective memory in this respect. The third part focuses on the question of repatriation of cultural objects removed during the times of colonialism.
Phillip Ihenacho, director and chairman of the Museum of West African Art (MOWAA), has watched the restitution debate unfold with both pride and concern. Pride, because it signals a long-overdue recognition of West Africa’s cultural heritage; concern, because too often the conversation is shaped by Western priorities rather than African ones.
[in English, in German] Thomas Fues sees many positive elements in the Joint Guidelines. which the federal government, the states and local authority associations adopted on 14 October 2025. They have some good guidelines but challenges remain as well.
Join this event - organised by the Europeana Communicators Community - to hear museum professionals across Brazil and Europe explore issues of repatriation, decolonisation, and representation of Indigenous voices.
Yesterday, RM* published an item about the repatriation by museums in Great Britain of shrunken heads to Ecuador. Lewis McNaught explains that this is easier said than done. Given the particular cultural contexts of tsantsas (both making and taking), the need for further research and analysis have been agreed. According to him, no repatriation requests have been made to date and given the number of different groups involved, any future process is likely to be extremely complicated.
Julien Volper, acurator at the Royal Museum for Central Africa (Tervuren, Belgium), is writing here in a personal capacity: The Dutch restitution of Benin objects, earlier this year, was motivated by Dutch self-interest, both of the government and of the museum that has to let go a collection.
Elias Feroz interviews Dan Hicks: Monuments, museums, and cultural institutions were often created in the image of “militarist realism,” presenting colonialism and enslavement as eternal. Undoing this legacy is not erasing the past but combating a pernicious ideology.
From the crowns of Ethiopian emperors held abroad to the mummified remains of African ancestors still stored in Western institutions, the theft of Africa’s sacred heritage represents a deeper violence. Those which we speak of, are not mere museum exhibits; they are vessels of ancestral power and collective memory. Their continued displacement denies Africa’s children the right to know and connect with their lineage.
Kwame Opoku looks back at the year 2025. Two fragments, one about the Western dedain for looted objects and human remains. The other about a publication of Open Restitution Africa. But first, a positive event.
Cyprus is a much negelected spot in colonial history. This documentary Film trailer by Zimbabwean artist Sithabile Mlotshwa is made possible through a collaboration with historian Paraskevas Samaras and videographer Michalakis Georgiou with contributions and support from Dinos Toumazos, Agora Dialogue, Oz Karahan and others.
Oba Ewuare II today, during a courtesy visit to the Government house spoke explicitly on the proposed plan to build Benin Royal Museum which the past Governor of the state, Mr. Godwin Obaseki converted to EMOWAA and later MOWAA.
It is the final conference of Pressing Matter, in partnership with the Research Center for Material Culture (RCMC) and the Wereldmuseum. Min theme: Rethinking the Restitutionary Moment: What Next? On 27 and 28 November in Leiden. On 26 November, Achille Mbembe will speak in Amsterdam.
In an address at the 2025 Conference of the African Bar Association (AfBA) in Accra, Chief Charles A. Taku of the AfBA Reparations Committee, made an impassioned appeal for what he termed “The Accra Declaration” — a continental demand compelling Europe and the West to pay reparations for the centuries of slavery, colonialism, and cultural theft inflicted upon Africa and its peoples.
The International Seminar on the Return of Cultural Heritage under the auspices of the 2025 Brazil BRICS Presidency will take place on 10 and 11 November and is organized by the University of São Paulo [ USP ].
[ in Dutch ] Last Saturday, the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) opened in Cairo. German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier was also in attendance. The world's largest archaeological museum displays more than 100,000 art treasures from Egyptian history, but one important piece is missing: the bust of Queen Nefertiti. It has graced the walls of Berlin for over a century.
Dan Hicks argues that the allegation that his book The Brutish Museums is “part of a trend away from pro-British perspectives” is contextualised and refuted. On the contrary, this reply argues, openness and transparency about the colonial past and present is a key element of the reclamation and
reimagining of Britishness that is unfolding in the 2020s – this unfinished period that the book calls “the decade of returns”.
There is growing debate around the ethics of displaying human remains. Against this background, the Museums Association (MA) has reviewed its Code of Ethics, and questions around storage and display of human remains are a key aspect.
Over 4.250 respondents from Zimbabwe, Ghana, Ethiopia, South Africa, Morocco, Egypt, Nigeria and Mali participated in a survey, expressing that return of artefacts is an essential party of reparations to the continent.
At the G20 meeting, South African Minister for Sport, Arts and Culture, Gayton McKenzie, champions cultural restitution and digital equity at the G20 summit, advocating for a fairer future. Each G20 member state should have a restitution committee.
[ in German ] Berlin Postkolonial, Decolonize Berlin, and Flinn Works welcome the update of the “Joint Guidelines on Dealing with Cultural Property and Human Remains from Colonial Contexts.” Clearer procedures and the establishment of unconditional returns are steps in the right direction. At the same time, the guidelines fall far short of a human rights- and international law-based understanding of restitution and repatriation.
[ in English and in German ] The main focus is on cultural belongings from four Cameroonian communities, the Bakoko, Bamum, Duala, and Maka, whose heritage was absorbed by these institutions during the German colonial era (1884-1919). This should also become a basis for future restitutions.
[ in French ] The Study and Research Centre for Administrative and Political Sciences (CERSA) organizes a conference entitled “Restitutions of cultural heritage: trends, challenges, perspectives” on November 14, 2025 in Paris.
[ in French ] The French government intends to go further with a bill that could become a landmark law in this area. What are the terms of the bill, and why does it potentially represent a historic turning point? Catharine Titi writes....
Former Tanzanian lawmaker and environmental activist Riziki Saidi Lulida argues: 'It was taken from Lindi, from our soil. They carried it piece by piece for more than a hundred kilometers, and some of our people died doing it. But no one in Lindi has ever benefited.'
The British Museum has hosted a lavish fundraiser at 2,000 pounds ($2,668) per ticket, dubbed the "Pink Ball," in the room housing the Parthenon Marbles, igniting fierce criticism and reviving long-standing debates over cultural ethics and colonial restitution. Greek Culture Minister Lina Mendoni condemned as 'provocative indifference'. Here follows a comment by Global Times reporter Chen Xi.
The stolen jewels are also products of a long history of colonial extraction. The sapphires, emeralds, diamonds, pearls, and other gemstones they contained were mined across Asia, Africa, and South America.
[ in German ] The 2025 Guidelines promote dialogue with societies of origin and descendants, interdisciplinary provenance research, and proactive roles for museums, while they acknowledge the cultural, spiritual, and epistemological singularities of each case. They expand on communication channels for restitution requests, specifically notably requiring the consent of the state of origin, and call for a need to streamline procedures and call for an expert advisory body to be established to support restitution efforts. Further details on governance and the body’s specific mandate remain to be defined.
This kick-off seminar, led by Pietro Sullo, discusses the legal status of colonial artefacts from Africa held in European museums, clarifying whether there is a duty to repatriate them. The research hypothesis is that European states have a legal duty to return colonial artefacts acquired without the consent of the communities of origin.
The colonial collections in public museums and the private sector in Italy are not less substantial than elsewhere in Europe. Italy has made some significant returns. Nevertheless, this blog argues that the country is much better at reclaiming its own stolen relics than at accepting the consequences of the investigations into its colonial collections.
The German state Baden-Württemberg acknowledges its historical responsibility and is committed to provenance research in order to identify and return colonial cultural goods that were acquired unlawfully. The start was in 2019, when Hendrik Witbooi's Bible and whip were returned to Namibia.
[ in Spanish ] The exhibition recovers key moments from the decades of 1880 and 1990, when the first restitutions of human remains and the demands for patrimonial return to our context were produced.
The Hunterian at the University of Glasgow, through the implementing agencies, Iziko Museums of South Africa and the South African Heritage Resources Agency (SAHRA), and in partnership with the Northern Cape Reburial Task Team, have jointly announced the repatriation of ancestral human remains to South Africa.
When tourists tread the halls of Sri Lanka’s national museums or glance over the plaques at sites of historical significance, they are reading stories of the past. But whose? Sri Lankan ethnographer Ganga Rajinee Dissanayaka wonders who made that judgement of what is worth saving, worth memorialising, worth forgetting?
The British Museum has announced that it will be holding a charity ball on 18 October 2025 to collect funds to further, inter alia, its international partnerships. This makes Kwame Opoku having a closer look at it.
The Director of the Museum of Black Civilisations in Dakar Mohamed Abdallah Ly reflects on the urgent need to decolonize cultural institutions, the symbolism of absence, and the politics of restitution. He also discusses efforts to reconnect the museum with diaspora communities and reimagine its role in Africa’s cultural and intellectual future.
This special exhibition is dedicated to a long-overlooked collecting practice: The collection of objects by Catholic and Protestant missionary societies – primarily during the 19th and early 20th centuries.
The public display of artefacts looted by British colonial forces at the new Museum of West African Art was supposed to be the crowning glory of a decades-long restitution effort. What went wrong?
[ in Portuguese ] The exhibition "The Photographic Impulse. (Dis)arrangement of the Colonial Archive" proposes a decolonial reading of the images and scientific objects from geodesy and anthropology expeditions carried out in territories colonized by Portugal.
Doing research in Swiss museums, artist Deneth Piumakshi Veda Arachchige comes across a collection of ancestral remains and artifacts from an indigenous Sri Lankan community. The award-winning documentary can be seen at film festivals in Leipzig and Amsterdam.
Alliance Française Kampala has launched a month-long program, Ethics of Loaning: Strengthening the Discourse on Restitution in Uganda, aimed at involving communities in discussions on the return and ethical management of cultural heritage.
In this Spark Session Made Naraya Sumaniaka presents his thesis work, which recentres community agency by examining how digital spaces enable participation and contestation using the newly established Colonial Collections Datahub and TikTok as case studies.
The Restituting, Reconnecting, Reimagining Sound Heritage (Re:Sound) project invites applications for three short-term research fellowships aimed at scholars, curators, artists, and source community members from Southeast Asia.
This project explores the colonial framework that has shaped our understanding and knowledge of historical objects, focusing on the Lombok Treasures looted from Cakranegara Palace in 1894. Adopting a decolonial perspective, this project reframes these heritage objects as living entities endowed with knowledge and cultural significance, rather than mere relics.
In this exhibition, a group of artists examines how colonialism has shaped the ways museums, archives and other institutions of knowledge are perceived and understood, revealing the (im)material scars imposed by systemic violence.
In 'Rethinking Histories of Indonesia - Experiencing, Resisting and Renegotiating Coloniality', editors Sadiah Boonstra and others provide a critical evaluation of histories of Indonesia from the formal period of colonisation to the present day. The volume approaches Indonesian history through the lens of coloniality, or the structures of power and control that underpin colonisation and which persist into the present.
The restitution issue of cultural properties from Japan to South Korea has a long history. Back from a visit to South Korea, Eisei Kurimoto (National Institutes for the Humanities, Japan) concludes that this history still is being characterized by one dominant element: asymmetry. While in South Korea, it is an important national matter, the interest in Japan has been very low. Japanese governments consider it a ‘settled case’ and the issue is rarely publicly argued. To initiate change, joint provenance research projects could cultivate trust and friendship between stakeholders of both countries.
A royal shrine from the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910), believed to have been removed from Korea nearly a century ago during Japan’s colonial rule, has returned home. Known as Gwanwoldang, the wooden structure was officially transferred to Korea through a bilateral cultural collaboration marking the 60th anniversary of normalized diplomatic ties between the two countries.
HERE is a seminar for new and experienced heritage professionals. The aim is to bring professionals together in order to stimulate knowledge exchange and innovation. HERE is on 10 November in Wereldmuseum Amsterdam.
[ in Dutch ]'Dutch' fossils soon to be seen again in Indonesia: 'Young people here only know the Javaman from textbooks'
Indonesia will soon receive thousands of fossils that are still in museum Naturalis. It is a historic moment for his country, says Indonesian paleontologist Sofwan Noerwidi.
On 26 September 2025, the Dutch government returned 28,000 fossils, including the famous skullcap, a molar, and a thighbone (the so-called Java Man), to Indonesia following an official claim submitted by the Indonesian state in July 2022. They were part of the collection of Naturalis Biodiversity Centre in Leiden. With this, the government followed the advice of the Colonial Collections Committee. Now that the dust about this massive return has begun to settle, it is time for some reflection. I consider the acceptance of the advice of the independent Colonial Collections Committee groundbreaking in several respects.
[ in Dutch ] At the Indonesian Ministry of Culture, they can't count on their luck. The Netherlands returns an important archaeological find to Indonesia. It concerns the skullcap of Dubois, named after the Dutch finder Eugène Dubois. This proved in 1891 that other humanos had existed, which Dubois called the Javamen.
[ in Dutch ] The restitution process of the Dubois collection took an unusually long time. The responsible advisory committee and Naturalis point out the complexity of the case, experts make sharp accusations against the museum.
[ links are in Dutch or in English ] Today, Dutch Minister Moes (Education, Culture and Science) presented a letter to Indonesian Minister Fadli Zon (Culture) announcing this decision. The so-called Dubois collection is now managed by Naturalis Biodiversity Center in the city of Leiden.
[ in English and in German ] Experience to date suggests that the portal has so far been little used by actors from the contexts of origin and other countries of the so-called Global South and their diasporic communities. To shed more light on this issue, we surveyed both the DDB as the provider and German and international researchers as (potential) users in writing.
Our third In Conversation considers restitution from an ethnographic perspective. Charlotte Joy will discuss the research for her upcoming book, drawing on interviews and her work with UNESCO, with Mirjam Shatanawi and Katarzyna Puzon. We invite you to join our conversation.
Kulasumb Kalinoe (East Sepik area, Papua New Guinea; currrently James Cook University, Australia) focuses on the collection and removal of cultural material from Papua New Guinea (PNG) during the colonial era. She discusses views among the Papua New Guinean diaspora in Australia on museums and PNG collections, and argues that cultural heritage issues must be addressed before the work of decolonisation can begin.
Ahmad Mohammed writes: Sacred objects, ancestral remains, and ritual artifacts remain estranged from the communities that created and cherished them. This condition is what many scholars and practitioners now identify as cultural heritage alienation: the systematic displacement of heritage from its social, spiritual, and cultural lifeworlds into the frameworks of Western curatorial authority. But community control is crucial.
Windsor Castle’s splendour hides a legacy of colonial loot, from Tipu Sultan’s swords to the Koh-i-Noor, raising debates on restitution and justice, Jan Muhammad Shaikh writes.
More and more colonial looted art is returned to the country of origin by European countries and museums, yet millions of precious sculptures, masks and bronzes still remain in the hands of the former colonizer. In the Netherlands alone, hundreds of thousands of artifacts are involved. Why? 'They claim that we can't take care of it ourselves.'
‘The most valuable Buginese manuscript of La Galigo, is held at Leiden University Library’ in the Netherlands, the university proudly communicates. It has come from Makassar on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. For the Bugis who live there, it is an essential part of their history. But they have no access to it. A local group with academics, heritage professionals and activists in Makassar has begun to discuss its future. For them the repatriation of meaning is crucial. And this is only possible if the Dutch recognise their responsibility.
Muhammad Nishat Hussain writes: The 100th anniversary of the first formal excavation at Harappa (Punjab, NE Pakistan) is more than a commemoration of a century-old dig. It is an opportunity to reimagine how Pakistan studies and safeguards its past. Since the 1970s the country has tried to regain lost treasures. In vain.
Rohan Fernando emphasises the colonial roots of India’s great contemporary museums and the role of the British in rediscovering India’s past. Muhammad Nishan Hussain [University of Lahore] takes an opposite view and sees them as a tool of colonial control.
Nigeria should establish a bilateral negotiating group with Germany on reparations to pay for its crimes against humanity, comprising the indigenous peoples of Nigeria and other African nations. Not as charity, but as a binding act of justice and a guarantee that such atrocities will never be repeated.
Tilda Gladwell likes to divert your attention from news of war and geopolitical instability for just a moment to an equally pressing issue: the decades-long debate concerning repatriation.
In 2021, the University of Aberdeen returned a looted Benin object to the Oba of Benin, becoming the first UK institution to agree to an unconditional return. Neil Curtis [University of Aberdeen] outlines the process of giving back a pillaged object without a repatriation request being made.
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.
Restitutions of colonial loot by Japan to former colonial possessions? Yes, that has happened and is still happening: manuscripts and objects to South Korea and China, ancestral remains to groups within Japan’s own borders. News about it is quite rare. What is actually known about the colonial collections and restitution practice of this former colonial power in the Far East?
In 2013, the AfricaMuseum near Brussels closed its doors and embarked on a major redesign. The architectural changes must have felt less challenging than the long overdue re-evaluation of the holdings and their presentation. Jeremy Harding reports.
[ in French and in English ] Claimed for decades by Antananarivo, these bones had been taken as trophies by French colonial troops after a deadly attack in 1897 in Ambiky, the former royal capital of Menabe. 'Their absence was an open wound on our island'.
The objects, comprising spears, spear throwers and a club, were collected in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and have been held in the museum’s collection for decades.
The past decade has seen a worldwide tendency to re-examine human remains found in old museum collections. To obtain a full picture of the life history of the individuals under consideration, an anthropological study might be mandated, although this approach is not yet systematic.
According to Darius Spierman, France has begun a significant process of confronting its colonial history. This includes the recent return of human remains to Madagascar and a draft restitution bill.
[ in English, French and Spanish ] From a continental European perspective, islands have long been considered as separated and isolated spaces, disconnected from one another and from the rest of their environment. This special issue of the ICOFOM Study Series rethinks such a perspective on islands by bringing together papers from around the world that draw on alternative views, notably from the Pacific and Caribbean regions concerning oceanic islands.
The conference “Colonial Pasts and Contemporary Search for Justice: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Politics of Restitution and Redress for Colonial Violence” brings together experiences from different parts of the world, and perspectives in the field of transitional justice and (post-)colonial studies.
The Japanese civic group, Movement for the Repatriation of Chinese Cultural Properties, urges the Japanese government to return looted Chinese cultural relics, the Chinese Global Times reports. Japan conducted archaeological surveys in China during wartime and later transported their "findings" to Japan under the guise of "academic research."
[ in Dutch ] How are Belgium and the Netherlands dealing with the sensitive issue of returning looted art and researching its colonial origins? An exploration of some treacherous areas in the quagmire of new Dutch and Belgian restitution policy. A discussion between museum director Wayne Modest and activist Nadia Nsayi.
[ French translation ] La France débat actuellement de la création d’un cadre juridique pour la restitution des collections publiques historiques, principalement d’origine coloniale. La Belgique dispose déjà d’une telle loi. Ce court article propose une comparaison entre les deux dispositifs – la loi belge et le projet de loi français – en se concentrant sur trois points :
• l’approche centrée sur l’État,
• le champ d’application,
• la procédure de restitution.
Reclaiming stolen artefacts: Africa’s landmark museum at the heart of global discussion about restitution.
Senegal’s Museum of Black Civilisations is asserting Africa’s right to secure its cultural heritage and tell its own story.
Kwame Opoku writes: The French Minister of Culture presented a legislative text on 30 July to facilitate the restitution of artefacts in French museums by derogating from the principle of inalienability. It will not likely lead to a rush of restitutions from France. Excluding archaeological materials, military materials, and public records eliminates many objects. Archaeological finds from Egypt, Mali, and other African countries, such as those on the ICOM Red Lists, would be excluded.
American firm KoBold Metals' desire to scan the Congolese geological archives is causing embarrassment in Belgium, which holds a large collection inherited from the colonial era. A project for the digitisation of said archives for research purposes backed by EU funding is already underway.
This open access book (only after 10 - 14 days) offers a unique perspective on the return of cultural objects by considering the aftermath of the handover processes.
The Japan-Netherlands Symposium International Training Program in Museums: Exploring Inclusive and Collaborative Engagement focuses on international museum training programs conducted by the Netherlands and Japan, exploring new approaches to international museum collaboration that transcend the traditional hierarchy between “trainers” and “trainees.”
This paper is the outcome of joint reflections by the two authors, based in Europe and in Africa. Since the diverse practices of restitution have attracted more attention than certain concepts related to it, this paper addresses this imbalance by focusing on conceptual issues.
The article 'Journey of No Return: The Impact of Looted Heritage on Nigeria’s Cultural Legacy' explores the profound impact of looted heritage on Nigeria’s cultural legacy, highlighting the historical, cultural, and economic implications of the plundered artifacts.
Thomas Fues writes: the German government emphasises its willingness to confront Germany’s colonial history and its consequences. But it remains to be seen whether and how such declarations of intent at the beginning of the legislative period will actually be implemented in the coming years.
Dan Hicks writes: Genuine transparency will require the V&A channelling its resources into creating a truly comprehensive public database of the artefacts, images and archives that it holds.
This call for contributions to Terroirs, African Journal of Social Sciences and Philosophy, aims to give greater consideration to African perspectives by analyzing citizen mobilizations, artistic initiatives, state strategies, and community practices that shape the return of heritage.
[ in English and in French ] The French government has proposed a restitution law. After Belgium, it is the second former European colonial power to do so. Such a law streamlines restitution procedures and offers former colonies more clarity and even legal certainty. This blog discusses the draft-bill and examines whether countries of origin will benefit much from it.
It’s no easy matter resolving the current ethical debate over the retention and exhibition of human remains. But one public collection is asking visitors to cast their vote.
The African Renaissance made restitution central to reclaiming cultural sovereignty. But the reality is that implementation is still shaped by donor-led systems that often bypass African agency and African audiences.
