The Contested Crown Repatriation Politics between Europe and Mexico (original) (raw)
Much of the literature engaging the repatriation of museum collections has focused on claims made by postcolonial nation-states, or by Indigenous communities in settler-colonial contexts such as the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Latin America, specifically, has been relatively absent from these debates because of the enduring legacies of Indigenism as a key politics of nation making, justifying the appropriation of Indigenous cultural production in favor of the nation. The very few instances of repatriation in the region have been negotiated between specific museums and private collectors, who have returned objects to countries of origin, rather than through centralized state-led policies. In even fewer cases, artifacts and human remains have been returned not to national governments but to the communities from which they were removed. In 2022, in an unprecedented act of recognition and restitution within a contemporary Latin American nation, the Chilean National Museum of Natural History returned a Moai, one of Rapa Nui´s iconic stone monuments, to the island.
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Restitution of Indigenous human remains: the case of Argentine museums
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This chapter explores current practices in restitution and repatriation, concludes that most are adversarial, long-winded and costly, and argues that this runs counter to and impedes the essential purposes of museums. Those museums which have returned objects through an open and honest dialogue with claimant communities – usually avoiding legal intervention – have created goodwill and ongoing, sustainable relationships, which also benefit their own local audiences. The first part analyses current restitution/repatriation practices and their drawbacks, including categories of claims, arguments against return, mechanisms for return, and the lack of measurable impact of international conventions. The second part reviews key issues addressed by recent research on restitution and repatriation: the ethics of return and cultural equity versus the notion of the universal museum; the current focus on building relationships and knowledge networks with originating communities; exploring alternative kinds of values for objects; and challenging and redefining ownership and possession. The third part draws on the direction of recent research to propose a new way forward for dialogue and decision-making around restitution/repatriation, based on the processes of deliberative democracy. This calls on museums to acknowledge their key purpose as loci for a discourse on the values and meanings of objects and cultural identity, bringing all interested parties together to deliberate and make joint decisions about claims for return.
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ships based on principles of equity and reconciliation involving a wide variety of approaches such as physical as well as virtual repatriation, knowledge sharing, co-management, co-responsibility and joint access. Rather than being detrimental or posing a threat to the integrity of Western museums, repatriation can pave the way to cooperation in new areas, for instance in relation to future research projects or exhibition initiatives. Let me give Neil Curtis the final word: "By embracing repatriation, museums can therefore establish themselves as centres for rigorous-and vigorous-public ethical debate, not just as treasure houses in an unequal world".
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Pacific islands artifacts and imageries have had a strong appeal to the popular imagination of the West over the years. However, in recent years the question of ownership of intellectual property rights has emerged as many indigenous groups around the world call for the repatriation of their cultural objects taken away, with or without their ancestors’ consent, as a way of reasserting their cultural rights and in rediscovery of their roots and identity. The question of repatriation of cultural objects is now a contentious issue, as indigenous peoples demand the return of their cultural goods from metropolitan museums while museum owners claim ownership of the objects. The creation of indigenous museums adds to this contention as these museums are still deeply entrenched in colonial legacies. It has however shifted indigenous peoples’ views o museum collections and artifacts. The development of cultural centers and the increasing number of indigenous people trained in museology and a...
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