European countries’ policies on restitution of colonial cultural property: some comments from a Latin American perspective

ABSTRACT

The restitution of colonial cultural property, which is currently the subject of much debate in Europe, raises several challenges. At first glance, it requires recognizing the injustices associated with coloniality itself and determining how restitution can occur. This requires an in-depth understanding of certain aspects that are particularly challenging, for example, the complexities related to the ways in which provenance research is conceived and conducted or the role that human rights play in postcolonial contexts. At the heart of such debates seems to be the need for legal reforms and greater respect for the interests and rights of the communities of origin. Taking into account the Latin American context, this paper critically examines how colonial cultural property restitution policies in some European countries have attempted to address some fundamental aspects underlying the consideration of the Indigenous peoples involved but, at the same time, have overlooked other aspects.

KEYWORDS:

• Restitution
• colonial
• cultural property
• Indigenous peoples
• Latin America

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Legal definitions of ‘cultural property’, like those of ‘cultural heritage’, may vary in their use in the international context, and also in each country’s legal system; the same is true in relation to terms such as ‘restitution’ or ‘return’. Here, the term ‘cultural property’ is used to refer generally to objects or artifacts of cultural significance. The paper mostly refers to colonial cultural property in the way it is considered in each country’s policy document that are presented, and common remarks especially point to it to the extent that it is relevant to Indigenous peoples. The term ‘restitution’ is also used broadly.

2. Although initiated by Miranda, only Quincy’s part of the correspondence is known, hence the document is called ‘Letters to Miranda’ (Quincy 2007). According to Prott (2009, 20), the arguments of the Letters to Miranda are still valid in today’s globalized world: they are applicable to any of the ancient centers of civilization that have been, and continue to run the risk of being, dismembered.

3. Literature is therefore not only abundant but diverse. Topics that have received much attention and are the subject of numerous writings are, e.g. restitution in the Nazi context (cfr., e.g. Bilsky 2020; Weller 2022) and the restitution of Indigenous human remains and associated objects (e.g. in the U.S. and Canada, cfr. Koehler 2007; Tünsmeyer 2022). This last topic has been dealt with in Latin America especially in the Argentinian and Chilean contexts (cfr., e.g. Arthur and Ayala 2020; Endere 2020).

4. Merryman (2009) frames in the expression ‘age of imperialism’ a broad diversity of situations ranging from the plundering practiced by the Romans to those involving the suppression of Indigenous cultures in the United States, including the opportunistic appropriation of the Parthenon marbles by England.

5. The paper focuses on these three cases, although they are not the only ones; see, e.g. the report ‘Restitution and Repatriation. A Practical Guide for Museums in England’, which seeks to prepare English museums for the possibility of restitution claims (Arts Council 2022).

6. Such conditions are: (a) ‘military aggressions (booty, trophies), whether these pieces went directly to France or passed through the international art market before becoming part of the collections’; (b) acquisitions ‘through military personnel or administrators active on the continent during the colonial period (1885–1960) or their descendants’; (c) ‘scientific expeditions prior to 1960’; or ‘pieces of African origin that were initially loaned … by African institutions for exhibitions or restoration, but were never returned’ (Sarr and Savoy 2018, 61)

7. The restitution of human remains of Indigenous peoples implies a differentiated treatment (on the global dimension of this issue, see, e.g. McKeown 2020).

8. I thank Johnny Antonio Davila for this comment; cfr., e.g. Sangiovanni (2022).

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung .

Notes on contributors

María Julia Ochoa Jiménez

María Julia Ochoa Jiménez studied law at the Universidad de los Andes, Venezuela, and received her doctoral degree (Dr. iur.) from the University of Göttingen, Germany. She is a Professor of Private International Law at the Faculty of Law and Political Science of Loyola University, Spain. She is currently conducting a research project on the restitution of Latin American cultural property at the Department of Anthropology of the Americas at the University of Bonn, Germany, with a grant from the Georg Forster Programme of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.