Overview
Western museums and collectors have historically asserted their roles as custodians of art and artefacts pillaged and looted during European and North American colonial occupations and interventions in the Global South. Arguments such as lack of ‘specific provenance’, poor condition of storage, lack of proper conservation, climate control, security systems and lack of proper spaces for display in countries of origin, have been persistently used as excuses for the refusal of return of such artefacts. Since the 1970s, the debate over restitution and repatriation of looted artefacts have been raging with some very limited progress in recent years. This panel considers persisting questions and recent developments in the scholarship, museological practices and policy making, with regards to the restitutions and repatriation of cultural heritage of the former colonised.
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