There is a broad public debate on the restitution of objects with colonial or imperial provenance. However, political and legal debates often disregard the normative understanding and the legal imagination of communities of origin related to these objects. The workshop addresses this issue by providing a common conceptual and disciplinary framework for understanding the embeddedness of material culture in a plurality of legal orders and normative systems. Through interdisciplinary theoretical groundwork, conceptual reflection, and illustrative case studies, its participants fill this lacuna and suggest new research methodologies and legal remedies useful for policymakers, legal scholars, and heritage professionals.

Program

Thursday, 8 February 2024

9.00–9.30
EViR Directors (Münster), Sebastian M. Spitra (Vienna) & João Figueiredo (Münster): Opening of the Workshop and Welcome

9.30–10.30
Keynote: Paul Basu (Oxford): Pluriversal Museology and the forensis of Provenance

10.30–11.00
Coffee break

Section 1: Constellations of Normative Knowledge
Chair: Franziska Dübgen (Münster)

11.00–11.45
Lucas Lixinski (Sydney): Asking Better Provenance Questions? Cultural Heritage, Legal Pluralism, and the “Other”

11.45–12.30
Carsten Stahn (Leiden): Confronting Colonial Objects. Histories, Legalities, and Access to Culture

12.30–14.00
Lunch break

Section 2: Constructing Provenance. Historical Institutions and the Law
Chair: Benjamin Seebröker (Münster)

14.00–14.45
Eva Künkler (Hannover): Colonial Collections and the Translocation of Objects: The Long Duration of German Debates on Ownership and Heritage

14.45–15.30
Sebastian Willert (Leipzig): The Forensics of Colonial Archaeology: The Ottoman Antiquity Law, German Excavations Campaigns, and the Exodus of Antiquities

15.30–16.00
Coffee break

Section 3: The Legal Pluralism of Objects
Chair: Kaveh Yazdani (Münster)

16.00–16:45
Alice Lopes Fabris (Paris/Brussels) & Caroline Borges (Recife): And What about Internal Restitutions? Legal Aspects of the Artefacts Return to the Local Communities

16.45–17.30
Diogo Machado (Sydney): Colonial Translocations in Legal Discourses Surrounding Indigenous Cultural Objects Recovered in Criminal Proceedings in Brazil

18.00
Dinner

Friday, 9 February 2024

9.30–10.30
Keynote: María Julia Ochoa Jiménez (Sevilla): A Latin American Perspective on Restitution: Legalist and Humanist Views

10.30–11.00
Coffee break

Section 4: Narratives of Belonging
Chair: Larissa Förster (Berlin)

11.00–11.45
Tokie Laotan-Brown (Nova Gorica) & Bekeh Ukelina (Cortland, New York): Returning Emwin Arre to the Benin Kingdom: Using
Traditional Customary Laws as a Path towards Regional Restitution Policies in Nigeria

11.45–12.30
Martin Skrydstrup (Canberra/Copenhagen): Provenience by Proxy: On the Dispute about Spirit Cave Man

12.30–14.00
Lunch break

Section 5: Integrating Pluralism. Thinking Toward Legal Mitigation
Chair: Olaf Zenker (Halle/Saale)

14.00–14.45
Sophie Starrenburg (Leiden): Decentring Cultural Heritage Law? The Emancipatory Potential of Particularistic Legal Universalism

14.45–15.30
Andrzej Jakubowski (Warsaw): Rupture and Continuity: Decolonisation of International Law

15.30–16.00
Coffee break

Section 6: Normative Knowledge and Institutions
Chair: Olaf Zenker (Halle/Saale)

16.00–16.45
Edward Tan Yu Fan (Singapore): An Examination of Liminality at the Raffles Museum of the Straits Settlements, 1884-1939

16.45–17.30
Gracia Lwanzo Kasongo (Louvain) & Placide Mumbembele Sanger (Kinshasa): Restitution and Knowledge Decolonization: Unpacking the Return of the Kakuungu Mask in the DR Congo

18.00
Sebastian M. Spitra & João Figueiredo: Concluding Remarks and Farewell

Contact: info.evir@uni-muenster.de


Source: The Forensics of Provenance. Colonial Translocations Through the Lenses of Legal Pluralism., In: H-Soz-Kult, 17.12.2023, <www.hsozkult.de/event/id/event-140789>.