A Latin American Restitution Monitor: Tracking and Documenting Restitution Efforts for Cultural Belongings and Ancestral Remains in Latin America
Global Convivial Forum
Julia von Sigsfeld (Mecila Junior Fellow, 2024)
Even though debates on restitution have gained more visibility and become more widespread on an international scale in the past decade, there remains a significant gap when it comes to Latin America: the absence of a comprehensive overview of restitution cases demands, not to mention a system to monitor restitution.
Demands for the restitution of cultural items and the repatriation of ancestral remains Latin America have been ongoing for decades. Over the years, these efforts have taken different forms, and within the global spotlight now on heritage restitution and the, these issues may gain even greater importance in the near future.
Claims for the repatriation of ancestral remains of members of Mapuche and Tehuelche communities taken to museums – primarily the Museo de La Plata – following the military campaign of territorial expansion and Indigenous genocide led by the Argentine government in the late 19th century, have been raised at least since the 1970s in Argentina. In the 1980s, the Krahô people requested the restitution of a decades-long missing kàjré, a sacred ritual ceremonial stone axe. It was given to São Paulo’s Museu Paulista in the 1940s by a German ethnologist. In 1988, a Moai that had been removed and transferred to Oslo’s Kon Tiki Museum in the 1950s was returned to Rapa Nui after having been requested back by the Council of Elders. To name a more recent case, in 2022 an agreement was reached to restitute the Maaso Kova, a sacred ceremonial deer head, in the hands of Stockholm‘s Museum of Ethnography to the Yaqui Nation after the Yaqui requested an intervention by the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP) in 2018 given that their 2003 restitution request had initially been denied.
Descriptions of these varied cases can be found in a number of enlightening publications which sometimes focus in an in-depth manner on single restitution processes and sometimes provide overview of cases, even going beyond individual national contexts. They demonstrate how restitution processes in Latin America are highly diverse as they are tied to concrete moments as well as broader historical processes of dispossession tied to nation-building processes, missionary work, scientific exploitation but also to processes of conscientization, identity and community (re-)constitution as well as struggle for rights, territories, recognition, and self-determination.
Tracking Restitution Cases
There are some noteworthy resources and platforms that track restitution efforts with distinct regional and thematic foci. These efforts provide important precedents and inspiration. These span from the online platform Open Restitution Africa which provides information and research on restitution cases to Africa centring African voices in the debate, to the website Returning Heritage which offers news on cultural heritage restitution and some information by country, to the recently established German Restitution Monitor featured on the Blog Dekolonial Erinnern that tracks updates on open restitution cases in Germany.
Such overviews provide valuable information with regards to past restitutions and open cases next to fostering transparency and accountability in restitution efforts. As such they serve as valuable resources to not only claimants and interested stakeholders as well as researchers accompanying or following restitution processes, but every person interested in the issue of restitution. What is more, such initiatives are essential in keeping restitution efforts visible and ensuring that commitments to return cultural belongings or ancestral remains are fulfilled.
The Need for an Overview or Monitoring System
Whereas one can find a great number of insightful publications on restitution cases, for the Latin American region such an overview is still missing. There is also a lack of a system to monitor restitution efforts. A Latin American restitution monitor could constitute a valuable resource for tracking demands for the return of cultural belongings and ancestral remains, mapping resolved and ongoing cases. Such an overview would provide much-needed transparency and visibility.
The absence of such an overview means that researchers and activists lack a tool to readily track, assess, compare, and analyse the progress and challenges of restitution efforts in the region – beyond individual national contexts and beyond information retrieved from single academic publications, individual news segments, or institutional/museum outreach sources. A dedicated monitor could fill this gap, providing a much-needed resource for assessing and analysing the progress and challenges of restitution efforts for stakeholders engaged in restitution efforts, museum professionals, activists and researchers as well as a general public interested in restitution processes.
As one can gather from disparate sources, in some cases, state actors and governmental bodies have taken an active role in negotiating with foreign institutions and governments, while in others, Indigenous communities, civil society organizations, and cultural advocates have been at the forefront. Community efforts span from national and international advocacy for restitution/repatriation to direct struggles against state ownership of and control over cultural belongings and ancestral remains. In the absence of legal frameworks that guarantee a right to restitution/repatriation, aside from the Argentinian repatriation law 25.517 from 2001, this diversity in cases and approaches reflects the varied political, cultural, and historical landscapes and the panoramas of collective/Indigenous rights of Latin American countries. The monitor would allow for a sustained comparative analysis across different countries and institutions, offering background information and insights. What is more, it would help record the arguments put forth and the difficulties encountered, thereby allowing the identification of best practices.
Ultimately, greater visibility would foster transparency and accountability from institutions and private entities holding belongings and ancestral remains, as well as Latin American states who are still lacking behind in fulfilling the call of the 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) to work with Indigenous nations and communities toward developing effective restitution mechanisms. All in all, a restitution monitor for Latin America would aid those advancing efforts to reclaim cultural belongings and ancestral remains, providing the data necessary to inform ongoing and future restitution initiatives.
Developing a Platform
The project could be of various scales. Rather than collecting cases in a report, to be adaptable, amendable and expandable upon, initially, a monitor could begin with an overview on a website that can be corrected as well as regularly updated and expanded. This could serve as the foundation for a larger initiative involving more in-depth research aimed at documenting restitution cases and demands. Ideally, a broader platform could include survey data of institutions capturing information on both accepted and rejected cases. It could furthermore provide a space for the collection of resources on each case, featuring not only information material but be expanded upon with testimonials or even interview video material. There is also potential for expanding the project beyond Latin America to the Caribbean, where ongoing efforts to create inventories, for instance, have been already under way.
Collaboratively working on and expanding this initiative would be crucial to create a dynamic, living archive that reflects the complexity and ongoing nature of this effort of long duration that is restitution. Establishing partnerships would be essential to maintain a dynamic, adaptable platform that reflects the evolving landscape of restitution cases and finding funding and support would be crucial to develop this resource, enabling it to grow and effectively document restitution.