Episode 13: Loot!

In this second instalment of the 'Reckonings with Europe: Pasts
and Present' series, Evelien Campfens, Chika Okeke-Agulu and Dan
Hicks reflect on calls for return of cultural artefacts looted
under European empire. How does (international) law respond to
these calls? Does law even matter—and if so which kind? Who
resists return, and why? And what might return mean today?


Select texts and reports discussed:


Felwine Sarr & Bénédicte Savoy, 'The Restitution of African
Cultural Heritage. Toward a New Relational Ethics' (French
original) (2018)


Association of Art Museum Directors, 'Declaration on the
Importance and Value of Universal Museums' (2002)


Dan Hicks, The Brutish Museum: The Benin Bronzes, Colonial
Violence and Cultural Restitution (2020)


Evelien Campfens, https://www.boomdenhaag.nl/isbn/9789462362505
(Cross-Border Claims to Cultural Heritage: Property or Heritage?)
(2021)