Emergent Conversation 21

Edited by Kulasumb Kalinoe

Photo of the Benin Bronzes display at the British Museum. Photo by user:geni. CC-BY-SA 4.0.

This series addresses the legal and political anthropology of cultural rights as human rights and the importance of decolonializing museums through repatriation and source community partnerships. Repatriation debates today often result from European museum collections that were acquired through unjust means during colonial occupations. Colonial collecting was carried out extensively by government administrators, missionaries, art dealers and scientists. In most circumstances cultural material and ancestral remains were forcibly removed, stolen, and looted without the consent of local communities.