Restitution of cultural heritage is the process of returning ancestral things from former colonial institutions, such as museums, to descendants of these things' traditional owners and custodians. This project moves beyond the narrow definition of restitution as an international legal and political process that ends with the act of return. Instead, it reframes restitution as broader social and cultural practices that involve multiple actors, and include creation of new meanings, collective memory, redress and social repair. The project adopts three modes of analysis: studying selected objects' transnational history; analyzing the socio-cultural dynamics of the objects' reintegration in the communities; researching new and experimental forms of restitution. The research material consists of cultural and narrative productions from selected postcolonial contexts: exhibitions, visual and literary material, performances, traditional storytelling and ceremony.

2024

2028