CONFRONTING COLONIAL OBJECTS: Histories, Legalities, and Access to Culture<\/a>, Carsten Stahn, Oxford University Press, 2023, 556 pages, $180<\/p>\n Critics of restitution have challenged the turn to cultural justice based on the argument that atonement for the past may politicize material culture, detract from the original meaning of artifacts, or sensualize looted object to the detriment of less visible items.\u2026 Some of these risks may be mitigated through the application of transitional justice principles (e.g. historical truth-seeking access to justice, recognition of the harm, memory or non-repetition) to processes of restitution and return. They are inherently reflected in some reports and principles. (pp. 417-418)<\/p><\/blockquote><\/p>\n Admittedly, my personal views on the return of cultural objects reflected in Part One<\/a> are rather rigid: anything inappropriately or unlawfully taken must be returned when requested. Getting to Yes<\/em><\/a> (the formula for a win-win outcome explicated by Roger Fisher and William Ury in their seminal book on negotiating), however, is not easy. The disputing parties generally must agree to an acceptable historical narrative that accurately reflects the provenance (chain of custody) and biography of the disputed cultural objects before considering\/agreeing to return them (a feat in itself). One of the main stumbling blocks is the absence of clarity in the law. Which law applies? How far back does today\u2019s law apply, and if not, then what? Can the original owner\u2019s title claim based on heritage (I am mostly thinking of communities) trump domestic acquisition laws giving lawful title to a purchaser? Are there enforceable remedies?<\/p>\n With domestic laws and treaty regimes being inadequate to resolve contested claims of cultural objects, agreeing to agree on the return of cultural objects requires a multifaceted approach, innovative thinking, fresh perspectives, and good faith to genuinely confront the past with a willingness to address uncomfortable and inconvenient historical facts.<\/p>\n With one of the prevalent impediments to the return of claimed cultural objects being the inability to\u00a0 \u00a0retroactively applying international law, facts must be assessed based on the applicable standards when the taking\/removal took place. There is usefulness to this \u201cintertemporal rule\u201d, which Stahn contends \u201cis not absolute nor a bar to forward-looking models of responsibility for colonial takings.\u201d One of the problems he sees is that the debate over cultural colonial objects has been framed in binary terms \u201cgrounded in the divide between cultural nationalism and cultural internationalism \u2026 which has polarized the debate and led to stalemate and antagonism.\u201d Stahn finds this binary choice myopic, prone to bringing discourse and negotiations to a stalemate. Seeing things as much more complex, his main thesis is:<\/p>\n [T]he treatment of cultural colonial objects is neither a purely moral, nor purely legal question, but rather situated at the intersection of three different angles: justice, ethics, and human rights. It requires consideration of all three perspectives, i.e., justice, morality, and human rights. This intersectionality is needed to take into account the complexities of colonial injustice. Each of the three perspectives has its added value.<\/p>\n While atonement for past misdeeds may for some be a prerequisite for cultural justice (I\u2019ll settle for unvarnished historical facts from which the truth can be inferred), Stahn rightly notes that this could lead to politicizing, detracting, and sensualizing looted objects while obscuring and overshadowing \u201cless visible items.\u201d The return of cultural objects \u201cis not a \u2018neutral\u2019 act (i.e., a pure ownership determination), but a process of addressing the connection between objects and people.\u201d Stahn sees this as a transformative opportunity; a process involving \u201cbackward-looking elements, such as acknowledging the past, as well as perspective steps towards \u2018righting the future\u2019\u201d, considering \u201ca broader spectrum of object possibilities and relations beyond return of restitution.\u201d This is important. Cultural objects are part and parcel of cultural heritage. They play a significant role in expressing inherited ancestral traditions for descendants, forming what is acknowledged to be intangible cultural heritage<\/em>: <\/a>oral traditions, performing arts, social practices, rituals, festive events, knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe, or the knowledge and skills to produce traditional crafts.<\/p>\n Stahn spells out what he calls \u201crelational cultural justice principles\u201d for untangling claimed cultural objects. Astutely, he suggests applying transitional justice principles such as \u201chistorical truth-seeking access to justice, recognition of the harm, memory or non-repetition.\u201d Before I get them, a few words on how CONFRONTING COLONIAL OBJECTS<\/em> is structured.<\/p>\n In Chapter one, Stahn sets the scene and lays out his thesis. He opens with the controversy over the taking of the automated tiger of Tipu Sultan (featured on the book\u2019s cover), an emblematic vignette (no spoiler offered here) that has just about all the ingredients involved in entangled cultural objects. More vignettes follow, each presented with a balanced narrative, leaving it up to the reader to draw his or her own conclusions. These vignettes, sprinkled throughout the following chapters, are not just highly informative, but carefully selected in driving whatever point is attempted to be made.<\/p>\n In Chapters 2-5, Stahn sets out historic patterns in cultural takings from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries. Here he breaks down the takings in three periods, giving the reader an evolutionary birds\u2011eye view. The first period covering the sixteenth to eighteenth century deals with the early takings. The second period covering the eightieth to the mid-nineteenth century deals with systematic collection of cultural objects as modern nation-states emerged, scientific knowledge pursued, and modern museums established. The third period covering the mid to late nineteenth century deals both with the collection of cultural objects and human remains. These chapters cogently show how cultural exploitation was justified, fueled by \u201crationales and rhetoric of civilization or protection as economic exploitation or territorial expansion \u2026 not only driven by curiosity, quest for knowledge, trade, or material profit, but by a means of enhancing national prestige or demonstrating power.\u201d<\/p>\n The remaining chapters (6-9) deal with how the \u201ccolonial condition and commodification of objects shaped the framing and silences of legal frameworks in the twentieth century and contemporary approaches towards return.\u201d Against this backdrop, Stahn argues for \u201ca relational understanding of cultural heritage\u201d that fosters \u201cgreater transparency of colonial collections, novel forms of consent or ownership for objects taken in a context of structural inequality, broader structures of participation and representation in discourses over memory.\u201d<\/p>\n And this brings me to Stahn\u2019s appealing approach in dealing with claimed cultural objects set out in CONFRONTING COLONIAL OBJECTS<\/em>. By this point, the reader has been treated to 524 pages of a comprehensive factual and legal predicate that logically sets up and supports what I consider the gem of this book \u2013 Stahn\u2019s relational cultural justice principles<\/em> based on transitional justice principles. For the sake of brevity, I will not go into details of the principles; they sufficiently inform as framed.<\/p>\n Access to history and culture<\/strong><\/p>\n Principle 1: Transparency of collections and object histories Accountability <\/strong><\/p>\n Principle 3: Seeking new forms of consent Memorialization <\/strong><\/p>\n Principle 10: Multi-dimensional memorialization<\/em><\/p>\n Non-Recurrence<\/strong><\/p>\n Principle 11: Reviewing object ontologies and cultural national foundations of inalienability and deaccession laws Having given considerable thought over the years on the return of entangled cultural objects, I find Stahn\u2019s informative and nuanced articulation of a process that moves beyond the binary approach \u2013 \u201cfrom a logic of restitution to a logic of social repair\u201d \u2013 insightful and practicable. \u00a0To his credit and to my benefit, he has refined my thinking and sharpened my appreciation of how best to deal with the past and plan for the future regarding cultural objects that rightly deserve to be returned. His \u201crelational cultural justice principles\u201d provide a road map for a process that results in a win-win equitable and just resolution.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michaelgkarnavas.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/ConfrontingColonialObjectsCover.jpg?resize=203%2C307&ssl=1\")
To this end, Carsten Stahn, Professor of International Criminal Law and Global Justice at Leiden Law School and Queen\u2019s University Belfast, provides a lively discussion with incisive advice in CONFRONTING COLONIAL OBJECTS<\/em>: Histories, Legalities, and Access to Culture<\/em>.<\/a> It is packed with useful information and copious examples, is heavily sourced, and well organized. Written in easy prose, Stahn delivers nothing short of a tour de force<\/em> on the topic of returning cultural objects.<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Principle 2: Object accessibility<\/em><\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Principle 4: Pluralistic access to justice
\n<\/em>Principle 5: Recognition of injustice
\n<\/em>Principle 6: Social repair
\n<\/em>Principle 7: Plurality of pathways to achieve just and fair solutions
\n<\/em>Principle 8: Collaboration
\n<\/em>Principle 9: Meaningful redress for wrongful action<\/em><\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Principle 12: Object protection in source countries or communities of origin
\n<\/em>Principle 13: Due diligence duties of auction houses and private collectors
\n<\/em>Principle 14: Decolonial education<\/em><\/p>\n
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