The Looting Lab is an interdisciplinary research hub for the study of looted cultural heritage based at the University of Toronto developing innovative solutions to cultural dispossession, loss, and restitution.
“Loot” comes from the Hindustani word lūṭ, which describes theft and banditry as well as dispossession, destruction, and plunder. We use this concept to unite critical heritage conversations across disciplines and methodologies.
We’re hiring! The Looting Lab is hiring two undergrad RAs for the 2025-26 academic year through UTM’s Research Opportunity Program. Click here for more details.
ROP RA Positions @ the Looting LabUpcoming Events
TALK & WORKSHOP - CONTESTED COLLECTIONS SERIES
🗓️ Friday, February 28 \ ⏰ 2PM-4PM \ 🌐 Hybrid
Reverse looting, or liberating archival records of colonization? The United Fruit Company fonds at University of Toronto Mississauga Library
Join UTM Library archivist Christopher (Cal) Long for a hands-on exploration of a unique archival collection held by UTM Library.
In the early 1980s, anthropologist Phillipe Bourgois stumbled upon a cache of documents in an aging warehouse attic near the border of Costa Rica and Panama. Nearly two thousand pages which filled “four to five dozen unnumbered, mildewed, and rodent-eaten cardboard boxes”, documented almost a century of the United Fruit Company Ltd.’s management of its Latin American plantations. The papers document in vivid detail nearly a century of one of modern global capitalism’s most notorious multi-national corporations whose corruption, exploitation, and meddling in Latin American politics in collaboration with the U.S. government is well-known. Bourgois’s theft of these papers, which were slated for destruction by the Company, perhaps constitutes a “reverse looting” – through their theft, the history of the UFC’s plunder of Latin America can also be revealed. In this event, we will consider the implications of this unique archival story and discuss what it tells us about the nature of looting and the role archives can play in liberatory movements and counter-histories.
In-person attendance is highly encouraged for this hybrid event. REGISTER NOW at uoft.me/ufc.