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.
Upcoming Events
WORKING GROUP MEETING #6 (March 28)
Reparations, Restitution, and Return
Repatriation is often reduced to the simple return of objects—but what does it truly mean? How does it fit within larger struggles for restitution and justice? This session explores the shifting meanings of return: Is it always reparative? What happens when legal repatriation fails to address deeper harm? We also examine alternative approaches to restitution and reparations in the context of cultural heritage that go beyond physical return, such as rematriation. In this meeting, we seek to complicate taken-for-granted concepts of ownership and return, and develop new understandings of heritage that might lend themselves to more holistic, restorative, and decolonial solutions.
Readings
The readings for this month focus on decolonial, indigenous, and restitution-based approaches to heritage, archives, collecting, and repatriation. Please select at least two of the following texts to read.
Matthes, Erich Hatala. 2017. “Repatriation and the radical redistribution of art.” Ergo 4(32): 931–953.
Odumosu, Temi. “The Crying Child: On Colonial Archives, Digitization, and Ethics of Care in the Cultural Commons.” Current Anthropology 61, no. S22 (2020): S289–302.
Gray, Robin RR. 2022. "Rematriation: Ts' msyen law, rights of relationality, and protocols of return." Native American and Indigenous Studies 9(1):1-27.
And for those in the museum sector, I enjoy this short reading as a way to rethink objects in the context of institutional issues, changes, and challenges:
Bowell, Kate. 2017. “Object Reincarnation: Imagining a Future Outside the Permanent Collection.” Pp. 153-161 in Active Collections
Discussion Questions
This month, we’re trying a new discussion model! I’m sharing discussion questions before our meeting to help orient reading and thinking, with the hope that this sparks richer, more collaborative dialogue.
- How does thinking about return as a form of redistribution reconfigure existing understandings of cultural property and repatriation?
- What obstacles or opportunities does digitization pose for heritage restitution?
- In our current legal and political system, do you think can cultural heritage ever be fully restored to source communities in accordance with indigenous laws and protocols?