About the Looting Lab

The word “loot” is derived from the Hindustani lūṭ, which describes theft and banditry as well as dispossession, destruction, and plunder. The conceptual framework of looting offers a novel approach to questions raised by recent scholarly and popular debates; What are the origins of collections in institutions such as the Royal Ontario Museum, the British Library, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art? How have processes of invasion, occupation, colonization, and illicit trade shaped the journeys of these items? What do we learn when we study these collections as “loot,” and how might this change the way that communities of origin, scholars, curators, and members of the public engage with cultural heritage?

To answer these questions, we seek to establish a new research community, based out of the University of Toronto Mississauga, to develop an innovative, interdisciplinary understanding of looted, stolen, and contested cultural heritage and the social, economic, and political practices and processes behind the phenomenon of cultural “loot.” Research in cultural dispossession is often siloed by fields and disciplines, from Museum Studies and Archaeology to Law and Criminology.  The idea that heritage materials are often taken and kept as “loot” offers a promising way to unite these conversations. The Looting Lab will bring together researchers working across different regions, materials, and time periods, using a range of methodologies and theoretical approaches. This hub for the study of “loot” will respond to the urgent need to re-evaluate cultural dispossession, loss, and restitution. We anticipate a diverse array of topics and ideas connected under this interdisciplinary umbrella, such as

• sociolegal and criminological analysis of laws, legitimacy, and the il/licit trade of cultural heritage;
• reconstruction of the provenance of contested heritage collections;
• anticolonial, Indigenous, and/or subaltern approaches to tangible and intangible heritage loss and the social, cultural, and economic consequences of looting on community wellbeing;
• critique of curatorial and collections practice and discourse at museums, archives, and other cultural institutions;
• the role of looted heritage in the politics of representation, memory, identity, and state-building;
• looting during conflict and resistance movements;
• looting and epistemicide;
• pathways for repatriation, rematriation, and return.

The initial goal of the Looting Lab is to create a space for intellectual connection between faculty and student researchers based in the tri-campus University of Toronto. We hope it will quickly grow to include colleagues from other GTHA institutions - including universities, libraries, museums, archives, and galleries. And even in its earliest stages, we anticipate the global scope of the Looting Lab will draw students of looting from beyond Ontario and Canada into Toronto for conversation and collaboration.

The Looting Lab Team

Members

We continue to recruit faculty, graduate students, and affiliated and external researchers. If you’d like to join or collaborate with the Lab, email Isra Saymour at looting.lab.utm@utoronto.ca.

Faculty, University of Toronto

Alexandra Gillespie, Professor, English and Medieval Studies, UTM (project advisor)

Jennifer Adese, Professor, Sociology, UTM

Zaheer Baber, Professor, Sociology, UTM

Firat Bozcali, Assistant Professor, Anthropology, UTM

Beatrice Jauregui, Associate Professor, Centre for Criminology, FAS

Cara Krmpotich, Associate Professor, iSchool

Heather MacNeil, Professor, iSchool

Joanna Papayiannis, Assistant Professor, Material Culture, Victoria College/FAS

Mary-Ann Pouls Wegner, Associate Professor, Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations, FAS

Sarah Richardson, Assistant Professor, Historical Studies, UTM

Elizabeth Wijaya, Assistant Professor, Visual Studies and East Asian Studies, UTM

Graduate Students, University of Toronto

Isra Saymour, PhD Candidate, Sociology, UTM (project lead/lab director)

Harmata Aboubakar, PhD Student, Sociology, FAS

Arka Chakraborty, PhD Candidate, English, UTM

Kara Ma, PhD Candidate, East Asian Studies, ROM/FAS

Bryon Maxey, PhD Candidate, Religion, FAS

Azure Pham, MI/MMSt Student, iSchool (Lab Manager & Librarian)

Raquel Robbins, PhD Candidate, Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations, FAS

Jun Wong, PhD Candidate, Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations, FAS

Undergraduate Students, University of Toronto

Layan Shaltaf, Sociology/Crime, Law, and Society, UTM

Amirah Alli-Adesanya, Sociology/Crime, Law, and Society, UTM

Sade Benoit, Sociology/Crime, Law, and Society, UTM

Vareesha Zuberi, Sociology/Crime, Law and Society, UTM (Lab Assistant)

Researchers and Librarians, University of Toronto

Hagos Abrha Abay, Research Associate, History, UTSC

Suzanne Conklin Akbari, Professor,  IAS Princeton/Affiliate Faculty, Medieval Studies, FAS

Kalzang Dorjee Bhutia, Research Associate, Hidden Stories Project, UTM/UTL

David Fernandez, Head, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, UTL

Muhammad Hameed, Postdoctoral Fellow, Hidden Stories Project, UTM | Assistant Professor, Department of Archaeology, University of the Punjab

Grant Hurley, Canadiana Librarian, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, UTL

Jessica Lockhart, Head of Research, Old Books New Science Lab, UTM

Asad Raza, Vice-Presidential Special Advisor, Public Art, UTM

Noam Sienna, Postdoctoral Fellow, Hidden Stories Project, UTM

Elisa Tersigni, Senior Research Associate, Collaborative Digital Research Space, UTM

External researchers

Panggah Ardyansyah, PhD Candidate, SOAS University of London

Nur Sobers-Khan, Research Fellow, Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter

Peter Tarras, Near and Middle East Institute, Ludwig-Maximilians University at Munich

Funded By…

The Looting Lab is generously supported by the following UTM and UofT units and bodies.

• The Hidden Stories Project, UTM/UTL
• Department of Sociology, UTM
• Centre for South Asian Critical Humanities, UTM