Confronting Colonial Objects: Histories, Legalities, and Access to Culture(Cultural Heritage Law and Policy)

The treatment of cultural colonial objects is one of the most debated questions of our time. Calls for a new international cultural order go back to decolonization. However, for decades, the issue has been treated as a matter of comity or been reduced to a Shakespearean dilemma: to return or not to return. Confronting Colonial Objects seeks to go beyond these classic dichotomies and argues that contemporary practices are at a tipping point. The book shows that cultural takings were material to the colonial project throughout different periods and went far beyond looting. It presents micro histories and object biographies to trace recurring justifications and contestations of takings and returns while outlining the complicity of anthropology, racial science, and professional networks that enabled colonial collecting. The book demonstrates the dual role of law and cultural heritage regulation in facilitating colonial injustices and mobilizing resistance thereto. Drawing on the interplay between justice, ethics, and human rights, Stahn develops principles of relational cultural justice. He challenges the argument that takings were acceptable according to the standards of the time and outlines how future engagement requires a re-invention of knowledge systems and relations towards objects, including new forms of consent, provenance research, and partnership, and a re-thinking of the role of museums themselves. Following the life story and transformation of cultural objects, this book provides a fresh perspective on international law and colonial history that appeals to audiences across a variety of disciplines. This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read on the Oxford Academic platform and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.

About the Author :
Carsten Stahn is Professor of International Criminal Law and Global Justice at the Leiden Law School and Queen's University Belfast. He is former Legal Officer at the ICC and author/editor of 17 books and over 80 articles in international law and international justice. He holds a PhD and Habilitation from Humboldt University Berlin. He received the Ciardi Prize of the International Society for Military Law and multiple research grants from the Dutch Science Foundation (NWO) on Post-Conflict Justice and jus post bellum.

Review :
This rich and engaging book addresses the heritage of empire. It illuminates current debates over cultural objects displaced by colonial powers. Professor Stahn presents not only the historical and legal context of these debates but also proposes a nuanced account of relational cultural justice to navigate the dilemmas faced by cultural institutions. This is a profound contribution to cultural heritage scholarship. This is a dynamic and insightful contribution to the growing literature on cultural colonial takings in law that takes seriously the complexity and urgency of multifaceted demands for colonial reparations. It is breathtaking in its coverage, and an expansive and nuanced reference text that is essential reading for anyone interested in law as a site of decolonial praxis. A strong record of crimes and violations that have defined and determined a rapacious world order on which the soul and conscience of humanity are anchored. Professor Stahn exposes the forensic and legal blind-spots on which the imperial and colonial world powers relied to whitewash and legitimize the conquest and objectification of people, cultures, and civilizations for imperial/colonial self-glorification, racial superiority, and wealth. The book provides a sound multidisciplinary platform and tools for the decolonization of international law, the restitution of cultural heritage, and payment of reparations to affected communities world-wide. As an intergeneration victim of German colonial crimes against the Bangwa Kingdom and an advocate of justice for colonial and historical crimes, I strongly endorse this book. Carsten Stahn's Confronting Colonial Objects systematizes, problematizes, and adds important theoretical heft to a debate that often eludes us for lacking those three things, ending up in the 'too difficult' box. It contributes to an essential reckoning. Its insights form a terrific platform from where to launch a much more grounded and better guided conversation with (and among) decolonized and post-colonial peoples and communities about what they want to happen to their own heritage. Just as colonized peoples resisted colonialism by using the occupier's law to claim some rights, so they now use law to reclaim their cultural artefacts and human remains in western museums after winning independence. In this comprehensive and exacting study, Carsten Stahn traces this long-term process, and proposes 'relational cultural justice' principles to inform current restitution controversies. Sensitive to the voices 'from below' and conscious of the legal dilemmas confronting western institutions, Confronting Colonial Objects is essential reading for all parties. Stahn's appealing approach in dealing with claimed cultural objects set out in Confronting Colonial Objects....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...I highly recommend Confronting Colonial Objects Histories, Legalities, and Access to Culture. It is a brilliant academic treated on the subject.