Overview

Going beyond strictly legal and property-oriented aspects of the restitution debate, restitution is considered as part of a larger set of processes of return that affect museums and collections, as well as notions of heritage and object status. Covering a range of case studies and a global geography, the authors aim to historicize and bring depth to contemporary debates in relation to both the return of material culture and human remains. Defined as contested holdings, differing museum collections ranging from fine arts to physical anthropology provide connections between the treatment and conceptualization of collections that generally occupy separate realms in the museum world.

Full Product Details

Author:   Felicity Bodenstein ,  Damiana Otoiu ,  Eva-Maria Troelenberg
Publisher:   Berghahn Books
Imprint:   Berghahn Books
ISBN:  

9781800734234

ISBN 10:   1800734239
Pages:   306
Publication Date:   14 February 2022
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
This item will be ordered in for you from one of our suppliers. Upon receipt, we will promptly dispatch it out to you. For in store availability, please contact us.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Abbreviations Introduction Felicity Bodenstein, Damiana Oţoiu, and Eva-Maria Troelenberg Part I: From Objects Back to People: Ways of Life and Loss Chapter 1. The Value of Art – a Human Life? Works of Art in the Crosshairs of the Persecution of Jews under National Socialism Ulrike Saß Chapter 2. Return as Reconstruction: The Gwoździec Synagogue Replica in the Museum of Polish Jews Ewa Manikowska Chapter 3. The Other Nefertiti: Symbolic Restitutions Ruth E. Iskin Part II: The Subject of Return: Between Artefacts and Bodies Chapter 4. Blurring Objects: Life-Casts, Human Remains and Art History Noémie Etienne Chapter 5. Of Phrenology, Reconciliation and Veneration: Exhibiting the Repatriated Life Cast of Māori Chief Takatahara at the Akaroa Museum Christopher Sommer Chapter 6. Ancestors or Artefacts: Contention in the Definition, Retention and Retun of Ngarrinderji Old People Cressida Fforde, Major Sumner, Loretta Sumner, Tristram Besterman and Steve Hemming Part III: ‘The Making of Law’: Politics and Museum Ethics Chapter 7. A Long Term Perspective on the Issue of the Return of Congolese Cultural Objects : Entangled Relations between Kinshasa and Tervuren (1930–1980) Placide Mumbembele Sanger Chapter 8. ‘How Would You Like to See Your Great-Grandfather in a Museum?’: The Issue of ‘Human Dignity’ in Repatriation Processes (Cases Involving French Museums) Cristina Golomoz Chapter 9. (De)Museifying Racial Taxonomies: The Display and/ or the Restitution of Human Remains of Indigenous Peoples from Southern Africa Damiana Oţoiu Part IV: Partial and Paused Returns Chapter 10. Baroque Returns: The Donations and Reuses of Francesco Gualdi Fabrizio Federici Chapter 11. Getting the Benin Bronzes back to Nigeria: The Art Market and the Formation of National Collections and Concepts of Heritage in Benin City and Lagos Felicity Bodenstein Chapter 12. What Future for Looted Syrian Antiquities?: The Clash Between the Law and Practice for the Repatriation of Cultural Property to Countries in Crisis Erin Thompson Conclusion: Unfinished Projects of 'Decentering' Western Museum Practices Felicity Bodenstein, Damiana Oţoiu and Eva-Maria Troelenberg Index

Reviews

“Contested Holdings makes a refreshing and invaluable contribution to the rolling discussions surrounding restitution and reparations. The editors have successively produced a comprehensive and invaluable resource – a volume anchored to the sturdy groundwork of the contributors’ meticulous and exhaustive research.” • The International Handbooks of Museum Studies “This is a timely book that tackles controversial, pressing issues from a range of angles in an innovatove way. The editors and authors indeed manage to reach beyond the currently predominant focus on provenance research, restitution and repatriation by foregrounding actors and challenges as well as political and epistemic aspects of appropriation and return.” • Annette Loeseke, Bard College, Berlin

This is a timely book that tackles controversial, pressing issues from a range of angles in an innovatove way. The editors and authors indeed manage to reach beyond the currently predominant focus on provenance research, restitution and repatriation by foregrounding actors and challenges as well as political and epistemic aspects of appropriation and return. * Annette Loeseke, Bard College, Berlin

Author Information

Felicity Bodenstein is a lecturer in the history of museums and heritage studies at Sorbonne University, Paris. She is also a principal investigator of the digital humanities project, financed by the Ernest von Siemens foundation, “Digital Benin” (https://digital-benin.org/) that will bring together data from close to 200 museums holding pieces from the 1897 British colonial expedition to Benin in their collections.

Tab Content 6

Author Website:  

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

No review item found!

Add your own review!

Countries Available

All regions