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Partnership between RESTITUTION MATTERS & RETOURS/RETURNS

RM* : RESTITUTION MATTERS 

logo RM matters

https://restitutionmatters.org/

RM* has been an important communication network since 2018, focusing on restitution and collections housing heritage from countries that were colonized. Following great success with its initial communication channels (newsletter and social media), RM* launched its own website in 2025, which we strongly recommend following closely.

Published in English, the blog provides further insights into research, art, and restitution news from and related to English-speaking countries.

RM* was created to bridge the information gap between the Global South and the Global North regarding collections acquired under dubious circumstances in colonial contexts and their future. It started in 2017 with around sixty participants and now has over 3,000 users worldwide, the majority of whom are from Global South countries.

You can subscribe to the RM* newsletter via the website (https://restitutionmatters.org/about-rm/) and also follow their publications on Facebook, LinkedIn, and X.

Redaction team : 

  • Jos van Beurden, researcher and journalist, has specialised in the study of colonial collections and restitution issues since the 1990s, when the debate on these issues was still low-profile and marginal in the fields of research, culture and politics. He is the author of numerous books and articles on these issues, including Treasures in Trusted Hands – Negotiating the Future of Colonial Cultural Objects (2017)
  • Arjanti Sosrohadikoesoemo, who joined RM* in 2021 to develop the news service via social networks. A museum collections manager, she has extensive experience in the museum sector and a passion for culture and history.

 The partnership between restitutionmatters.org and retours.hypotheses.org aims to enhance awareness of restitution research and current developments by translating and sharing selected content from both platforms on an international scale.

 

 

Restitution des biens culturels pillés et mal acquis : quels enjeux ? 27 mars 2025, Bibliothèque Françoise Sagan, Paris

Researches on Returns & Restitutions. Charter of Porto-Novo, Xọgbonu, Ájáshé / Charte de Porto-Novo, Xọgbonu, Ájáshé

Researches on Returns & Restitutions

Charter of  Porto-Novo, Xọgbonu, Ájáshé

(en français ci-dessous / French version below) Pour signer, cliquer ici   / to sign, click here 

Liste des premiers signataires en fin de texte

  Preamble

After decades of mobilization of African communities, countries and diaspora, the restitution of African cultural property is finally effective with the return of 27 properties to Benin and Senegal. Researchers gathered in Benin from January 5 to 11, 2022, to participate in the symposium “Restitution and return of Beninese heritage”, we salute the role of the Republic of Benin in this now irreversible movement. As mobilizations intensify and numerous restitutions are announced, the role of research on these properties, in museums, and/or with communities will be profoundly reconfigured. Hosted at the International Festival of Porto-Novo (FIP), in the heart of a living and inspiring culture, we experimented with this reconfiguration through exchanges with more than thirty communicators and one hundred and fifty participants, including one hundred holders of traditional knowledge, artists and leaders of cultural institutions. Our work focused on the knowledge, memories and rituals associated with different cultural properties, but also on the traditional, contemporary or innovative modalities of their preservation, study and transmission. We have crossed methods and results of our research on things that have already returned, on those that have not left their communities, and on those currently preserved in Western museums. We were struck by the strong synergy of the expressions of the traditional communities, the actors of restitution, the artists and the researchers. The capital city with three toponyms – Porto-Novo, Xogbonu, Ajasè – is the ideal city to affirm the need to examine in our research the plurality of points of view, fields of investigation and languages, without being satisfied with colonial denominations, archives and languages. The research programs we are conducting in Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, France, Mali, Nigeria, and Senegal share common ethical, theoretical, and methodological issues. Together, we call for a renewal of scientific practices in research on restitution and return. This charter aims to share our commitment to the foundation of a multidisciplinary research field of restitution studies. Restitution studies may focus on : repatriated property, exiled property, and property that never left; the communities that created them, the knowledge and rituals associated with them, the museums, temples, and communities that house or housed them; the artists who create or recreate them; diaspora actions ; the rules, laws, norms and conventions relating to illicit or illegitimate trafficking and property transfers; the history of colonial, missionary and scientific collections and spoliations; the markets for so-called 6 African art and the creative industries concerned (tourism, series, comics, digital applications); (post)colonial museologies, mediation, cultural policies and audiences in both the North and the South; diplomatic issues; the devices and narratives generated by (requests for) restitutions. This charter is supported by researchers, and commits their research. It is also addressed to all those who collaborate, interact, and rely on the work: communities holding knowledge, cultural institutions, tourism operators, artists, economic and political worlds.

The objective of this charter is threefold:

Continuer la lecture de Researches on Returns & Restitutions. Charter of Porto-Novo, Xọgbonu, Ájáshé / Charte de Porto-Novo, Xọgbonu, Ájáshé