Contested Holdings : : Museum Collections in Political, Epistemic and Artistic Processes of Return / / ed. by Felicity Bodenstein, Damiana Otoiu, Eva-Maria Troelenberg.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Berghahn Books Complete eBook-Package 2022
• MitwirkendeR: Besterman, Tristram,; Bodenstein, Felicity,; Etienne, Noémie,; Federici, Fabrizio,; Hemming, Steve,; Iskin, Ruth E.,; Manikowska, Ewa,; Mumbembele Sanger, Placide,; Otoiu, Damiana,; Oţoiu, Damiana,; Saß, Ulrike,; Sommer, Christopher,; Sumner, Loretta,; Sumner, Major,; Thompson, Erin,; Troelenberg, Eva-Maria,
• HerausgeberIn: Fforde, Cressida,; Golomoz, Cristina,
• Place / Publishing House: New York; , Oxford : : Berghahn Books, , [2022]; ©2022
• Year of Publication: 2022
• Language: English
• Series: Museums and Collections ; 14
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (306 p.)

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.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Illustrations -- Acknowledgements -- Abbreviations -- Introduction -- 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 -- Chapter 2. Return as Reconstruction: The Gwoździec Synagogue Replica in the Museum of the History of Polish Jews -- Chapter 3. The Other Nefertiti: Symbolic Restitutions -- Part II. The Subject of Return: Between Artefacts and Bodies -- Chapter 4. Blurring Objects: Life Casts, Human Remains and Art History -- Chapter 5. Of Phrenology, Reconciliation and Veneration: Exhibiting the Repatriated Life Cast of Māori Chief Takatahara at the Akaroa Museum -- Chapter 6. Ancestors or Artefacts: Contention in the Definition, Retention and Return of Ngarrindjeri Old People -- 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 (1930–80) -- 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) -- Chapter 9. (De)Museifying Collections of Physical Anthropology: The Display and/or the Restitution of Human Remains of Indigenous Peoples from Southern Africa -- Part IV. Partial and Paused Returns -- Chapter 10. Baroque Returns: The Donations and Reuses of Francesco Gualdi -- 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 -- 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 -- Conclusion. Unfinished Projects of ‘Decentring’ Western Museum Practices -- Index