Restitution and Postcolonial Justice. A Dialogical Approach
By Julia von Sigsfeld. Confronting a history of dispossession and alienation, and of accumulation thereby, restitution is generally seen as a recognition of and corrective to historical injustice or, rather, as an element thereof. Demands for the return of museologized objects, belongings, and ancestral remains are thus deeply connected to and indicative of struggles over postcolonial memory and justice. Not only do these demands surface suppressed histories and memories in public discourse, but they also expose the violence and Eurocentric foundations of heritage practices and museums.
