Institutions only surrender contested cultural property when formally demanded

Evidence

As I read through this blow-by-blow recount, I was struck by the historical nature of our complaint and its novel legal implications. The statement that “power concedes nothing without a demand,” as first used by Frederick Douglass, was symbolic of the crisis all educational institutions and museums now face. Harvard’s unwillingness to return plundered property underscored the notion that those in positions of authority are unlikely to surrender contested artifacts or objects of cultural significance voluntarily. The demand for repatriation, or in this case reparations, serves as a necessary measure for addressing historical injustices and restoring cultural heritage and/or plundered property to its rightful owners. … I firmly believe that Harvard’s “white-knuckled” retention of my ancestors’ pillaged property is deeply rooted in historical practices of cultural appropriation, colonization, and unethical stewardship. I also believe that my demand for redress challenges the status quo by prompting these institutions to confront the ethical implications of possessing cultural property acquired through violence and/or plunder. But more importantly, I believe that the power dynamic between Harvard and myself is not merely about institutional resistance or legal complexities, but more so about the precedent it may set. The demand for reparations and/or repatriation will open doors historically closed to the descendants of American chattel slavery. — Tamara Lanier, From These Roots, 1142

Categorization

• DEFINE: Wrestles with how repatriation and reparations blur together in defining what the right to own an ancestor’s image actually means as property law.
• BMF: The image-as-plundered-property demand that Harvard would rather misrepresent than return evokes the moral core of We’s legalistic insistence on documented ownership rights over the unacknowledged — the claim that being written out of the ledger is itself a theft.
• XREF: connects to: Foundation patrons demanded control, rejecting purely theoretical liberal projects — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 738