Fifteen Colonial Thefts: A Guide to Looted African Heritage in Museums
Description :
Debates around restitution and decolonizing museums continue to rage across the world. Artifacts, effigies, and ancestral remains are finally being accurately contextualized and repatriated to their homelands. Fifteen Colonial Thefts ampifies and adds to these discussions, exploring the history of colonial violence in Africa through the prism of fifteen African belongings - all looted at the height of the imperial era and brought to European museums. The book is structured around three arenas—th battlefield, the royal palace, and the realm of the sacred—inwhich colonial officers violently plundered Africa. It explores the meaning of those cultural assets at the time of their appropriation and today in an era of restitution. Each chapter is accompanied by an original illustration, commissioned especially for the book, from both established and emerging African artists, bringing these stories to life for the reader. Wit contributors from across the continents of Europe and Africa, including scientists, museum professionals, artists, and activists, the book illuminates the collective trauma and loss of cultural, historical, and spiritual knowledge that colonial theft engendered.