Whose cosmopolitanism is it, anyway?: Western museums, looted artifacts, postcolonial identities and restitution in Africa

Abstract

Who should keep cultural artifacts looted from Africa by colonialists, and what arguments can be made in defence of the choice we make? Kwame Appiah invites us to see stolen cultural artifacts not as properties of the societies from which they were stolen, but as individual works of art that exude attributes of our shared humanity. Many of those works, he argues, are no less meaningful to their present locations than they are to people of their places of origin. He advanced the retention and custody of such artifacts in their present locations where, in his view, they best embody the normative idea of cosmopolitanism. I argue in this article that the cosmopolitan argument is an inadequate justification of the retention of stolen African artifacts in Western museums. I argue further that the view of European and American museums as sites of the sublime expression of cosmopolitan ideals speaks to the very need for its deconstruction as a Western idea that seeks the universalisation of a hegemonic culture. Decolonising the normative underpinning of the place of Western museums in the management of stolen African artifacts requires an appreciation of the African attitude to the history, meaning, significance and essences of looted artifacts under a reflexive framework that is multiple and inclusive. I further explicate the epistemic, historical and ethical basis for the reimagination of the idea of restitution and the inclusion of Africans in the management of stolen artifacts. The achievement of this requires a proper acknowledgement of theft, unethical profiteering and meaningful restitution. This approach, I conclude, represents a more ethical, inclusive and universal management of looted cultural artifacts.