Transitional Justice, Temporalities, and the Restitution of Cultural Objects

Calls for the restitution of cultural objects taken during colonialism abound globally. These calls are often framed in terms of ethics, international cultural heritage law, or domestic property and public law. Legal questions address terminological, temporal, and ownership matters. Using as a case study the African Lusosphere (Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, and São Tomé and Príncipe) and their calls to have artefacts returned from Portugal, this chapter argues that transitional justice would benefit from more concerted thinking about culture, heritage, and identity. Transitional justice terminology would sidestep issues around whether ‘return’ is a more neutral term, and ground debates more firmly in a reparations framework. It also shifts temporality: rather than focus on historic takings that predate relevant international law, it highlights the ongoing harm of retention. Lastly, ownership conversations likewise benefit, since transitional justice can transcend formal title to acknowledge the historic and ongoing expropriation of formerly colonised and racialised peoples’ bodies, cultures, and labour. This broadening also encourages a focus on the act of inventorying heritage, which has important transitional justice elements in that it promotes truth-telling.